Triangle-area homes sold less quickly and for less money in July, according to new data provided to The News & Observer.
That’s a trend that is expected to continue as home prices further recede from their recent record-highs, according to Matt Fowler, executive director of Triangle MLS, a real estate listings platform covering eight local counties.
The median sale price in the Triangle dipped between June and July, from $421,757 to $420,000, according to Triangle MLS. The decrease in Wake County was larger, with its median sales price falling from around $493,000 to just under $490,000. It was Wake’s first monthly price decrease since late 2020, and house hunters could see more.
“For buyers, all the metrics show that prices appear to have peaked in the area and should become more approachable this fall and next year,” Fowler said in a statement to The N&O.
Durham County saw a more substantial price drop last month, with its sales price sliding 4.5%, from $430,000 in June to $410,600. In both Wake and Durham, homes stayed on the market longer and sold closer to — but still above — their asking prices, the data shows.
In Orange County, media sales prices dipped from $494,000 in June to $490,000 in July.
In Johnston County, however, the median sales price increased from $375,509 in June to $380,000, continuing an upward climb from last year.
Despite the decline, the median sales price in the Triangle region was still 18% above what it had been in July 2021.
End of the ‘super sellers’ market’
The Triangle’s housing stock is continuing to rebound after hitting historic lows earlier this year.
In Wake, there were 2,469 homes for sale in July, nearly twice the number available last summer. John Wood, a Realtor with Re/Max United in Cary, attributed this greater inventory to new construction and higher interest rates.
“Interest rates, as they climbed, did start to make the buyers reposition their thinking,” he said.
Wood serves on the Triangle MLS board but said he wouldn’t assume “more approachable” housing prices are on the horizon. On average, Triangle homes still sold for about 1.7% above their listing price in July, and though houses are sitting on the market longer, properties still sold much faster than they had before the pandemic.
In July, Triangle-area homes sold on average in 12 days. In July 2019, that length of time was 26 days.
Yet Wood did acknowledge the pandemic’s frenzied home-buying market is in the past, a sentiment echoed by Kelly Lutchman, a Durham-based real estate agent with Allen Tate Realtors. Lutchman said the period of long lines at open houses and people rushing to outbid each other has given way to a welcomed “return to normal” where buyers have a better shot to land a home.
“That was not healthy or sustainable,” she said. “I call that a ‘super sellers’ market.’”
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.
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