RALEIGH – People priced out of the home market by surging property values and higher mortgage rates can find good news in the latest real estate statistics: Prices are coming down in the cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

  • In Raleigh, the median price of a home dropped by 4.3% to $420,000 in the first quarter of this year.
  • In Durham-Chapel Hill, prices declined 1.3% to $412,600.

The prices are compared to the first quarter of 2022, according to the National Association of REALTORS in a new report about sales of existing single-family homes.

A year ago, buyers were competing for homes with offers tens of thousands of dollars – even six figures – over the asking price.

MORTGAGE RATES DROP

The report of some price relief comes just as a key U.S. mortgage rate fell this week to its lowest level in five weeks.

“Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year home loan fell to 6.35% from 6.39% last week. The average rate a year ago was 5.30%,” The Associated Press reports.

“The average benchmark rate has now edged lower seven of the last nine weeks since reaching a high for this year of 6.73% in early March.”

STILL NOT EASY TO SELL

The pricing and mortgage rate news could have come at a good time for sellers, too, right in the middle of the spring home buying season. But sellers shouldn’t expect an easy sale.

Tanisha Hithe, who is trying to sell her home and is making repairs and renovations after failing to sell last year, told WRAL News:

“What we’re trying to do here is sell our home, right! Just making it something that will grab someone’s attention to say – oh I really want to be in this home. I can see myself raising a family here. To say stressful is an understatement.”

STATE OF THE MARKET

Standing outside a home for sale between Cary and Apex,  Devin Giovacchini, of Devin G Home Team Realty, used it as a reference in discussing the Triangle market. “We actually ahd listed this late last year, wasn’t getting a whole lot of traffic,” he told WRAL News. “We decided to take a pause and now we’re getting ready to go back on live at the end of this month because of the challenges really of the market.”

And homes are now moving, he noted – but not at higher price ranges.

“We’re seeing a lot more balance in the middle range, the $300 to say $600,000.,” Giovacchini explained. “We’re seeing a lot of homes being sold quickly with those numbers.”

But he also noted that “the market is somewhat neurotic. It’s been really up and down. … It hasn’t really taken off like we would normally see in a spring market.”

PRICES DOWN FROM 2022 HIGHS

Since the pandemic in 2020, Raleigh prices have climbed from $325.200, the data show. Prices peaked at $476,000 in the second quarter of 2022.

In Durham-Chapel Hill, prices are way up from $326,300 in 2020 but are down from a peak of $458,500 in the second quarter of last year.

However, the lower prices might not last long.

“Due to the intense housing inventory shortage, multiple offers are returning, especially on affordable homes,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun warns. “Price declines could be short-lived.”

Nationally, listings averaged  1,630,000 – down 40% from before the pandemic, the report notes.

Triangle MLS data

A check of the Triangle Multiple Listing Service shows a slightly different picture. One point of difference is that this data is issued monthly, not quarterly.

Data also includes a mix of existing and new – but not all – construction, a realtor tells WRAL TechWire.

New listings in Wake and Durham counties are down 15.9% and 16.5% in March, according to the Triangle Multiple Listing Service’s Market Trends for March

Based on county-wide rather than city data, Triangle MLS says Durham County median sale prices in the first quarter dropped 2.5% to $399,109 but Wake prices increased 2.2% to $460,000.

Prices up in Fayetteville, Burlington

The news for buyers is different in two metros near the Triangle.

In Fayetteville, prices are up 11% to $220,300.

And in Burlington prices surged 14% – the fourth largest increase in the country – to $304,600.

Mortgage payments soar

Nationally, prices fell 0.2% from a year ago to an average of $371,000.

However, average mortgage payments with a 20% down payment have soared 33% to $1,859, the report says. And home prices climbed in some 70% of the more than 200 markets the REALTORS track.

For data in the report see: https://cdn.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/metro-home-prices-q1-2023-ranked-median-single-family-2023-05-09.pdf