Editor’s Note: Each Friday, WRAL TechWire takes a deep dive into the Triangle’s real estate markets. That includes stories on how to win in the Triangle real estate market as a buyer and how sellers can prepare a home for sale in order to get top-dollar offers. And despite a recent study showing it may be more prudent to rent than buy a home in the Triangle, today’s report looks at the latest market data for what’s happening with housing in the Triangle and in Wake County.
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RALEIGH – The median price of all real estate sold in Wake County in January 2023 was $451,500, according to a report from the Wake County Register of Deeds released on Friday.
The median price across all real estate transactions dropped $13,250 from the prior month, according to the report.
However, the most recently calculated median sale price remained $40,000 higher than the median sale price of Wake County real estate sold in January 2022.
Over the prior 13 months, the median sale price across all monthly transactions in Wake County was highest in June 2022, at $470,000.
And 92% of all real estate transactions came in the core real estate market in January 2023, according to the report. The core market is defined as real property that is valued at $1 million or less.
In January, there were 1,273 such transactions, according to the Wake County Register of Deeds. That’s 573 fewer transactions in the core market than there were in December, the report noted. Across the high-value and very high-value segment, there were 116 total transactions.
Good news, home buyers: Triangle prices rise at slowest rate since pandemic
The gap is closing
Lending for real estate fell by 54% in January 2023 compared to the prior January.
Across the county, there were a total of 2,232 deed of trust transactions. A deed of trust is filed when a loan is taken out with a property securing the loan.
But there are two types of real estate lending activities.
The first comes when ownership is transferred, which is most commonly observed when a residential home is sold while a seller’s existing loan or loans is paid off and a buyer takes out a new mortgage loan while ownership is transferred by the deed.
There’s another type of loan, which is when there is a new loan taken out against a property, even though ownership has not changed. This is the type used when an owner refinances their mortgage or adds a second mortgage to be secured by the property.
Wake County Deeds & Deeds of Trust Number of Recorded Monthly. Image and data: Wake County Register of Deeds
Slowing down
The use of that second type of loan, which became very popular in 2020 and 2021 when mortgage interest rates were at or near historic lows at the same time home values were skyrocketing across the Triangle, has plunged since April 2022. The Federal Reserve first began to increase interest rates in March 2020, and almost immediately, refinancing activity in Wake County slowed.
“January 2023 saw the gap between deeds of trust and deeds volume continue to narrow,” reads the report. “Indicating the refinancing market continues to slow down.”
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WRAL TechWire reporter Jason Parker, who is also a licensed North Carolina real estate agent, works with journalists from WRAL.com to track and present market data and report on how people are experiencing the region’s changing real estate markets. These special reports will use the category tag “Triangle Real Estate” or “Triangle Real Estate Market.
