As Triangle home prices continue to rise, sales decrease

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Experts say home prices in the Triangle keep going up.

"House prices have just been on this unprecedented and historical increase, never before observed," said market analyst Stacey Anfindsen. "It just is amazing, especially this year. We've never seen house prices increase between 1 and 2 percent a month in a lot of the sub markets that we've seen, and it really is related to supply and demand. We have so many people moving in here and we don't have enough housing for them."

Anfindsen, who is also an appraiser for Birch Appraisal Group, wrote the Triangle MLS market update for October.

It shows the month closed with home sales down 9%, but overall average sale prices up 21%, compared to that time last year.

Anfindsen said October, November and December are typically the slowest months of the year in the Triangle when it comes to home sales closing.

"Historically, December has been a month where there's been a little bit of (a) bump because new home builders are trying to get inventory closed by the end of the month," Anfindsen said. "So in prior markets you would have starting in October, November, you'd have home builders be very aggressive with their promotions in terms of wanting to get stuff closed by December 31. That's not the case now because they have a backlog of pre-sales and there's not a lot of spec inventory on the market."

Movil Realty CEO Otto Cedeno said you may be able to buy a home faster this month, but it doesn't mean you'll get a better price.

"Some people take a break on looking for a home in December but still a lot of people buy," Cedeno said. "So I don't think the price is going to go down. It's just like, you're going to have a better opportunity to get a home in a multiple offer situation. Instead of maybe 10 offers, 20, 50 offers. It may be five offers but it's still a lot of offers that the sellers can choose which one they want."

Experts said it's about supply and demand. There's a lot of people moving to the area, but not enough housing.

"The home prices still go up because people keep coming to this area," Cedeno said. "The pandemic pushed a lot of people to work remote. So I'm assuming that the consumers in the housing market, they keep coming to Raleigh-Durham area because this is a very hot market. It's not changing. I don't think it's going to change for (the) next year. So we don't have enough inventory to supply that demand."