It appears that the bidding wars are getting started again. The Raleigh housing market is heating back up. We are currently we are seeing multiple offer situations. We are seeing bidding war starting back up. We are seeing reflections of early 2022, late 2021 happening in our market right now.
The median home price in Wake County in February 2023 was 447,000. In March of 2023 that median home price in Wake County jumped up to 460, 000. In other words in March 2023 was 13, 000 higher than February. It was also incidentally ten thousand dollars higher than March was of 2022. By looking at all four of the major counties of theTriangle, the median home price in February was 409,000 and in March that number came in at 414,000. In other words March was 7,000 higher than February.
The thing missing from these statistics is sold prices for real estate are delayed 30 to 90 days. The February numbers are coming from homes that most likely went under contract in December or at best early January and those March numbers are from January to early February so what will happen in the coming months, no one knows for sure.
It is certainly starting to appear that we’re looking at another 2021-2022 scenario all over again. If the March numbers we talked about were formed from activity that happened in January and February, the activity that was happening in March and early April of this year was much more robust. We are about to see some amazing numbers, bad numbers for buyers come out in the next quarter.
Almost every client my team and I are working with right now have been involved in multiple offer situations where multiple buyers are making bids on homes. Almost every one of those buyers are having to compete with multiple offer situations to win the home of their dreams. Over this past weekend we got a mass email out from a couple of agents saying that they were canceling they’re open houses that were going to happen on Sunday because they got such a great offers on their properties that their clients did not even want to do an open house.
We are seeing many homes with deadlines now. This was not something we saw when interest rates went up. This was unheard of when interest rates went up. Now people are settling into an understanding of what those interest rates are making aggressive offers on homes which we predicted they were going to do. This is causing the listing agents to put deadlines on those homes. If you want to make an offer you have to make it by a specific time. They are going to evaluate all offers that are in before that specific time and make a decision.
We are even seeing bad homes finally sell now. There are two kinds of homes out there homes that look great we call them the models. The bad homes, the fixer-upper homes that require a lot of work, those homes usually sit for a long time. We are starting to see even those homes sell right now because inventory is so low. We are continuing to see on a weekly basis inventory drop from around 3500 to just this week down to about 3250.
One of the agents on our team reported to us that they had a client looking at a true fixer-upper. The client and the agent felt like there was going to be plenty of time to decide if it was really worth making an offer on this home. Later that afternoon the agent gets the gets the call saying they got a couple of offers on the home already and if your clients are going to make an offer they need to make it by 8 pm tonight. Later that day they got an email the agent got a text saying the home is sold. The client got too good of an offer in that they don’t even want to have competing offers come in.
We had one agent on our team report that they had a client who wrote three offers this past week on three different homes and did not win a single one even though they were either at asking price or above asking price. We also had an agent on our team who has a client who was wanting to buy a home in a specific neighborhood. They had targeted a specific home, the listing agent called our agent back and said I’m sorry we’re pulling the home from the market because our clients, the sellers can’t find a home to buy. They have lost out on multiple houses so they’re having to terminate their listing agreement and stay in their current home even though they don’t want too. Our agent has buyers who want that home so now they are stuck having to go look for or another home to suit their needs.
We have even started hearing about the builders again who are behaving badly.These are not all builders but some builders are encouraging buyers to come in without representation. An unrepresented buyer means they don’t have their own buyer agent. This makes it easier to take advantage of a buyer who doesn’t have their own agent present. If you are planning on buying new construction always have your own buyer representative there to help you and be an advocate for you. We can’t predict what the market is going to do in the Raleigh area in the next couple of months, we’re just telling you what we’re seeing and what we’re experiencing.
Since the market is heating up, if you are planning on buying a home in the next month or two you need to have your financing buttoned up if you are going to be getting a loan. Speak with a mortgage broker who can give you the facts on what it’s going to cost to buy a home what your monthly payment can be. When you do find the home of your dreams you can jump on it quickly.
Secondly, get laser focused on what your wants and what your needs are. Equally as important is what your I don’t wants are for your house. If you need your bedroom to be downstairs do not settle for a home that has your bedroom on the third floor that’s not going to work. If you need a two-car garage don’t buy a house with a one-car garage it’s not going to work for you. This way you’re not wasting time seeing every single house that’s out there because if you are desperately looking at every single house that’s out there you’re going to miss the home of your dreams. In this market since its heating up, the home of your dreams is going to sell quickly. if you’re busy looking at the home of your nightmares you’re not going to ever find the home of your dreams.
In this market, we think that the Raleigh housing market is an excellent place to put your money into and invest.We recommend that if now is the time for you to buy a home that you go ahead and make that leap now because we can’t predict what the market is going to look like three four six months down the road.