There is some really cool stuff happening in the Triangle in 2023!! I can’t wait to see some of these things materialize! One has been in the works for 19 years. It’s finally opening this year. And another one is something that really took me by surprise. And I think I’m going to have to add this town as another one of my towns that is getting ready to boom. This development is going to change everything. But before I get into the cool stuff that’s happening this year, I want to give you a quick snapshot of what the real estate market in the Triangle looks like right now.
First, the Market Outlook
If you watched my video where I gave an overview of economists predictions for the market this year, you’ll know that the general consensus is that the Triangle area and the south in general is going to be somewhat protected from much of the economic fallout in the housing market. They are predicting a 5% home value increase in the Raleigh area in 2023. And if that surprises you, keep watching because once you see some of the data, you’ll see why that isn’t a stretch. But, that doesn’t mean that prices haven’t softened some since the peak of last year. Things are certainly cheaper right now than they were if you were buying last spring. But let’s take a look at what is happening right now, and I think you’ll see why economists are feeling the way they are about the south.
Inventory is Still Slim Pickings
For the most part, inventory is not getting better. Every day in my dashboard, I get a snapshot of the hotsheet. This is everything that goes under contract and everything that is new to the market within 24 hours. I can also expand it and look at the 3 or 7 day hot sheet. It’s important to note that these are not closed sales, these are the most recent properties that went into contract and new properties added to the market. This snapshot helps us see what is happening in real time, because as a lot of you remind me in the comments, closed sales are backwards looking data based on properties that went under contract about a month ago. And of course markets can change in a month. So this snapshot helps us look at what’s happening right now.
More Homes Selling Than Being Listed
Here’s the deal:
Over the last 7 days 1534 properties left the market. 1388 went under contract, 60 expired without selling and 86 were withdrawn by the seller. In that same time period, we had 800 new active listings on the market. Basically, the number of listings that came ON the market was 52% of the listings that came off the market. Not enough to replace them.
Now let’s look at the 24 hour view. 47 properties came on the market. 148 went under contract, 6 were withdrawn and 10 expired. So a total of 164 left the market and only 47 came onto the market in the last 24 hours. So only 29% of the properties that left the market were replaced.
But there’s a plot twist. About 6 months ago, there was a pretty big change in the MLS. that makes all of these new properties coming on the market even lower than it looks on paper. I’ll explain that in a minute but first let’s look at what total inventory looks like by town. Because things really are different depending on where you’re buying.
Now these town inventory snapshots are based on sales that went under contract 30 days ago, so it is backwards looking data, but it does give us context and shows us the progression of how the market is changing so it’s important to look at it. You can see that the highest amount of inventory is in Zebulon where they have 6.9 months of inventory. Whenever you have more than 6 months of inventory, you have shifted into a buyers market. So Zebulon is the one town in the Triangle that is considered to be in a buyers market. There was a lot more new construction out there than any of these other places.
Wake Forest, Garner, Wendell, Clayton and Fuquay all have about 3 months of inventory, Knightdale and Raleigh have just over 2 months of inventory, Holly Springs, Morrisville, Cary and Apex have a little over 1 month of inventory. And Chapel Hill and Durham have the lowest inventory with about 3 weeks each. So you can see that if we consider that more inventory is leaving the market, than coming on the market, that inventory levels would decrease as we move forward, assuming the trajectory holds. I’m really hoping that this trend does not continue because if we are seeing decreasing inventory in March, that would not be good.
With so little coming onto the market in relation to what is leaving the market, this close to spring, I’m thinking some of this price softening is going to be pretty transitory. And here’s the plot twist. Last year, the Triangle MLS decided to link together with the Longleaf Pines MLS so that in TMLS we can now see and show inventory that is coming on the market for the areas that Longleaf Pines serves. Longleaf Pines MLS covers 20 counties in Southeast North Carolina. Towns like Sanford, Southern Pines, Pinehurst and Fayetteville are now all counting as new listings in the Triangle MLS. But here’s the thing. most of these areas are pretty far from the Triangle. But those 24 hour and 7 day views of inventory that is new to the market included plenty of listings in those areas. So when I say we’ve got 800 new listings in the Triangle over the last 7 days, what I really mean is not that we have 800 new listings in the 17 counties in the Triangle area, I mean 800 new listings in the 17 counties plus the 20 counties in the Longleaf Pines MLS. The Triangle area has about 2 million people. The area the Longleaf Pines MLS serves is about another 1 million. Longleaf Pines is more rural with fewer jobs so I am going to go out on a limb and say that the majority of home searches are looking in the Triangle, which makes inventory in Longleaf Pines much less applicable to our data here in Raleigh. So it may feel like there is even less inventory in the Triangle than the hotsheet shows.
Will we see inventories rise this spring and prices continue to soften, or will the inventory crunch force buyers back into competition and the dreaded bidding wars? The jury’s still out, but I will definitely be letting you know how it progresses. But now, Let’s move onto new developments in the Triangle. Because there is some really exciting stuff happening!!
Coming to the Triangle in 2023
Downtown South
IN 2023, Kane Realty will begin development of Downtown South, This is going to be a 70,000 square foot music venue with rooftop lounge, and also will include multiple office and residential towers on south Saunders street in Raleigh. This is going to be a whole new lifestyle district. Now this land where they are planning to put this development is kind of a wet mess. Actually there are only 2 homes currently in this area because of the lack of buildability. Who else but John Kane would take 135 acres in a floodplain and try to develop it. But it’s in a really incredible location, geographically speaking so the developer is planning on using the “water feature” i.e., swamp, to his advantage. This is actually an incredible idea because Raleigh really is missing some good water features in the downtown area. Which is crazy because anyone who has ever tried to drive into the parking garage in Crabtree Mall after a rain knows that we’ve got plenty of water around here. The Kane group is going to channel that water into something that is bound to be beautiful. They are envisioning a connection to the surrounding parks and communities that doesn’t currently exist in this area. The project will have office space, retail, multi family units and hotel space. The Raleigh greenway system already runs right through this area and eventually connects to Lake Johnson. But they’ll be adding even more raised walkways and bridges over water features. There will be 14 total acres of greenspace, ball fields, community gathering spaces and an Entertainment and sports venue. The developers are committed to including a significant percentage of affordable housing with 30% of that housing geared towards seniors. I can’t wait to see this one completed. This will have a huge positive impact on the city.
Cary Downtown Park
For 19 years, the Town of Cary had envisioned an incredible urban park, the likes of which had not been seen in Cary, A place for social gatherings, a place to meet friends for classes and events, a place for music and hanging out at an outdoor bar with your four legged friend. And then just a few years ago, they finally opened the park in a brand new town square with the library complex. And then like 2 years later they closed it down for 2 years so nobody could use it. BUT, the long awaited ultimate vision is finally coming to fruition this year. They plan to open in spring of 2023.
The park will feature a “great lawn” and unique, tiered water feature. The lawn will be fronted by a pavilion and interspersed around the lawn will be a series of unique spaces, or “rooms,” linked by paved walking trails. Additional features include performance places, market spaces, public art incorporated into the landscape, food and beverage facilities, a children’s play area, interactive water features, a dog play area, and walkways for strolling and relaxing.
There will be lots of programming, including art exhibitions, arts and crafts classes, performances and concerts, cardio and fitness classes, book clubs, story time programs and movies. They’re even talking about making the park a social district which was a little complicated to understand but the best I could figure was they’re opening up public outdoor drinking downtown in certain locations.
Downtown North @ Knightdale Station
I’m actually a little more excited about Downtown North at Knightdale Station than I am about the other two because it is such a huge growth opportunity for the Town of Knightdale. This is going to be like North Hills meets downtown Cary. Downtown North at Knightdale Station was unanimously approved by the town council on January 19th. People, buy real estate in knightdale now. Because this development is going to take knightdale from a rural small town to a well planned small city. It’s gonna be big. This is really the first big development in eastern Wake county. Development has taken longer to come to this side of town, but something like this could really set the ball rolling. Look at this proposal. Now I don’t know if Whole Foods and Amazon Books would really be anchor tenants, but I would think that to use the name there would have to be something happening behind the scenes. And eastern wake really needs a whole foods. There isn’t one close at all and with planned communities like knightdale station and Wendell Falls, this side of town is really begging for some upscale grocers. There’s going to be big retail space for places like Banana Republic and also smaller shops designed for small scale tenants. They’ll have condos, townhomes and single family units. Greenways, lots of greenspace, a pool and clubhouse, and community art and an amphitheater. This is just going to be amazing.
