Home sales in the Triangle slumped badly in the third quarter as the market continued to suffer from a lack of consumer confidence and the lingering effects of the federal homebuyer tax credits.
For the three months that ended Sept. 30, home sales in Durham, Johnston, Orange and Wake counties were down 27 percent from the same period a year ago, Triangle Multiple Listing Services data show.
With showings also off 27 percent and pending sales down 32 percent, most real estate agents expect the market to remain soft until at least the spring.
"The general kind of background between agents is that this has become the new normal," said Jill Flink, a Prudential York Simpson Underwood broker in Raleigh.
Buyers have been scarce since June, when the boost provided by the tax credits for first-time and repeat homebuyers went away.
The steep third-quarter decline reflects the fact that last year during the same period many buyers were rushing to take advantage of the first-time homebuyer tax credit, which originally was set to expire Dec. 1.
The lack of activity is a sign also that consumers are viewing homeownership differently in light of all the uncertainty about where the economy is headed, said Stacey Anfindsen, a Cary appraiser who analyzes MLS data for the Triangle.
Anfindsen said it used to be that buying a house was a rite of passage for Americans.
"Now I think that's being questioned," he said. "And housing prices are still being questioned. And the economy's being questioned. The three of those things put together just kind of lead to a whole lot of contract inactivity."
The lack of serious buyers is forcing sellers to reduce prices. Sixty percent of all the homes listed for sale in the Triangle have had their list price reduced at least once. That's up from 40 percent three years ago.
Prices are the biggest driving factor, Flink said.
She recently took the listing of a couple who had paid $365,000 for their home. After dropping the price repeatedly, all the way to $325,000, the couple finally decided they couldn't go any lower.
"So they took it off the market and put a 'for rent' sign in front of it," Flink said.
An increasing number of sellers appear to have reached a similar conclusion.
After trending downward for several quarters, the number of sellers who took their homes off the market or allowed their listings to expire shot up in the third quarter.
"It's probably indicative of people who have priced their houses as low as they can go," Anfindsen said.
