Raleigh starts 2022 as No. 3 hottest real estate market, according to Zillow
Raleigh rang in the new year with a new annual ranking by Zillow as the third-hottest housing market in the U.S. as the Triangle continues to remain a top spot for real estate nationally.
Zillow ranked Raleigh-Durham as No. 3 out of 50 U.S. metro areas for its heightened popularity and competitiveness among home buyers. A second North Carolina metro also made the top five, with Charlotte ranking fifth, according to the Zillow ranking released Tuesday.
Tampa and Jacksonville, Florida, were first and second in the ranking. San Antonio, Texas, ranked fourth.
The top five markets are “each buoyed by a combination of strong forecasted home value growth, strong economic fundamentals including high job growth, fast-moving inventory and plentiful likely buyers,” Zillow economist Treh Manhertz wrote.
“Additionally, these markets have historically not been particularly sensitive to rising mortgage interest rates or a slowing stock market — two risk factors for housing and the economy overall as the calendar turns.”
The current average home price in the Raleigh metro is $391,444, an increase of about 20% since May 2021, according to Zillow. The figure is not far off from the median price of real estate overall in Wake County: an all time high of $405,000, according to the Wake County Register of Deeds. That figure stems from median monthly prices of recorded transactions under $1 million, which includes the vast majority of housing market sales activity but also includes commercial property.
The online real estate site forecasts home values will rise nationally 23.7% through November 2022 from a current average of roughly $316,000.
Overall, data from real estate site Redfin shows current home prices in the City of Oaks have had a roughly 35% increase from January 2020 before the pandemic-fueled real estate frenzy, The News & Observer reported.
The Raleigh-Durham market was also ranked as a No. 2 “growth city” by U-Haul. One-way U-Haul truck arrivals to the region in 2021 were the second highest tracked in the country. Over half of all tracked one-way U-Haul traffic in the region last year were arriving customers moving in, according to a U-Haul news release.
Triangle affordability issues
The housing market in the Triangle has seen positive net increases in nearly every major metric since early 2020, when COVID-19 pandemic factors like limited housing supply, low interest rates and remote work galvanized the already booming market.
The upward trends have been a boon for homeowners but have also created challenges for first-time home buyers and raised affordability issues for Triangle residents.
In Raleigh neighborhoods near the downtown core, house prices have skyrocketed in recent years as developers have gentrified streets by tearing down homes and building $379,000 homes. In many instances, the long term process has pushed out longtime residents in historically Black areas and forever changed neighborhoods’ characters, The N&O reported previously.
Over half of North Carolina residents worry about making their rent or mortgage payments, according to an Elon University poll conducted last fall.
Of 1,234 residents surveyed, about 52% said they worried about affording housing costs to varying degrees; 27% said they were a little worried about missing a rent or mortgage payment in the past six months; 15% were somewhat worried; and 10% were very worried.
