Number of Triangle homes selling for $1 million or more soared by 360% in last decade
Looking for an eye-popping statistic to add to the list of things you tell your out-of-state friends to show how much bigger and richer the Triangle has gotten over the last decade?
Here it is: Between 2010 and 2019, the number of homes selling for $1 million or more has grown by more than 360%.
In 2019 alone, 375 homes sold for more than $1 million in the region, an increase of 294 homes from 10 years earlier, according to data from the Triangle Multiple Listing Service. The number covers Wake, Durham, Orange and Chatham counties.
In 2010, just 81 homes in the region sold for $1 million or more.
“There are obvious reasons,” said Margaret Struble, a longtime Triangle Realtor with RE/Max United and treasurer of the Luxury Home Marketing Group. “First of all, prices have increased dramatically over the country. There’s a small portion of sellers that didn’t want to put their high-end homes on the market for a long time — they were waiting on the market to improve. I think a lot of them jumped in.”
Besides price increases, builders’ confidence in new construction sales was up — 144 of the 375 million-dollar homes sold last year were brand new.
“Another reason is that we’re seeing so many more buyers from the West Coast,” Struble said. “When they sell their West Coast house for a couple million dollars, coming to Raleigh for a house worth $1 million would be a breeze. Coming here and spending $1.5 (million) or even $2 million to them is a bargain.”
Triangle residential analyst Stacey Anfindsen, who compiled the million-dollar sales figures at The News & Observer’s request, said lower interest rates and home equity from people in high-cost areas moving here are “the secret sauce for higher seven figure closings.”
Good economic conditions for the wealthy who are buying those homes are also part of the equation, Anfindsen said, pointing to the 171% rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the same period — from 10,500 in 2010 to nearly 29,000 at the end of 2019.
“It’s something you’d expect to see in our market, given all the positive economic demographics that we have,” Anfindsen said. “The wealth is created both in the Triangle and it’s created outside of the Triangle and moves in.”
Where are the million-dollar homes?
“We’re seeing a high number of new construction homes being built largely in Raleigh,” said Struble.
According to the 2019 Triangle MLS, 333 of the 375 million-dollar homes sold were detached single-family, 31 were condominiums and 11 were townhouses. In all housing types, 245 homes are on the market with an asking price of a million or more.
About half of the million-dollar condos sold were in downtown Durham, more than the 11 sold in Raleigh.
Mollie Owen, a Realtor with Hodge & Kittrell Sotheby’s International Realty, said the wealthy buyers moving in are attracted by positive press, like high rankings in “Top 10” lists of accolades.
Owen, also a member of the Luxury Home Marketing Group, said the Triangle market is attractive to outside buyers because of a lower cost per square foot.
“We just closed a $1M+ home for buyers relocating from Seattle,” she said in an email to the N&O. “In the past six months, we’ve been working with buyers from as far away as San Francisco and as close as Georgia. (But) while we see a steady flow of buyers from various feeder markets, we always have a stream of local, move-up buyers making a change as well.”
News & Observer reporter David Raynor contributed to this story.
This story was originally published January 19, 2020 at 8:30 AM.
