Raleigh Housing Market: Prices | Trends | Forecasts 2025
Key takeaways
- J.P. Morgan Research expects house prices to rise by 3% overall in 2025 (Nationwide)
- The higher-for-longer interest rate backdrop is here to stay, with mortgage rates expected to ease only slightly to 6.7% by the year end.
- President Trump’s policies could have complex implications for the housing market, particularly on the issue of affordability.
Here is our Raleigh housing market predictions for 2025. The truth is no one, and I mean no one, really knows what is going to happen. No one predicted the pandemic boom and we don’t have control over global events, which can definitely change a local housing market.
What is happening right now in the Raleigh housing market should shock everyone thinking about buying or selling a home this year.
Raleigh Housing Market Booms in 2025 The crazy thing about housing data is that usually people look at the wrong data. If we look at the number of homes that closed this week, that doesn’t tell us what the market is doing today, because those homes went under contract a month or more ago. The world was completely different a month ago.
Articles like this telling us that prices are falling are not giving you the real story. I was almost willing to believe what they were saying, until I saw what I’m getting ready to show you.
The three data points I’m looking at here make me think the housing market is actually going to BOOM in 2025.
What is happening right now in the Raleigh housing market should shock everyone thinking about buying or selling a home this year.
Raleigh Housing Market Booms in 2025 The crazy thing about housing data is that usually people look at the wrong data. If we look at the number of homes that closed this week, that doesn’t tell us what the market is doing today, because those homes went under contract a month or more ago. The world was completely different a month ago.
Articles like this telling us that prices are falling are not giving you the real story. I was almost willing to believe what they were saying, until I saw what I’m getting ready to show you.
The three data points I’m looking at here make me think the housing market is actually going to BOOM in 2025.
#1 Raleigh still has one of the Hottest Relocation Housing Markets According to Redfin, the relocation Boom has finally started to slow down. There has been a 2.1% decrease in people looking to relocate since this time last year. Since Raleigh has been one of the hottest relo markets in the country, any Raleigh housing market predictions for 2025 has to take relocations into account.
But even with the reduction in relocation, according to Redfin’s data from Sept 2024 to November 2024, North Carolina is still the number 2 place in the country for relocation moves, second only to Florida. They don’t give the data by state, but if a 2.1% decrease is the national average, it makes sense that North Carolina is still seeing a growing relocation market.
And this plays out in both cultural stories and in other data sets. In September, Travel and Leisure Magazine called Raleigh the #1 city for quality of life on the east coast. And just this week, two Wake County towns made the top ten list for Move Buddhas booming towns.
They used job market data to rank Cary and Wake Forest on their list:
Using search data from the moveBuddha Moving Cost Calculator, we found that among more than 210K move inquiries made so far in 2024, Just 43 American suburbs are popular with movers and are in metros that have above-average job growth.
So we’re still attracting people relocating from across the country. But at the same time, we don’t have a lot of people leaving the Triangle. In fact, in 2023, our net population change in Wake County alone was plus 19,497 people. And this is putting a huge demand on the housing market.
But even with the reduction in relocation, according to Redfin’s data from Sept 2024 to November 2024, North Carolina is still the number 2 place in the country for relocation moves, second only to Florida. They don’t give the data by state, but if a 2.1% decrease is the national average, it makes sense that North Carolina is still seeing a growing relocation market.
And this plays out in both cultural stories and in other data sets. In September, Travel and Leisure Magazine called Raleigh the #1 city for quality of life on the east coast. And just this week, two Wake County towns made the top ten list for Move Buddhas booming towns.
They used job market data to rank Cary and Wake Forest on their list:
Using search data from the moveBuddha Moving Cost Calculator, we found that among more than 210K move inquiries made so far in 2024, Just 43 American suburbs are popular with movers and are in metros that have above-average job growth.
So we’re still attracting people relocating from across the country. But at the same time, we don’t have a lot of people leaving the Triangle. In fact, in 2023, our net population change in Wake County alone was plus 19,497 people. And this is putting a huge demand on the housing market.
But how much of the housing inventory is being purchased by this increasing population? If we want to make predictions about the Raleigh housing market in 2025, we’ve got to do some math.
Population change in Wake County, NC. If we gained 19,497 people and we know the average household size is 2.51 people and we know that 65% of those households are homeowners, that means, roughly 5049 homes were purchased by people who were new to Wake County. That’s 33% of all homes sold in 2023.
And here’s the rub. Even though 33% of homes that were sold were needed to support the increased population, only 30% of home sales in 2023 were new construction in Wake County. So in 2023, we didn’t quite build enough homes for the number of families who moved here. We were 3% short.
If we look at it from the perspective of building permits the story looks similar.
Between January 2022 and September 2024, Wake County issued 7411 building permits for residential new construction homes. So in 33 months, Wake County issued roughly 224 building permits per month. But we had 647 households moving here each month.
New homes being built in Carolina Overlook in Clayton, NC.Let’s do that same math… If 65% of them wanted to buy homes, which is the national average, that means 420 households each month wanted to buy homes but we only built 224 houses for them. So 196 houses per month or 2352 houses per year short. Those households are renting because we didn’t build houses for them. And remember, that’s cumulative. It’s been happening every year since Covid.
So if the spiking pending sales data and the increasing population were the only two things at play here, I probably wouldn’t think we were going to sell a lot of homes this year. There’s one more puzzle piece we need to create a fantastic real estate market this year. And that is housing inventory.
“A Fantastic Real Estate Market”Just as an aside, when I say “a fantastic real estate market,” what I mean is this:
#2 We’re Actually Building Homes in RaleighThe final piece of the puzzle is inventory. Predictions about any housing market, and especially Raleigh in 2025, has to take new home inventory in account. And new home construction is on the upswing.
In 2024, we actually built quite a bit more housing than we did in 2023.
In 2023 there were 16,645 homes listed in Wake County. And in 2024 so far, we have listed 19,161. That’s 15.1% more listings than in 2023.
Based on the amount of inventory available right now, Cary, Apex, Holly Springs and Garner are all sellers markets with less than 3 months of inventory. But the housing inventory isn’t evenly distributed throughout the Triangle. Right now, Fuquay, Clayton and Zebulon all have 6 months or more of inventory.
Six months is the amount that is considered a buyer’s market. Typically in a buyer’s market there is more room for negotiation. We see a lot of price drops. Due Diligence fees are low or non-existent.
But, before we jump to conclusions about skyrocketing inventory like that headline did, we need to look a little deeper.
New Home Construction DataRemember I said that new construction inventory is about 30% of homes sold in the Triangle. In these towns with “skyrocketing inventory” the ratios are a bit different.
In Fuquay Varina and Zebulon, 55% of listings are new construction. And in Clayton, 48% of listings are new construction. Compare that to the areas that are sellers markets right now: Only 38% of Apex sales this year were new construction, 35% of Garner’s sales were new construction, 21% in Holly Springs and 5% of Cary.
But the increased levels of inventory that makes it look like a buyers market in the areas with a lot of new construction is actually NORMAL this time of year.
Most of these listings aren’t even finished yet. They typically pull permits and then list the home in the MLS once construction has gotten underway. These homes are being built in preparation for the demand the builders expect in the spring market.
And following the money isn’t a bad idea, builders that have made it through these tough times aren’t likely to gamble. They think these houses are going to sell.
Population change in Wake County, NC. If we gained 19,497 people and we know the average household size is 2.51 people and we know that 65% of those households are homeowners, that means, roughly 5049 homes were purchased by people who were new to Wake County. That’s 33% of all homes sold in 2023.
And here’s the rub. Even though 33% of homes that were sold were needed to support the increased population, only 30% of home sales in 2023 were new construction in Wake County. So in 2023, we didn’t quite build enough homes for the number of families who moved here. We were 3% short.
If we look at it from the perspective of building permits the story looks similar.
Between January 2022 and September 2024, Wake County issued 7411 building permits for residential new construction homes. So in 33 months, Wake County issued roughly 224 building permits per month. But we had 647 households moving here each month.
New homes being built in Carolina Overlook in Clayton, NC.Let’s do that same math… If 65% of them wanted to buy homes, which is the national average, that means 420 households each month wanted to buy homes but we only built 224 houses for them. So 196 houses per month or 2352 houses per year short. Those households are renting because we didn’t build houses for them. And remember, that’s cumulative. It’s been happening every year since Covid.
So if the spiking pending sales data and the increasing population were the only two things at play here, I probably wouldn’t think we were going to sell a lot of homes this year. There’s one more puzzle piece we need to create a fantastic real estate market this year. And that is housing inventory.
“A Fantastic Real Estate Market”Just as an aside, when I say “a fantastic real estate market,” what I mean is this:
- There are enough homes for sale to satisfy the demand of people who want, and are able, to purchase a home.
- There are enough buyers in the market to purchase the homes that sellers need to sell.
- The market is balanced enough to preclude insane bidding wars.
- The market is balanced enough to preclude equally insane due diligence deposits on the part of the buyers.
#2 We’re Actually Building Homes in RaleighThe final piece of the puzzle is inventory. Predictions about any housing market, and especially Raleigh in 2025, has to take new home inventory in account. And new home construction is on the upswing.
In 2024, we actually built quite a bit more housing than we did in 2023.
In 2023 there were 16,645 homes listed in Wake County. And in 2024 so far, we have listed 19,161. That’s 15.1% more listings than in 2023.
Based on the amount of inventory available right now, Cary, Apex, Holly Springs and Garner are all sellers markets with less than 3 months of inventory. But the housing inventory isn’t evenly distributed throughout the Triangle. Right now, Fuquay, Clayton and Zebulon all have 6 months or more of inventory.
Six months is the amount that is considered a buyer’s market. Typically in a buyer’s market there is more room for negotiation. We see a lot of price drops. Due Diligence fees are low or non-existent.
But, before we jump to conclusions about skyrocketing inventory like that headline did, we need to look a little deeper.
New Home Construction DataRemember I said that new construction inventory is about 30% of homes sold in the Triangle. In these towns with “skyrocketing inventory” the ratios are a bit different.
In Fuquay Varina and Zebulon, 55% of listings are new construction. And in Clayton, 48% of listings are new construction. Compare that to the areas that are sellers markets right now: Only 38% of Apex sales this year were new construction, 35% of Garner’s sales were new construction, 21% in Holly Springs and 5% of Cary.
But the increased levels of inventory that makes it look like a buyers market in the areas with a lot of new construction is actually NORMAL this time of year.
Most of these listings aren’t even finished yet. They typically pull permits and then list the home in the MLS once construction has gotten underway. These homes are being built in preparation for the demand the builders expect in the spring market.
And following the money isn’t a bad idea, builders that have made it through these tough times aren’t likely to gamble. They think these houses are going to sell.
