Things are improving in the Triangle area real estate market. Sales are up 19% in June. This follows increases of 9% in April and 28% in May, and inventory is down from its peak in June, 2010, shortly after I wrote this.
Sales might be up, but housing prices continue to fall. The graph below shows the change in inventory (black line and right axis) and asking prices for homes in the Triangle (left axis). Notice the recent upward trend in inventory (not unusual as people who waited to put their homes on the market due to poor market conditions of the past begin putting them on now), and the downward trend in asking prices. Prices still have a way to fall.
[H]igh unemployment in North Carolina is hampering any sort of real economic recovery, including a sustained recovery in the housing market. As foreclosures are sold off and banks cooperate with homeowners in short sales the pressure will affect the market, sending home values lower. Home prices are forecast to decline 3.8% on average in 2012 in Raleigh.
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