Where Are People Overpaying the Most for Homes in the Raleigh-Durham Area?

The housing market is hot across the country right now, but the area around Raleigh-Durham is seeing a particularly remarkable uptick in home price appreciation in 2021: Median home sale prices are up 21% year-over-year. The amount of housing supply has plummeted, and the average number of days a home spends on the market in the region is down 62% year-over-year. 

What makes real estate in the Triangle and outlying areas so sought-after? Raleigh-Durham was recently ranked the second-best place to live in the country, and as the tech scene continues to grow, the region will gain more high-paying jobs that attract bigger and better talent. 

When tight supply meets big demand, you find people paying more than the asking price for homes. And we’re seeing that nearly across the board here: The average sale price was higher than the average recent listing price in 60 of the 66 Raleigh-Durham area ZIP codes we analyzed. 

But where are people overpaying the most? Here are the 10 ZIP codes where the average sold price is the highest compared to the most recent average list price. 

The top 10 ZIP codes for overpaying in the Raleigh-Durham area

1. 27518: Cary, NC

• Recent list price average: $544,137
• Net sold price average: $609,760
• Percent difference: 112.1%

2. 27560: Morrisville, NC

• Recent list price average: $491,250
• Net sold price average: $542,544
• Percent difference: 110.4%

3. 27712: Durham, NC

• Recent list price average: $335,586
• Net sold price average: $370,313
• Percent difference: 110.3%

4. 27511: Cary, NC

• Recent List Price average: $496,344
• Net Sold Price average: $535,733
• Percent difference: 107.9%

5. 27519: Cary, NC

1. Recent list price average: $621,838
2. Net sold price average: $670,428
3. Percent difference: 107.8%

6. 27713: Durham, NC

• Recent list price average: $435,083
• Net sold price average: $468,917
• Percent difference: 107.8%

7. 27513: Cary, NC

• Recent list price average: $546,763
• Net sold price average: $587,550
• Percent difference: 107.5%

8. 27253: Graham, NC

• Recent list price average: $231,928
• Net sold price average: $249,063
• Percent difference: 107.4%

9. 27540: Holly Springs, NC

• Recent list price average: $466,385
• Net sold price average: $498,301
• Percent difference: 106.8%

10. 27502: Apex, NC

• Recent list price average: $507,820
• Net sold price average: $542,568
• Percent difference: 106.8%
  

Homes are selling for above list price in many parts of the Raleigh-Durham area, but in these top 10 ZIP codes, 87% of homes sold above original list price —  compared to 79% of homes selling over list price across all ZIP codes we measured. 

What does overpaying mean? 

What does it mean to overpay for a home? If a homeowner lists their house at a certain price, and you paid more for it, does that mean you “overpaid”? It certainly means you paid more than they expected. Maybe you had to in order to win a bidding war — but the fact remains that the competition in these areas is forcing home buyers to pay well above what they would have one or two years ago. 

In these ZIP codes, this scenario appears to be playing out more than in others in the area. What do you think — are people justified in paying this much over asking to live in places like Cary, Morrisville, and Durham? 

Full data for Raleigh-Durham area codes

Below is a table of the data for all 66 Triangle-area ZIP codes we analyzed. 

Methodology

Data comes from RDU MLS. Orchard analyzed RDU ZIP codes and compared where the net sale price average was highest compared to the recent list price average for all transactions in July 2021. A minimum of 10 transactions were required for a ZIP code to be included in our analysis.