Cary Average Home Prices Surge 50% in 2023!

The average home price in Cary NC really is up 50% from last year. Right now in late May of 2023 the average home for sale in Cary, North Carolina, is 50% more expensive than homes that sold during the same period last year!!

[If you’re looking for a home for sale in Cary, try our Cary Home Search Page here.]

Existing homes for sale in Cary are more expensive than Surf City with an average home value of $645K. More expensive than Blowing Rock (average home value $617K). More expensive than Lake Toxaway (average value $596K). But, Cary doesn’t have mountains; Cary doesn’t have beaches; Cary doesn’t have lakes with waterfalls. Exactly how high have prices gotten? Ya’ll are gonna think you rode those magic mushrooms they found down in Sanford back to California when you see these prices. 

The Facebook Post that Started it All

Last week a Realtor friend posted this on Facebook. 

If this is true, housing prices in Cary have skyrocketed 50% over last year’s prices. This is absolutely unbelievable given current market trends. And my first reaction was to disbelieve it. I’ve been saying that I expected prices to flatline or maybe decrease a little bit, before they began going back up.  So, this number really threw me. 

But, hey, if I’m wrong, I’ll own up to it.

Now, I’m a Realtor in the Triangle.  I think I’ve got a good pulse on the market.

So I went to the MLS for a little fact checking. And this is what I saw, these are resale detached homes in Cary on May 17th. The average price for a Cary detached home currently on the market is $1.15 million.   It isn’t a lie, but it isn’t what you think it is either.  

Then another Facebook friend posted that only 40 homes in Cary were for sale for under a million dollars. 

I went back to the MLS. Yes,  there were only 41 detached houses in Cary for sale under $1m.

Numbers don’t lie, right?  but as we know there’s always a story underneath. 

Why People Move to Cary

This is Cary, North Carolina. Hang on a second. Let me show you all the incredible accolades Cary has racked up over the years. Just check out the Town of Cary’s website for those! With all those accolades, it isn’t surprising that Cary would buck national trends. But a 50% average home price increase?  No way!

[If you want to learn more about Cary, try our Cary City Guide, this post about 10 Reasons People Love Cary, or check out our Cary Videos Page.]

But those accolades aren’t the only reasons it wouldn’t be surprising to see property values still growing here. Redfin tracks the locations of people searching for homes on their app. Four of the top five places people are currently living in while searching for homes in Cary, North Carolina are located outside of North Carolina. Those cities are Washington DC, New York City, San Francisco, and Boston. They all have a reputation for being more expensive than anywhere in North Carolina. 

But that Cary number is trying to rival San Francisco!  It can’t be true. . . I mean, interest rates are at 20 year highs.  Prices are supposed to be coming down, not going up – or at least not like that. The average home price in Cary, NC really can’t have gone up 50%!

My video a couple weeks ago showed that prices in the Raleigh area are holding steady, not coming down like other locations have been. We did see those huge price spikes in 2020 and 2021, but that’s over now….right? 

3 Reasons for an Average Price Increase in Cary NC

I see three possibilities…. One. Builders are building a lot more luxury housing, driving up the average home price in Cary, NC. Two, high priced outliers are driving up the average home price. Or three, there’s a change in the inventory that is affecting the average home price.

Possibility number 1: More Luxury Housing is shifting the average Cary Home Price

Possibility #1 is that maybe rather than prices for the typical home increasing, we could be seeing a larger number of new luxury homes being built that is skewing the data.  Honestly, I thought this was going to be a real contender for the explanation.  

It seems reasonable.  Everyone wants to be in Cary, competition drives up prices, so it would make sense that builders have just been focusing on the luxury market and building more homes at the top of the price range.  But that wasn’t what the data showed.  In 2018, entry into the luxury market in Cary began at $690,000, which was the top 10% of homes by price.  

There were 394 new detached homes sold in 2018 and 92 of them (23%) were priced and sold in the luxury market.  But in 2019 only 21% of homes sold were in the luxury market, and in 2020 it was only 19%, in 2021 it was 15%, in  2022, it was back up to 21% and so far this year it is coming in at 20%.  So it isn’t the builder’s fault.  They aren’t building more in the luxury market to the exclusion of other homes. Or at least no more than they did 5 years ago. We can’t blame the rising average home price in Cary, NC just on the builders.

But it is true that the new construction homes in the luxury market are higher priced than existing homes in the luxury market.  For example, if you look at this chart, you can see that the top 10% of new construction homes have always been higher than the top 10% of existing homes. 

So it is partially true that new construction luxury homes have pushed the overall average up.  But not because there are so much more of them.  It’s just cost more to build over the last 5 years.

Possibility #2: Outliers driving up the average Cary Home Prices

Possibility #2: The next thing that could be happening is that there are outliers driving up the price, and the average is not indicative of the prices being sought for more typical homes.  This should be interesting.   Bear with me as I throw out a bunch of numbers (like I haven’t already!)

As of the time I’m making this video there are 69 detached homes in Cary for sale, both existing and new construction (20 of them are new construction).  The average list price is just over 1.2 million and the median list price is just over 1 million. 

There are four houses, just four, that are listed over 2 million. 

What happens when we take those four homes out of the equation?  The average price drops from 1.2 million to $968 thousand and the median drops from just over 1 million to just under 1 million.

And I know you’re going to say that’s still really expensive, and that’s true and we will talk about why in just a minute, but what is important to understand here is that those four houses at the top of the market do affect the average prices, but even with them out of the picture the average price of an active home in Cary, NC is still $220 thousand dollars more than than the average sold price last year at this time.  So we know outliers aren’t responsible for driving up the average price so much. 

HOME PRICES IN CARY HAVE NOT INCREASED

So, what’s the answer?  Prices in Cary have NOT increased by ANYTHING close to 50%. In fact, they’ve decreased. Let me prove it. 

It’s true that the homes that are currently for sale in and around Cary really are much higher priced homes than were on the market last year at this time.  But can still find a very reasonable home like this one in Cary for under $500 thousand dollars. 

One of the things that is throwing off the numbers in Cary is how many affordable  homes are NOT on the market.  Think about it, most Cary homeowners have low mortgage rates on their home loans.  There isn’t much incentive for them to sell and most of them aren’t. Why would anyone leave Cary?

If we look at just a few houses in Cary like this one and look at the Zestimate history we see the falloff in June of last year and the beginning of a recovery in February.  So that the Zestimate is showing a slight increase from may of last year to may of this year, but they have it priced below the Zestimate. 

Or we could look at this more moderately priced home and see the same sort of pattern: a slight decrease from May of last year and a list price below the Zestimate.  Or we could look at this luxury home and see the exact same thing.  Same pattern and a list price just below the estimated value from a year ago.

So given this information what do we make of the fact that currently listed homes really are priced 50% above the prices of just a year ago?

Possibility #3: Inventory shift is changing the average Cary Home Prices

That Facebook post showing the average of all active listings in Cary that got me started on all of this, is showing the average price of homes that HAVEN’T sold.  The mystery really begins to unravel when we dig into the homes that HAVE sold.

The average price of homes that sold from January to May of last year was $773,000 and the median price was $662,000  and the homes that have sold this year in the same time frame is $726,000 for the average and $653,000 for the median.  A slight DECREASE from last year.  And that jives with what the Zestimates were showing too.

But let’s dig a little deeper and control for new construction, only looking at single family homes. 5% of single family homes that have sold in Cary below 900,000 in 2023 are new construction. While 34% of homes that have sold over 900,000 are new construction.

Its the type of housing being built

But wait, didn’t I just say a minute ago that builders aren’t adding more luxury housing than they have in previous years?

Yes, and that is true. But 83% of all new construction homes under 900,000 are townhomes or condos and right now, there is only ONE single family new construction home listed under 900,000. Exactly ZERO new construction homes over 900,000 are condos or townhomes.

And there is the answer.

Most new inventory being added to the market under 900,000 in Cary are condos or townhomes. And the average price of new construction condos and townhomes is 568,000. If you add in existing inventory the average is 467,000. This is much more in line with area norms. The town of Cary is growing up into a city. If you want to know why so many people still think Cary is worth it, you need to watch the video below.