"The biggest thing was inventory," said market analyst and appraiser Stacey Anfindsen, who wrote the report. "We had a strong number of houses listed in November compared to prior Novembers. We have to have that. But the flip side of that is demand is still stronger than it was this time last year. And so that's where the inventory undersupply continues to be exacerbated."
You might think real estate agents are lining their pockets with so much demand for housing. That's not necessarily the case.
"There's nothing to sell, and it's interesting because people think that the real estate market has blown up and agents are just raking in the sales and doing fabulous, but the reality is a lot of Realtors have struggled because there's nothing to sell, and there are so many people competing for every sale," said Kate Kenney, real estate broker associate for Compass. "So, the lack of inventory without a doubt is our biggest issue."
But house prices aren't going down.
The MLS market update shows that in November, overall sale prices were up 20 percent compared to the same time last year.
And just from October to November, overall sale prices were up 1 percent.
This spring, more than 100 people lined up at an open house in southeast Raleigh that Kenney hosted. The home got 77 offers.
Today, things aren't quite so hectic.
"It's still a seller's market, but the activity has slowed a little bit," Kenney said. "The craziness, as we called it all year long, has slowed a little bit. Back in April, May, I was getting so many offers that I was having to put them on spreadsheets to really compare them. Now we might get some multiple offers. We might not get multiple offers. It's a little bit different. The buying craziness has slowed a little bit."
Kenney said she feels it's a combination of frustrated buyers getting out of the game and the cyclical nature of the real estate market in the Triangle slowing down this time of year.