The hottest spot in Raleigh, North Carolina, this Tuesday was the open house for a home priced below $300,000.
“When we say there is a housing crisis, we really mean it,” said local realtor Monique Edwards in a viral video of hopeful buyers descending upon the open house, their cars stretching down the cul-de-sac for blocks. “It’s absolutely insane.”
Indeed, listing holder Jim Ragland told The Post that an absurd amount of people showed up to see the $260,000 three-bedroom, two-bathroom property, which features a wraparound porch, back storage shed and living room fireplace.
“I thought we would get realistically 16, 18 showings,” said Ragland, who has lived in the area for 20 years and worked in real estate there for 15. “We had about 80 in a three-hour period. It’s just an unreal market right now”
The reason so many people swarmed the opening, as Edwards emphasized in her video, is simple: supply and demand. The average price for such a home in the area is generally over $400,000, and the city of Raleigh has very little inventory and no new construction to speak of, said Ragland.
“My sellers were not greedy” with their pricing, said Ragland. “And in the process of not being greedy they were blessed.
The full reason for the deluge of hopefuls is also due to much more granular, logistical reasoning.
Due to delays, Ragland’s seller pushed what was intended to be a morning opening to 5:30 in the evening, which resulted in a lot of overlapping lookers. As well, Ragland had a professional photographer take photos of the home. “Usually pictures in that price range are awful,” he explained.
At the end of the day, the home sellers had over 30 offers on the property, which is now in contract for what Ragland said is “considerably above the asking price.”
