There’s a house on a quiet block in Old West Durham that sold in five days back in the spring of 2021. No inspection contingency, an offer well above asking, a moving truck in the driveway before the sign was even down. This summer, a nearly identical house two doors up sat with a for sale sign for over a month before it went under contract, at close to its asking price, with a normal inspection period and nothing dramatic about it at all.
Talk to enough buyers, sellers, and neighbors this year and you’ll hear some version of that same story. Something about the market feels off, slower, less certain, not quite like the last few years and not quite like anything anyone remembers before that either. We track this data every month, for Durham and five surrounding counties, going back to January 2004. So today we’re pulling the full 22 years apart to ask a more useful question than “is the market good or bad”: what does it actually look like next to everything that’s come before it, and which parts of that strange feeling hold up?
Why Does the Market Feel So Different From a Few Years Ago?
Start with what changed, because the feeling that something shifted is not imagined. In Durham, the summer of 2021 saw homes sell in an average of nine days, with sellers collecting nearly 107 percent of their original asking price and fewer than 600 homes on the market at any given time. That pace held into 2022, when the average percentage of original list price received peaked at 108.1 percent in May, the only point in 22 years of data where the average Durham home sold for more than its original ask.
None of that describes today. Homes in Durham are now averaging 30 days on market, sellers are collecting about 96 percent of their original asking price, and there are roughly 1,343 active listings on the market, nearly three times the low point of 460 listings recorded in February 2022. Buyers have room to negotiate again, ask for repairs, and take a weekend to think it over. Sellers are pricing more carefully and waiting longer for offers. That is a real, measurable change, not a mood.
Was That Frenzy Actually the Normal We Lost?
Here’s the part worth sitting with: 2021 and 2022 were not a return to normal that has since slipped away. They were the outlier. In 22 years of Durham data, that period is the only stretch where the average home sold for more than its list price, the only stretch where days on market dropped into the single digits, and the only stretch where months of supply fell below one, meaning the entire active inventory would have sold out in under four weeks at the pace homes were moving. Nothing before it looked like that, and nothing since has either.
It’s an easy comparison to reach for, because it’s recent and it was dramatic. But measuring today’s market against 2021 is a little like judging an ordinary Tuesday against the best day of your life. The gap will always feel enormous, and it says more about how unusual that one stretch was than about what’s happening now.
How Close Is This to an Actual Downturn?
If 2021 sits at one extreme, the years following the 2008 financial crisis sit at the other, and they’re worth looking at directly, because “the market is slowing down” and “the market is in trouble” are very different things that can start to feel the same from the middle of a slower season. In April 2011, Durham’s months of supply peaked at 14.4, meaning it would have taken over a year to sell through existing inventory at that month’s pace. Average days on market climbed past 90, and later, in February 2013, touched an all-time high of 111 days. Sellers were receiving as little as 89.3 percent of their original asking price, and active listings climbed past 3,000, more than double where they sit today.
Today’s numbers aren’t close to that. Months of supply sits at 3.7, a fraction of the 2011 peak. Days on market, at 30, is a third of what it was during the slowest stretch of the recovery. Sellers are still collecting 96 percent of what they’re asking, nowhere near the high-80s territory of 2011. Whatever this year feels like, it does not resemble the years Durham spent digging out from an actual downturn.
What Does a Genuinely Balanced Durham Market Look Like?
So if today isn’t 2021 and isn’t 2011, what is it closer to? The most useful comparison might be the years right before the pandemic. In July 2019, Durham homes averaged 19 days on market, months of supply sat at 2.5, and sellers received about 99 percent of their original asking price. Today’s 30 days, 3.7 months of supply, and 96 percent are softer than that specific window, but they sit in the same general range, a market that still favors sellers, just not by an overwhelming margin.
It’s worth going back even further. In the mid-2000s, well before the crash, Durham regularly carried six to seven months of supply, more room than today’s market has, even though today’s inventory sometimes gets described as unusually high. The honest read is that a 3 to 4 month supply, with homes selling in a month and sellers netting most of their asking price, has been closer to Durham’s long-run default than either the 2021 frenzy or the 2011 trough. A genuinely balanced market, the kind where neither side has a strong upper hand, typically runs five to six months of supply. Durham still hasn’t reached that point in 22 years of data. Even now, the math tilts toward sellers, just less steeply than it did two years ago.
Are Home Prices Actually Falling?
Prices are where the “strange” feeling gets loudest, and the honest answer is more nuanced than either “prices are crashing” or “nothing has changed.” Durham’s median sales price hit an all-time high of $450,000 in September 2025, then eased to $405,000 the following month, a reminder that single-month swings in a market this size can move more than the underlying trend does. Since then, prices have bounced in a fairly narrow band, landing at $426,250 in August 2026, essentially flat year over year against August 2025’s $420,000, and only about 5 percent below last September’s peak.
Zoom out and the bigger story holds. Today’s median price is 20 percent above the 2021 frenzy’s summer peak and 56 percent above where Durham sat in the summer of 2019, before any of this started. Prices haven’t fallen off a cliff. They’ve leveled off after an unusually steep climb, which is a very different thing, even when it doesn’t always feel that way from month to month.
Does the Rest of the Triangle Tell the Same Story?
Durham isn’t the whole picture, and the other five counties we track largely confirm the same pattern, cooler than the 2021-2022 frenzy, still well above pre-pandemic norms, nowhere near the 2008-era downturn, with some local texture layered on top.
Wake County, the region’s largest market by far, has softened the most on price, down about 5 percent year over year to $460,000 in August, alongside 30 days on market and 3.5 months of supply, a shape very close to Durham’s. Orange County looks different this year, with prices up sharply to $570,000, a 16 percent jump from a year ago, though Orange closes fewer than 120 homes in a typical month, small enough that a single month’s mix of sales can swing the median more than a true shift in the market would. Chatham County, which closes a similarly modest number of sales each month, held close to flat at $675,000 with 34 days on market, the slowest pace among the six counties, worth watching over a few more months before reading too much into any one figure. Alamance County eased to $315,000, down about 6 percent from a year ago, with days on market ticking up to 30. Johnston County held essentially flat at $350,000 with days on market around 26, among the fastest-moving markets in the group.
Put together, five of six counties are telling a version of the same story Durham is: a market that has genuinely cooled from an unusual peak, without approaching anything that looks like a downturn.
So Which Feeling Is Right?
Both, in different measures. The feeling that something changed is accurate. Buyers really do have more room than they did two years ago, sellers really are waiting longer and negotiating more, and that shift is real and worth planning around. But the feeling that the market is unraveling, or that today’s numbers represent some kind of new low, doesn’t hold up against 22 years of data. By almost every measure we track, today’s Durham market sits closer to its own long-run average than either the frenzy of 2021 or the downturn of 2011 ever did. What’s changed isn’t that the market broke. It’s that the market stopped being unusual.
Durham, By the Numbers: 22 Years in Context
| Period | Active Listings | Days on Market | Median Sales Price | Months Supply | % of Original List Price Received |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-crash peak (June 2007) | 2,713 | 54 | $172,000 | 6.9 | 97.6% |
| Crash trough (April 2011) | 3,034 | 95 | $181,250 | 14.4 | 90.8% |
| Pre-pandemic (July 2019) | 1,091 | 19 | $272,500 | 2.5 | 99.1% |
| Pandemic frenzy peak (July 2021) | 596 | 9 | $355,000 | 1.2 | 106.6% |
| A year ago (August 2025) | 1,148 | 25 | $420,000 | 3.5 | 96.2% |
| Now (August 2026) | 1,343 | 30 | $426,250 | 3.7 | 96.3% |
Across the Triangle: Where Each County Stands Now
| County | Median Price (latest) | Change vs. a Year Ago | Days on Market | Months Supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Durham | $426,250 | +1.5% | 30 | 3.7 |
| Wake | $460,000 | -5.2% | 30 | 3.5 |
| Orange | $570,000 | +16.4% | 26 | 4.0 |
| Chatham | $675,000 | -1.5% | 34 | 4.4 |
| Alamance | $315,000 | -6.2% | 30 | 3.4 |
| Johnston | $350,000 | 0.0% | 26 | 4.1 |
Orange and Chatham close fewer than 120 homes in a typical month, small enough that month-to-month price changes reflect some normal noise alongside any real shift.
The Value of Reading a Market With Its Full History
A single month of data, or even a single year, can tell a convincing story that turns out to be the wrong one. The only way to know whether today’s market is genuinely unusual, or just unfamiliar because it’s different from the last few years anyone paid close attention to, is to look at the whole stretch behind it. That’s what two decades of tracking this data, month after month, across six counties, actually buys you: not a prediction about where the market goes next, but a clear sense of where it stands relative to everything it’s already been through. Whatever your plans are this year, buying, selling, or just trying to make sense of what you’re hearing, that context is worth having before you make a decision based on a feeling alone.
Advice by Design
Numbers don’t replace judgment, but they’re a much steadier place to start than a headline or a hunch. If you want to talk through what any of this actually means for your street, your timeline, or your next move, a Real Estate by Design agent is glad to walk through it with you, full history included.