Verdict grades housing conditions; buyer-timing, investor cash-flow, supply-tightness and county macro scores answer different questions — each in its own section.
Buyer / sellerbuyer-timing lens
Negotiate Hard
DOM: 84d (stable) · Market Dynamics rolling median · hourly
Score Components
Payment Burden (25%)25
Valuation Gap (25%)80
Supply & Demand (20%)100
Buy vs Rent (15%)50
Cancellation Rate (10%)50
Days on Market (5%)75
Moderate buyer leverage in 27526. Room to negotiate 5-10% below list. Payment burden: 25.6% of median income. Median days on market: 84. Renting is approximately 57% cheaper than buying (price-to-rent ratio: 18.8). Market appears 19% overpriced vs. assessed values.
What to Offer
Offer 5-10% below list. You have room to negotiate.
A single median rises whenever expensive homes become a bigger share of what sells, even if no tier got more expensive. These are the tiers underneath it, computed from recorded arms-length deed transactions in Harnett.
Aggregate median -1.9% YoY in this ZIP, but the under-$500k tier is -2.1% — the aggregate and the entry tier are moving together. Over the same year the under-$500k share of sales moved from 46.3% to 49.2% (+2.9pp) and the $1M+ share from 0.7% to 2.4% (+1.6pp).
Current tiers · 12 months to Aug 25floor 10 sales/tier
2 tiers had too few sales at every level and are left blank rather than estimated.
Tier
Median
$/sqft
Sales
Share
Source
Under $250k
$160k
$144
13
1.0%
ZIP
$250k–$500k
$415k
$205
650
48.2%
ZIP
$500k–$750k
$610k
$216
489
36.3%
ZIP
$750k–$1M
$827k
$244
164
12.2%
ZIP
$1M–$1.5M
$1.08M
$271
29
2.2%
ZIP
$1.5M–$2M
—
—
—
—
fewer than 10 sales at zip, county and metro level
$2M+
—
—
—
—
fewer than 10 sales at zip, county and metro level
All sales (the headline median)
$505k
$214
1,348
100%
ZIP
Share of sales by tier (quarterly)
If the upper tiers widen over time, the headline median rises on composition alone.
Under $250k
$250k–$500k
$500k–$750k
$750k–$1M
$1M–$1.5M
$1.5M–$2M
$2M+
Median within each tier, against the headline median (quarterly)
The blue line is the single number NAR-style reporting quotes. The gold lines are what each tier actually did. Log scale — the tiers span an order of magnitude, and on a log axis equal slopes mean equal percentage moves, which is the comparison being made.
Under $250k
$250k–$500k
$500k–$750k
$750k–$1M
$1M–$1.5M
All sales (headline)
National context — not local
NAR's aggregate existing-home median for the United States and the South census region. This is the figure the tiers above are a check on. It is national/regional and says nothing about 27526.
United States
South
Copyright, National Association of Realtors. Reprinted with permission. Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. FRED publishes a rolling 13-month window for these series.
Tiers computed from Lotvox parcel and deed substrate through Aug 25 (10 later months withheld as partially loaded). Sample floor 10 sales per tier; below it a figure is drawn from the county or metro and labelled, or left blank. Multi-parcel bulk deeds and duplicate records are excluded.
Wake County contextmacro · jobs · debt · migration
ZIP score grades housing; county score adds macro distress (jobs, debt, poverty). They answer different questions.
This ZIP code crosses county lines. Property data shows Johnston (70.8%), Wake (23.6%) and Mecklenburg (5.6%). County metrics below are shown separately for each county.
Johnston (70.8%)
Wake (23.6%)
Mecklenburg (5.6%)
ZIP 27526→3 counties
12-Month Direction
+4Stable
Confidence
100%
DeterioratingStableImproving
BuildersLens Market Intelligence
Market Score
40· Weak
Market Score grades housing-market conditions (affordability, valuation, supply). The county Healthy/Moderate/Distressed badge measures economic distress (jobs, debt, poverty) — the two can read differently.
Payment Burden56
26.7%
affordable
Source: Lotvox · Updated 2026-05-15
Buy vs Rent44
1.347x
rent advantage
Source: Lotvox · Updated 2026-05-15
Valuation14
+65.1%
overvalued
Source: Lotvox comps · Updated 2026-05-15
Supply/Demand15
3.7 mo
balanced
Source: Lotvox MLS · Updated 2026-05-15
Insurance Risk
45/100
moderate
Source: FEMA/NFIP · Updated 2026-04
County distress indicators
ECONOMIC INDICATORS
Economic indicators remain stronger than national averages.
Unemployment Rate
3.0%
NC 3.5%US 4.4%
Lower than most U.S. counties
Source: BLS LAUS · 2026-0667d ago
Poverty Rate
10.8%
NC 12.9%US 12.6%
Near national averages
Median Household Income
$79,838
NC $71,866US $82,006
Higher than most U.S. counties
Cost of Living (RPP)
93.8
NC 93.8US 100.3
Lower than most U.S. counties
Home Value (ZHVI)$344,953
County data: BLS, Census ACS, CDC, FBI UCR, Federal Reserve, USDA · Coverage derived from property records · Counties with <2% coverage excluded as likely data errors
