CHARLOTTE, N.C. — At the end of 2022, existing home sales across the Charlotte region declined 15.3% year-over-year, according to Canopy Realtor Association.  

What You Need To Know

Exisitng home sales in the Charlotte region declined 15.3%

There were 3,065 closed sales during the month of December 2022 throughout the region

At report time on January 5, 2023, there were 6,479 homes listed for sale in inventory

There were 50,286 homes sold across the region last year. Additionally, Charlotte had approximately 9,300 more home sales in 2021 than in 2022. This also included 12 consecutive months of year-over-year declines. Home sales in 2022 were on the same level with sales at the end of 2019, which is good due to the overall pace of the market and amount of inventory, according to Canopy.

“Our region has had a tremendous amount of growth over the last year, even though year-over-year sales activity didn’t reach the level of activity we saw during the height of the pandemic," said 2023 president of Canopy Realtor Tiffany Johannes.

Buyers pulled back from the market during 2022, due to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates in response to inflationary pressure. 

As for inventory, there were 3,065 closed sales during the month of December 2022 throughout the region and more than 6,000 homes listed in early January at the time of Canopy's report. This is a 54% increase from the same time period in the previous year, Canopy officials said. 

Johannes addressed the theory that a recession is looming and the impacts that might have on the market. 

“A number of economists are suggesting that we will experience a recession this year and a broad range of indicators like the housing market slowdown, are starting to show this," Johannes said in a news release. "But buyers need to understand that a recession doesn’t necessarily equate to home prices falling. In fact, with inflation beginning to ease, rates are expected to fall a bit more in response, but the days of 3% rates are likely behind us. Our outlook at this point shows that any recession would be mild and housing would play a key role in an economic rebound.”

Canopy Realtor Association provides monthly reports on residential real estate market for the Charlotte region. To learn more on residential-housing market statistics visit here.