In 2025, just over 12,000 home sales took place in the Wilmington MSA, which includes New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties – up from 2024 but down from the peak sales the Cape Fear region saw during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The median home sales price also ticked up last year to just over $411,000, according to a report from the Cape Fear Realtors and the Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association. The organizations hosted their annual Housing and Construction Forecast event on Tuesday, during which three economists highlighted trends at the local and national levels.

According to Mouhcine Guettabi, an associate professor of economics at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the area’s regional economist, economic growth in the region continues to outpace statewide and national growth. However, it has returned to pre-pandemic levels.

“The narrative at the national level is that there was deceleration of growth and many of the COVID winners have slowed down quite a bit,” Guettabi said on Tuesday. “North Carolina is still growing really fast. The region does not seem to have slowed, in particular Brunswick and Pender.”

Domestic migration has fueled the population increase in the region and statewide. Between 2024 and 2025, for example, North Carolina added about 13 people for every 1,000 residents, Guettabi said.

“Were it not for domestic migration, the area would have lost considerable population, with the exception of Pender County over the last three years having minor, positive, natural change,” Guettabi said. “We're experiencing more deaths than births.”

That growth has led to issues of affordability, traffic congestion and other side effects, Guettabi said. It’s also played a role in the region’s evolving economy.

“There is this myth that we only have retirees, or we only have jobs in leisure and hospitality, but there is, quote, unquote, good growth that's happening in very high-paying sectors like finance, like the information sector, like technology,” he said, “and so that's been really healthy.”

On a national level, climbing oil prices stemming from the Iran war and wobbles in the stock market have led to “great uncertainty in the marketplace,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors.

Higher oil prices will likely translate to higher mortgage rates, he said, but if the conflict resolves quickly, he expects mortgage rates to fall back to around 6%. Nationwide, home sales have been slow over the last three years.

“We had two years of frenzied conditions in the low-interest-rate environment, but when the Federal Reserve raised interest rate aggressively, the mortgage rate went from 3% to 8% everything flipped,” Yun said. “Home sales have remained sluggish for the past three years.”

He said he expects the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates twice in 2026, a move that won’t directly lower mortgage rates but could reduce costs for some homebuilders.

Consumer sentiment remains low, Yun said, despite a relatively strong labor market. The job market represents a pent-up demand for housing, he said, and lower mortgage rates and more housing inventory could help draw workers into the market.

Fan-Yu Kuo, senior economist with the National Association of Home Builders, said the economic outlook for the housing market is “much more complicated” than it was a year ago. The status of tariffs, tax cuts included in the One Big Beautiful Bill and climbing oil prices all contribute to current economic uncertainty, she said.

“Oil is a global market, so higher oil prices are fitting into the entire supply chain,” she said, “and that will push up transportation costs, push up inflation and these are going to create another headwind for new construction and new development.”

Kuo said she’s now forecasting one rate cut from the Federal Reserve. While population growth continues to slow nationwide, Kuo said there remains demand for housing, especially affordable housing options. 

She added that AI could help make workers more productive, which could translate into higher wages and more buying power in the real estate market.

“Home ownership is still out of reach for many households,” she said. “People are still in rentals longer, and this will continue supporting this underlying rental demand.”