Sampson seeing housing growth

The housing market is alive and well with people moving in and out of area counties for a multitude of reasons, and Sampson County is also seeing its fair share of movement, sources say.

Data from the May 2024 local market update done by Cape Fear REALTORS showed that the housing market in Sampson County is growing. The key metrics listed in the data include active listings, new listings, pending sales, closed sales, median sales price, average cumulative days on market, and month’s supply of inventory.

With the data, Cape Fear REALTORS showed that there are 69 active listings in Sampson County, which is a 30.19 percent increase from May of 2023. The data has also shown a trend of active listings going up for the past three months.

Of those active listings, there have been 31 new listings — a 121.43 percent increase from last year. Closed sales also saw an increase with 21 sales closed in May of 2024.

But the data also showed that the median sales price has increased since last May. Cape Fear REALTORS showed a 3.64 percent increase with the median price being around $250,000 instead of the $220,000 it was last year.

But while the data has showed a changing housing market for the month of May, it was discussed during a June Garland town board meeting that there was a negative growth rate of 5 percent within that town.

Mayor Austin Brown could not say for sure why there was a negative growth rate, but he said it could be because Garland has the highest tax rate of any town.

He also said that “property owners won’t sell,” which means that there’s less people coming into towns due to housing not being available.

Mostly, Brown said he believed there “has to be a reason for people to stay and for people to come.”

Georgina Zeng, owner and realtor with ELC Real Estate in Clinton, shared the same sentiment, but mentioned that Sampson County has a lot of people moving in because it has a lower cost of living compared to the areas surrounding it. But most of these people are still working in places outside of the county, she said.

But even with a lower cost of living, Zeng admitted that there is not a lot of workforce housing, housing made to be affordable for the working population, offered, which can be a hindrance to people when they try to move into the area. Zeng explained that she has been advocating for building workforce housing, but she noted it takes a lot of planning.

“Basically, we don’t have workforce housing,” Zeng said. “I’ve talked to (the economic development team) and it’s not that they don’t want to do it, but there’s not enough funding, number one. There’s not enough land. You can’t just say, do it. There’s a lot of things that we have to do to secure it. There’s a lot of planning.”

Zeng also stressed that there was affordable housing that is in the area, but it’s “taken over by mostly older people. And there’s a long list and long line of people that’s applying.”