Bettie Weaver Elementary / Salisbury Catchment
Sold Market Analysis

A +8% median price gain over 12 months is real, but the more durable signal is composition: 5-bedroom homes now represent 52% of all transactions (up from 46% in the prior 12 months), and the $1M+ premium tier has roughly doubled its share of half-year cohorts since H2 2023. Buyers are trading up within the catchment. The trailing 6-month $/sqft of $250 is the highest sustained level in the dataset.

In H2 2023, just 18% of sales cleared $1M. By H1 and H2 2025, that share reached 37–35%. The $/sqft trend reinforces this: H2 2024 was the recent trough at $219/sqft; H1 2026 (n=14) has pushed to $236/sqft. Both moves are driven by what's selling, not just what everything is selling for.

Four-bedroom homes carry a higher median $/sqft but a lower median price — they’re smaller and more attainable. Five-bedroom homes are where the market is heating: their median price grew from $833K (prior 12M) to $952K (last 12M), and their share of transactions climbed from 46% to 52%. Families targeting Bettie Weaver are buying space, and the 5-bed market is tightening.

Long & Foster dominates by volume (60 transactions, ~19% market share) but tracks the market median at $227/sqft. Specialty brokers operating in the premium tier — Shaheen Ruth Martin & Fonville, Engel & Völkers, The Steele Group — show higher median prices with smaller sample sizes, suggesting they concentrate in move-in-ready, competitively priced premium listings. If pricing a $1M+ listing, broker selection matters: the specialists appear to extract more per square foot.

Across all 311 sales, the median home sold at a discount to Zestimate — entry-tier homes show the largest gap, while premium homes trade much closer to Zestimate. The 2026 YTD convergence to near-zero means buyers and sellers are increasingly aligned at Zestimate pricing. Sellers pricing aggressively above Zestimate face a market that has grown more price-sensitive, not less.

Notable outlier: one April 2026 sale at 14113 Riverdowns South Dr closed approximately 17% above Zestimate at $1.16M — likely reflecting condition or renovation premium not captured in Zillow’s model.

May–July consistently account for the largest transaction volume — roughly 40%+ of annual closings in a 3-month window. Winter (December–February) sees roughly 60% less volume. For sellers: spring listing (March–May) captures the deepest buyer pool. For buyers: targeting fall/winter (October–February) means less competition and potentially more motivated sellers — at the cost of narrower inventory selection.