Two buyers put offers on the same kind of home in Holly Springs this spring. Same price. Same closing date. Same lender pre-approval letter tucked behind the offer page. One buyer got the house. The other got a polite email thanking them for their interest.
The difference wasn't the number everyone assumes matters most. It was a smaller check, written to a different party, for an amount most first-time buyers barely think about until their agent brings it up. In North Carolina, that check is the due diligence fee, and in a market moving the way Holly Springs is right now, it does more work than the offer price itself.
Two Checks, One Old Argument
Every North Carolina purchase contract asks a buyer to write two separate checks. Earnest money goes into an escrow account, held by a broker, title company, or attorney, and comes back to the buyer if the deal falls through the right way. The due diligence fee goes straight to the seller, is nonrefundable the moment it's delivered, and stays with the seller even if the buyer walks away for any reason during the investigation window.
The fee exists because of a fight that predates most current buyers' home search. Before 2011, North Carolina contracts only used earnest money, and a buyer could take weeks to inspect a house, order an appraisal, finish underwriting, then walk away and get every dollar back. Sellers took their homes off the market, turned away other interested buyers, and had zero compensation if the deal collapsed for no stated reason at all. The North Carolina Real Estate Commission added the due diligence fee to the standard contract that year specifically to give sellers something in exchange for that risk.
For most of the 2010s the fee stayed modest, sometimes just a few hundred dollars. Then came the run of years when Triangle inventory disappeared and multiple-offer situations became routine. Fees that once covered a nice dinner started running to 10 or 20 percent of the purchase price in the most competitive listings, a real and painful number on anything over $400,000. That period has passed. Fees across the region have settled into a more predictable range, typically $2,000 to $10,000, or roughly 1 percent of the purchase price for most transactions.
That's the generic advice a buyer finds everywhere. It's also the exact number that loses homes in Holly Springs right now.
Why Holly Springs Hasn't Settled At The Generic Number
As of March 2026, Holly Springs listings carried a median asking price of $642,000, with a median of 33 days on the market and a sale-to-list ratio of 99 percent. A sale-to-list ratio that close to 100 means sellers are, on average, getting almost exactly what they asked for. Separately, Zillow's home value estimate for Holly Springs sat at $579,090 during that same window, down 1.2 percent from the year before, with homes going pending in around 23 days. Redfin's price per square foot told a different part of the story: up 2.6 percent year over year to $238.
Those three numbers don't all point in the same direction on price, and that's worth sitting with rather than smoothing over. A slightly softer year-over-year value estimate next to a rising price per square foot and a near-full sale-to-list ratio describes a market that isn't crashing and isn't roaring either. It describes a market where well-priced, well-presented homes still move fast and still sell close to ask, even as the overall value trend cools a notch.
That's precisely the environment where a due diligence fee sized for a "cooling market" backfires. If a buyer walks in offering the generic 1 percent because national headlines say the frenzy is over, and the seller is fielding two or three other offers on a home that will realistically close within 33 days at 99 percent of ask, that buyer's fee reads as hesitant. Sellers and their agents read fee size as a proxy for how seriously a buyer has thought through the deal. A thin fee on a home with this kind of demand behind it signals a buyer who priced the house like it's 2019.
What The Number Actually Needs To Say, By Neighborhood
The right fee also depends heavily on which Holly Springs a buyer is actually competing in. The town isn't one market. It's several, stacked at different price points with different competitive pressure.
| Neighborhood | Recent price signal | What a buyer is really competing against |
|---|---|---|
| Woodcreek | Median listing price around $490,000 | Other established resale homes with straightforward, apples-to-apples comparables |
| Twelve Oaks | Median sale price around $735,000, homes going under contract in about 22 days | New-construction pricing and builder incentives near the Towne Center and Ting Park corridor, not just other resale listings |
A Woodcreek buyer is mostly negotiating against other buyers looking at similar resale inventory. The comparables are close together, the seller's alternatives are limited to what else is on the market, and a fee near the standard 1 percent, sized honestly for that price point, tends to land fine.
A Twelve Oaks buyer is negotiating against something else entirely. Ting Park at Sugg Farm opened and turned into enough of a regional draw that it now pulls visitors in from Fuquay-Varina, Apex, and Cary on a given weekend, and the Holly Springs Towne Center expansion nearby has kept new-construction pricing climbing at the top of the market. A seller in Twelve Oaks isn't just comparing your offer to the resale listing down the street. They're weighing it against what a builder a few miles away is offering in incentives, design options, and warranty coverage on a brand-new home at a similar price point. Winning that comparison usually takes more than matching the neighbor's last sale. It takes a fee that tells the seller you've already done that math and you're not treating this as a backup option while you wait to see what the builder does.
The Builder Adds A Wrinkle Resale Buyers Never Face
Buyers cross-shopping resale against new construction near that corridor run into a due diligence question resale buyers rarely think about: who's actually representing them, and when did that representation start.
New-construction buyers typically meet an on-site sales consultant first, often before they've ever spoken to a broker of their own. That consultant works for the builder. Under North Carolina rule, a broker has to walk through the Working With Real Estate Agents disclosure at the first substantial contact, which is meant to make clear whose interests that consultant is actually representing. Many buyers sign that disclosure without fully registering what it means, then negotiate their entire due diligence period, walk-through schedule, and repair list without independent representation in the room.
Builder contracts also tend to move on a different due diligence clock than resale. New-construction timelines need to leave room for framing walk-throughs, plan reviews, and pre-drywall inspections that a resale contract never touches, and builders negotiate their own fee norms separately from what a resale seller down the street might accept. A buyer comparing a Twelve Oaks resale to a nearby new build isn't just comparing two prices. They're comparing two entirely different negotiation structures, and the fee that makes sense in one doesn't automatically transfer to the other.
What The Window Actually Has To Cover
Whatever the fee ends up being, the due diligence period is the only time a buyer gets to find out what they're actually buying, and Holly Springs adds a few line items to that list that are easy to underbudget.
- A general home inspection in Holly Springs typically runs $475 to $550, and most take two to three hours depending on the home's size and age.
- Radon testing usually adds $150 to $250. Wake County sits in a part of the state where radon presence in soil and rock is common enough that testing is worth building into every offer, not just the ones on older homes.
- A survey isn't required by most lenders anymore, but it's still worth having, especially in neighborhoods with mature lot lines or recent additions. A survey survives the due diligence period rather than counting against it, so it can be ordered without adding pressure to the clock.
None of those costs change the size of the due diligence fee itself, but they do change how much room a buyer needs to negotiate for. A three-week window that has to fit an inspection, a radon test, appraisal turnaround, and final loan underwriting is a tighter squeeze than it looks on paper, and asking for too little time to save face on the offer can cost more than asking for a fair, honest window up front.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Write The Check
If my financing falls through after the due diligence date passes, do I lose everything? Potentially, yes. Both the due diligence fee and earnest money can be at risk if a loan denial or appraisal shortfall surfaces after the deadline. This is exactly why aligning the due diligence date with your lender's appraisal and underwriting timeline matters more than picking a date that just feels safe.
Does the due diligence fee work differently for new construction? The fee mechanics are the same, but the timeline and negotiation usually aren't. Builders often set their own norms for fee size and window length, shaped around framing and pre-drywall inspection stages that resale contracts don't include.
Should the due diligence period be longer in a neighborhood like Twelve Oaks than in Woodcreek? Not necessarily longer, but it needs to be realistic about what you're comparing. If you're weighing a Twelve Oaks resale against nearby new construction, build in enough time to actually tour a comparable new build before your window closes, not just enough time for inspections on the home you've already offered on.
If you're weighing an offer in Holly Springs and want a straight read on what your due diligence fee should actually say, reach out to DiProfio Homes. Vicki and Mia will walk through the numbers with you plainly, neighborhood by neighborhood, before you write either check.
