DFW Real Estate

Denton County Home Sales Slide 7% In August

Denton County home sales continued to stagnate in August, sliding 7 percent from the same time last year. Denton area home sales declined a bit more than the DFW area as a whole during August,  likely due to the higher average price points in Denton County. The average price of a Denton County home in August posted at $362,872, almost $50,000 higher than the greater DFW area. Pending sales for August are poised to be down double digits in Denton County, even while inventory creeps higher. With home buyers are looking for affordable housing options, [...]

Denton County Home Inventory Climbs 17% As Sales Stagnate

The supply of homes for sale in Denton County TX continues to climb, even as area home sales stagnate. Recent data point to a 17 percent increase in the number of homes available for sale in Denton County compared to this time last year.  Home inventory in nearby Collin County is 21 percent higher than August of last year. Other major metro U.S. markets are seeing home inventory increase by as much as 90 percent. This was an inevitable point in the latest housing market cycle, for reasons that were obvious to anyone paying attention. [...]

Census: New Home Sales For July Slide To 627,000 Annual Rate

The Census Bureau reported new home sales for July at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 627,000. That translates to a 1.7% decline from June's pace but up 12.8% year-over-year. The median price of a new home contracted in July was $328,700, an increase of 1.7%. The average price of a new home sold (contracted) in July posted at $394,300, a rise of 5.9%. The July figures for new home sales were below estimates, and that year-over-year increase is a bit misleading. July of last year was a very poor month for new home sales, [...]

Look For Dallas Fort Worth Employment Engine To Cool

The Dallas Fort Worth employment engine could be cooling off after consecutive years of impressive growth. The latest numbers from the Texas Workforce Commission were still solid for July, reflective of the typical summer turnover, but there are headwinds now blowing against DFW job sector growth. Dallas Fed economists have miraculously figured out that previous employment growth projections for Texas were probably overstated. They have since dialed back their job growth forecast to 2.7%, down from the previous forecast of 3.0% released just last month. While it may catch many local economists off guard, the [...]

New Home Builders Clipped By Weak Order Growth

New home builders had a relatively rough week with several major publicly-traded builders experiencing some nasty haircuts in their stock prices. With the exception of DR Horton, it wasn't a good week for home builder stocks. While Facebook and Twitter were seeing record drops in their share prices, new home builders were also experiencing a hangover from weak growth in new home orders. The Dow Jones Home Construction Index has trended lower for most of the year, down almost 18 percent year-to-date. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why the index peaked just [...]

Foreign Buyers Purchasing Fewer U.S. Homes In 2018

The latest 'Profile of International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate 2018' shows that foreign buyers were purchasing fewer U.S. homes and for lower average prices compared to the same 12-month period. The latest survey from the National Association of Realtors covers April 2017 through March 2018. Some of the highlights include A decrease in purchases from $153 billion to $121 billion A unit decrease from 284,500 properties to 266,800 An average price decrease from $536,900 to $454,400 Texas accounted for 9 percent of foreign purchases of homes, behind Florida (19%) and California (14%) For [...]

New Home Sales Miss Expectations In June Despite Lower Prices

The Census Bureau reported new home sales for June at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 631,000. This was below expectations, and a 5.3 percent decline from May. The previous three months were also revised lower. Compared to last June, new home sales were up a modest 2.4%. Surprisingly, the decline in new construction sales came despite lower median and average prices for new homes in June. The median price of $302,100 was $13,100 less than last year. The average price of $363,300 was $7300 lower. It would appear that new home buyers are suffering [...]

RECenter A&M Economists Still Wasting Texas Realtors’ Money

RECenter at A&M economists and data junkies are still wasting the dues of Texas Realtors that pay a good chunk of their salaries. It seems the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M economists are phase-locked in a myopic pursuit to somehow rationalize or justify the status quo situation with Texas housing. "Intellectual Phase-Locking is a condition that results when dogmatic 'scientific' assumptions inhibit further inquiry." Rupert Sheldrake Last year I wrote about some of the interesting details on the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M and their funding. I have also clued readers in on the [...]

DFW Adds 10,000 Jobs In June, CPI Still Running Hot

The DFW area tacked on another 10,000 jobs during the month of June according to numbers released by the Texas Workforce Commission. That was more than a third of the 27,200 positions gained in Texas during the month. The unemployment rate for the Dallas-Fort Worth- Arlington MSA posted a 3.8 percent, just slightly below the 3.9 percent figure at this time last year. Midland Texas still held the lowest unemployment rate in Texas at only 2.4 percent. While the Dallas area still posted solid job gains during the month of June, the unadjusted numbers show [...]

Dallas Morning News Real Estate Desk Still Missing The Boat

Dallas Morning News' real estate editor, Steve Brown, seems to be waking up to the fact that the DFW real estate market is cooling. He's still off the mark when it comes to the recent peak in DFW home sales, but at least he acknowledged the sales decline last month.  DFW home sales fell for the month of June. See, that wasn't so hard. After successive years of abnormal price growth, the DFW area saw a reported 3 percent decline in home sales in June. I say "reported", because as I detailed in a previous [...]

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