In the Press

Sharp Rebound in North Texas Home Inventory

North Texas home inventory has experienced a sharp rebound in 2024. The savagely unhealthy housing market and a buyers' strike have helped to replenish available housing stock this year. The key has been a dramatic turnaround in existing home inventory. Across the DFW area, existing home supply has rebounded sharply this year. Here's a county-level summary of the resale inventory increases in the Dallas-Fort Worth area through July 2024: Dallas County - Up 63.6% Year-over-Year (3.6 months of supply) Tarrant County - Up 59.1% (3.5 months of supply) Collin County - Up 69.6% (3.9 months [...]

Denton County Home Sales Hit 11-Year Low

Denton County home sales slid to an 11-year low in June. Closed sales continued to stagnate with mortgage rates still hovering near seven percent. Home prices were near all-time highs. The confusing mix of housing unaffordability pushed more more buyers to the sidelines. Closings were 14 percent lower year-over year. Average home prices in Denton County moved up 4.1 percent to $589,000 in June. Pending contracts slid 13 percent year-over-year in June. With sluggish sales, available home inventory perked up significantly last month. Months of supply in Denton County shot up 36 percent from a [...]

Dallas TX Luxury Home Sales Go Parabolic

Luxury home sales were on rocket fuel last month in Dallas Texas. Sales of luxury homes price at a $1 million or more spiked 44 percent from May of last year. The average price of a Dallas home skyrocketed 21 percent year-over-year setting a new record high of $716,131. That's $124,000 higher than May of last year and $63,000 higher than the previous bubble peak of June 2022. While the Federal Reserve is still trying to shrink that bloated balances sheet, The U.S. Treasury department is still pumping out a lot of new debt issuance [...]

Luxury Homes & Land See Strong Demand

Luxury homes and land continue to see strong demand in North Texas. Expensive properties have been driving up nominal prices in North Texas for several months. March 2024 sales data shows average home prices in Denton County up 7.4 percent from last year. Before you get excited, most of the price appreciation over the last few months has been centered in the luxury home market and inflated land values. Zooming in to normal single-family homes between 1500-3500 square feet, average prices increased by 4.1 percent over the past year. In fact, the average price for [...]

Jury Sides With Sellers in Bombshell Commission Suit

The verdict in the Sitzer/Burnett commission trial is in. The jury wasted little time in finding for the plaintiff sellers in the bombshell commission suit involving major real estate brokers and NAR. The jury awarded damages to the seller plaintiffs in the amount of $1.78 billion, with the potential for up to $5.35 billion with treble damages. Jurors ruled that the National Association of Realtors' cooperative compensation rule inflated commission expenses for sellers and that major brokers were also to blame. Defendants NAR, Keller Williams, Anywhere (formerly, Realogy), RE/MAX, HomeServices of America and two of [...]

Denton County Real Estate Market Running Out of Steam

Denton County real estate was running out of steam in September. New cycle highs for mortgage rates and more typical seasonality took a bite out of demand. Sales volume dropped 9 percent compared to the same month a year ago. Pending contract activity fell by a similar amount. Median and average home prices are now lower than where they stood in April. Median prices are still $40,000 lower than where they topped out in the frenzy of 2022. New home builders continued to pull in an outsized portion of sales in September. They are doing [...]

Demand Destruction Hitting Denton County Housing Market

Demand destruction continues to hit the Denton County housing market. The Federal Reserve's housing reset and tighter policy led to a 28 percent slide in home sales in November. Pending contracts for homes were down 24 percent from the same time a year ago. In reality sales numbers are softer than official estimates. We still have another 6 months or so before we'll see more accurate comparisons on sales totals with new construction sales consistently in the MLS. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association mortgage purchase applications are still running about 40 percent lower than [...]

Who Benefits From the Financialization of Housing and Build-to-Rent?

There are countless real estate industry professionals and consultants floating ridiculous narratives regarding single-family rentals and build-to-rent. This is as good a time as any to debunk the "we're filling a need" nonsense. What we're really taking about here is the financialization of housing and the Cantillon Effect. If you are connected to the build-to-rent industry and collect a paycheck from the financialization of single-family housing, okay. No problem with that. Want to ignore the data and look the other way. No problem. It's easy to do. Just don't expect a thinking public with working [...]

Mortgage Rates Breach 5% Mark After Brainard Speech

U.S. mortgage rates breached the critical 5 percent level today. Prepared remarks from FOMC dove Lael Brainard spooked the markets into a tailspin sending yields on the 10-year Treasury above 2.56 percent. Average mortgage interest rates quoted from Mortgage News Daily spiked to 5.02 percent. This is the first time rates have been this high since 2018. You may remember that the fourth quarter of 2018 also saw the stock market and real estate markets come unglued before the Fed stepped in to intervene. Unfortunately for real estate bulls, this time is different. Instead of [...]

Media Narrative on Housing Shortage is Comically Absurd

The current media narrative on the U.S. housing shortage is comically absurd misdirection. Numerous experts in the industry continue to float the same tired narratives and misdirection while media mouthpieces nod in agreement. It's truly sad to watch. News segments offering up explanations of our housing affordability crisis look more like industry infomercials. According the Wall Street arm of the housing industry renting is the new American dream. Wall Street predators are just filling the gap, providing much-needed housing in a time of need. Just a few days ago our local CBS affiliate ran this [...]

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