Mortgage Rates

Mortgage rates for Texas homebuyers

Denton County Home Sales Continued Sliding In December

Denton County home sales continued their slide in December as the Dallas-Fort Worth real estate market saw a 5th consecutive month of year-over-year declining sales activity. Denton County experienced an 11 percent decline in closed home sales along with a corresponding 11 percent decline in pending home sales activity. The drop in forward-looking contract activity suggests that a spring housing rebound may be a tough proposition. Home prices were still rising in many DFW submarkets in December, including Denton Texas where the average price of a home rose 11 percent to $274,012. Looking at a [...]

Hyper-Financialized DFW Housing Market Will Get Worse

The National Association of Realtors reported pending home sales for November slid 7.7 percent compared to a year ago. Of course the headline you probably saw in the media was the 0.7 percent drop compared to October's decline in contract signings. With the stock market poised to finish one of the worst Decembers in recent memory, you can rest assured the hyper-financialized Dallas-Fort Worth housing market is going to get worse before it fully recovers. Chief economist, Lawrence Yun, attempted to diffuse concerns about sliding sales numbers in November in NAR's latest press release, but [...]

Dallas Fort Worth Real Estate Staring At Potential Bear Market

The Dallas-Fort Worth real estate market is looking at a bear of a problem. After the worst Christmas-Eve trading session in history for U.S. stock markets, time is running out for the wise guys on Wall Street to save indices from entering bear market territory. Looking at home prices and sales volumes in the DFW area, it would seem things are still running along fairly normally; however, it could be a mistake to assume the recent softness in home sales is just a blip in an otherwise stabilizing market. We could easily see a rally into [...]

U.S. Existing Home Sales Down Seven Percent In November

The National Association of Realtors reported existing home sales for November at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 5.32 million. This was up slightly from October but still down seven percent compared to the same time last year. The spike in mortgage interest rates was still lingering over the real estate market in November. The median price of an existing home sold in November was $257,700 in November, a rise of 4.2 percent year-over-year and the 81st consecutive month of year-over-year home price increases. The average price of an existing home sold in November [...]

Denton County Home Prices Drop As DFW Sees Worst Sales In 7 Years

Denton County home prices slid 2 percent in November as the DFW housing market experienced the worst sales decline in 7 years. The good news is that the sales volume estimates in the official press releases are now more reflective of reality. The bad news is that actual home sales in Dallas-Fort Worth are still rather soft. Home sales in Denton County dropped 9 percent in November, in line with the 8 percent decline seen for DFW. Pending home sales in Denton County slid 3 percent compared to the same time a year ago, slightly [...]

Powell Keeping Federal Reserve’s Waffle House Open For Business

Not more than two weeks after he was touting the strength of the U.S. economy and how we are in such a good place, Fed chairman Jerome Powell, tossed out a slightly dovish speech to the audience at the Economic Club of New York. The title of the event was the 'Federal Reserve's Framework for Monitoring Financial Stability'. They could just as easily called it sticking your finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. While tossing out the typical central banker sound bites, Powell continued the long standing Federal [...]

October New Home Sales Collapse, Near Three-Year Low

The Census Bureau numbers for October new home sales posted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 544,000 units. This was way below expectations of a 575,000 print, and near a three-year low. As I have been detailing for much of the year, much of that "pent-up demand" that you hear real estate industry mouthpieces talking about is a giant work of fiction, a tired marketing ploy that the media, economists and Realtors have been using in attempt to justify grossly inflated home prices across the U.S. Well, it appears the cat is officially [...]

Higher Prices, Shrinking Homes – Denton County’s New Underwater Borrowers Found In HUD Annual Report

The Department of Housing and Urban Development's Fiscal Year 2018 report to Congress is filled with useful information on the state of the U.S. mortgage market. Contained within the 2018 annual report we can see where the latest crop of underwater borrowers are hiding in Denton County Texas. As the size of new homes continues to shrink, particularly for entry-level buyers, prices increases have begun to moderate or even decline in many areas. This poses a big problem for unsuspecting home buyers who have been roped into the housing market at the cycle peak with [...]

Frisco TX Home Sales Collapse As DFW Market Turns

Home sales were down 13 percent in Frisco TX, the popular suburban Dallas community which is also home to the Dallas Cowboys. Pending sales during the month of October were even worse, falling 16 percent from the same time a year ago. The number of homes for sale in this   in this sports-minded community rose 6.2%. There are over a 1000 homes for sale in Frisco currently, but they aren't selling like they used to. Frisco's real estate problem is the same one plaguing the North Texas market in general. Prices are simply too high, [...]

Jerome Powell Visits Dallas Fed – Global Perspectives In Oblivion

Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, visited the Dallas Federal Reserve yesterday to cap the Dallas bank's Global Perspectives series. Aside from pontificating about global economic perspectives, the meeting between Robert Kaplan and Jerome Powell was insightful for many reasons. Kaplan reminded the audience of Powell's policy experience which includes time as partner at private equity firm the Carlyle Group. Listening to a Goldman Sachs alum toss softball questions to a Carlyle alum is one way, I suppose, to placate a concerned public that the economy is still healthy and the Fed is on the ball, [...]

Go to Top