Real Estate

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, [...]

October Swoon Suggests Denton County Real Estate Market Correction Just Getting Started

Denton County's real estate market is going to post some very soft numbers again for October. Both closed and pending home sales are going to be down year-over-year while pending home sales are likely going to post a double-digit decline not just in Denton County, but for the entire Dallas-Fort Worth housing market. OUCH! Available home inventory is shooting higher across the DFW area. While notable economists at the Federal Reserve, local real estate "professionals" and even the "experts" at the RECenter at Texas A&M have been dismissing recent developments as just a cooling off [...]

New Home Sales Fall 13.2 Percent In September As Inventory Rises 34 Percent

The Census Bureau reported new home sales for September this morning at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 553,000. This was 5.5 percent below revised August numbers and a 13.2% drop from September last year. The numbers for September new home sales were well below estimates, and they came on top of big downward revisions for previous months as well. Both the median price ($320,000) and the average price ($377,200) were below prices seen last year. The supply of new homes on the market swelled to 7.1 months in September. That translates to a 34% [...]

Denton County Ranks 3rd In Nation For Inbound Migration, Relocation

Denton County Texas ranks as the 3rd most popular destination in the United States according to a recent study from RentCafe on inbound and outbound migration during the past 5 years. Denton was behind only Maricopa County in Arizona and Clark County in Nevada. Not surprisingly, Texas is home to 5 of the 10 most popular inbound destinations. Denton County's net migration gain of 96,000 during the last 5 years is 10,000 more than neighboring Collin County which also made the top 10, posting at number 6. People in Las Angeles, Chicago, New York, Miami [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

New Home Sales Increase To 689,000 Annual Rate In May

The Census Bureau reported new home sales for May at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 689,000 units. This was above forecasts, but previous months were revised lower. According to Census figures the median price of a new single-family home sold in May was $313,000, more than $10,600 LESS than last year's median price. The average price of a new home contracted in May was $368,500, or $9,900 less than May of last year. Putting the May numbers from Census into context with local new home sales, the numbers look plausible. May was a pretty [...]

Denton TX Mortgages – Lock Your Rate Or Not?

Should you lock your Denton TX mortgage interest rate at the time of application? If you are buying a home, it's a difficult question to answer. As early as last week Treasury bears were screaming at the rooftops that yields (and by default mortgage rates) were going to shoot higher, as evidenced by the 10-year Treasury crossing a supposed line in the sand above 3%. What a difference a few days makes! This morning the yield on the benchmark 10-Year Treasury dipped to 2.82 percent, retracing 29 basis points from the recent "line in the [...]

Dallas Morning News Circulation Decline Might Reflect Quality Of Content

The circulation decline at the Dallas Morning News during the last few years might have something to do with the quality of the content. This is just the opinion of your humble blogger. According to Statista, the circulation of the DMN dropped in each of last three years for both daily and Sunday papers. Circulation of Dallas' largest paper still edges out the Houston Chronicle, but that's not saying much. While the number of readers of both papers is significantly higher, it appears fewer people are paying for the old print newspaper. Looking a the [...]

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