Dallas Fort Worth

Single-Family Housing Permits & Starts Still Stagnating

The Census Bureau reported permits and starts numbers for May which were less than impressive. While permits were up from revised April figures, they were still lower than levels seen last year. Single-family permits (one unit structures) were down 3.3 percent from the same time a year ago. The sluggish numbers for housing permits and starts in May is a bit surprising to some of the experts considering the recent plunge in mortgage interest rates. Unfortunately there is more to the demand for new homes than just ultra low interest rates. Housing starts in May [...]

Denton County Employment Growth Still Solid, Why Are Home Sales Stagnating?

Denton County employment growth is still humming along. The Dallas-Fort Worth area continues to add jobs. Even with the job growth, home price gains in the DFW area continue to slow. This is confirmed in the recent numbers from Case-Shiller. Along with many professional PhD economists, the Case-Shiller committee seems to be puzzled that the housing market isn't firing on all cylinders given the recent plunge in mortgage interest rates. "Given the broader economic picture, housing should be doing better." Even Freddie Mac's deputy chief economist seems to be perplexed that the housing market isn't [...]

New Home Sales Improve On Lower Rates, Big Drop In Prices

According to the Census Bureau new home sales for March posted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 692,000, a 3 percent increase from the same time last year and 4.5 percent better than February sales numbers. Apparently the big drop in mortgage interest rates continued to provide some lift to the new home market in March. This confirms what we were seeing in the DFW market last month as new home sales outperformed the resale market. The supply of new homes stood at 5.0 months in March, up from 4.5 months a year ago. [...]

Denton County New Home Sales Spring To Life In March

Denton County new home sales are enjoying a spring revival courtesy of lower mortgage interest rates. Preliminary March data for North Texas shows that home sales rebounded in March, with new home sales driving the action. Buyers were obviously lured off the fence in the DFW area when it came to buying new homes. It also helped that new home builders were keeping price points lower. The average price of new homes in Dallas-Fort Worth still shows to be softening. Pending sales data for March looks a bit weaker than closings, so it will be [...]

Denton County Employment Growth Continues In 2019

The BLS February employment report was a big disappointment in terms of the number of jobs added, but Denton County continues to see solid employment growth. So far in 2019 the trend of more jobs in the area is still intact. The Dallas-Fort Worth area is still churning out jobs, and that is certainly welcome news considering the larger macroeconomic backdrop. For the time being, Denton and the DFW area are still churning out decent job numbers. The Texas economy added 15,400 seasonally adjusted nonfarm positions in January 2019, and Texas employers added 292,000 jobs [...]

Want To Sell Your Denton County Home? Time To Get Real

Denton County home sellers are experiencing a different real estate market in 2019. It's the type of market some people probably remember, but one they haven't experienced for a number of years as the Federal Reserve and other global banks jawboned markets higher and fueled a speculative frenzy in global real estate. Average days on market continued to rise in February. Even though sales activity rebounded a bit last month, the Denton County housing market correction that started during the last half of 2018 is still taking shape. While many housing pundits and professional economists [...]

Dallas Fort Worth Employment Growth Still Solid, For Now

Dallas-Fort Worth employment numbers show that the DFW economy was still on solid footing in December. While local job growth has been slowing a bit, the economy has been rather resilient. Texas posted annual employment growth for 104 consecutive months in December 2018. The state unemployment rate stood at 3.7 percent. Unemployment in Texas was near record lows for a third consecutive month as we ended the year, and unemployment in the DFW area was lower than the state average at only 3.3 percent. With the recent slowdown in the economy, it will be interesting [...]

Lennar Homes Misses Q4 Sales & Order Estimates, KB Net Order Value Declines 21%

Lennar Homes posted higher revenue and income for the fourth quarter of 2018, but new home sales and orders for Lennar missed analyst estimates. Accounting for Lennar's absorption of CalAtlantic the company's 14,154 home sales still fell short of analyst estimates for 14,485. The bigger concern for Lennar is likely the 5 percent miss on orders which came in at 10,611 instead of the analyst estimate of 11,774. Lennar's gross margin on home sales for the quarter fell from 22.4% to 21.4% Operating margin softened to 13.5% Revenues for the quarter were bolstered by a [...]

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 [...]

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