DFW Real Estate

DFW Housing Market Will Hit The Wall Again

The DFW housing market is reflating on borrowed time, and it will soon hit the wall again. North Texas home sales jumped roughly 8 percent in October, while Dallas-Fort Worth home prices experienced some of the best gains in 2 years.  Pending sales for October were also higher, indicating we'll likely be able to finish out the year on a positive note for the housing market. This may seem like great news for housing market aficionados and the area's largest paper, but things will soon get interesting as the parlor trick of plunging mortgage rates [...]

DFW Contract Activity Cools In April As Stimulus From Lower Rates Fades

DFW contract activity faded in April. Looking at the preliminary sales data for North Texas, it is apparent that the stimulus from the big drop in mortgage rates has run its course. It will be another week or so before we get the official press release numbers, but the data is telling. April was another good month for home sales. Actual closings for home sales showed a robust real estate market in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but contract signings were another matter. Preliminary sales data indicate that the DFW real estate market is peaking prematurely [...]

Denton County Home Sales See March Revival

Denton County home sales experienced a spring revival in March as plunging mortgage interest rates helped to offset continued affordability constraints. Home sales jumped 5 percent in the area while pending sales edged 6 percent higher for the month. The big decline in mortgage rates boosted home sales activity. Average home prices in Denton County also edged higher in March, rising almost 2 percent compared to March of last year to nearly $365,000. New home sales in the Denton area experienced the biggest boost from the recent interest rate swan dive. Sales of existing single-family [...]

Denton County Home Inventory Rises 30 Percent As Sales Continue To Fall

The number of homes for sale in Denton County Texas is up 30 percent year-over-year in November. This is happening even as the number of closed sales in Denton County continues to decline. In Layman's terms, the housing market has peaked in Denton County Texas. You know your real estate market is due for some softness when the Wall Street Journal explicitly tells you that the housing boom is over. Looking at area inventory levels, you can see that home inventory has actually been rising for more than a year. This is true in Denton [...]

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 [...]

All Roads Still Point Toward Yield Curve Inversion

With the Federal Reserve's balance sheet normalization process set to kick into a higher gear next month, all roads still point toward a yield curve inversion. While govt officials and the Fed's pie-in-the-sky economists continue to was about a robust economy with unemployment levels hovering near cycle lows, there are some widening cracks appearing in the global QE Ponzi scheme. Yesterday the Fed found some "widespread and critical deficiencies" in Deutsche Bank's capital planning controls. You don't say! The stock of Germany's largest bank, a toxic time bomb of opaque derivatives, continues to plumb news [...]

Toll Brothers Stock Trips On Higher Cancellation Rate

Luxury home builder Toll Brothers reported fiscal second quarter results today, and Mr. Market was not amused. Toll Brothers net income declined for the latest quarter as did income from operations. Income from operations fell from 10.1 percent of revenues last year to 8.4 percent of revenues in Q2 2018. Perhaps more concerning was the jump in Toll's cancellation rate, rising from 3.5 percent last year to 5.2 percent in the second quarter of 2018. While the absolute percentage may seem small, this is actually a significant development when you consider that Toll can be extremely [...]

Denton County TX Home Sales Flat In February As Prices Rise

Denton County home sales followed the trend in the DFW area during February, roughly unchanged from the same sales volume a year ago. The average price of a Denton  County home rose almost 5 percent year-over-year to just over $341,000. The median price of a Denton County home rose 7.5% to $304,990. The average price of a new Denton County home rose 9.6 % in February to $432,625. Resale price gains were more muted in February, rising only 4.0 percent compared to last year. Pending home sales in both Denton County and the greater DFW [...]

Dallas TX Employment Engine Sheds 59,000 Jobs In January Turnover

The Dallas TX employment engine was misfiring as we headed into 2018. Recently revised figures from the Texas Workforce Commission show the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA shedding 59,000 jobs in January. While it is typical for the January numbers to decline after the holiday turnover, the 59,000 jobs lost in January represents the highest seasonal turnover loss in several years. Employment levels were already declining with the December numbers, so this is a development that could be worth watching. We'll know more in a few weeks when we get the February employment data. What is particularly [...]

Federal Reserve Sowed The Seeds Of The Next Housing Downturn

The Federal Reserve is poised to cause yet another housing downturn in the U.S. I'm not talking about a spectacular Lehman style apocalypse mind you, but an honest downturn that will be unavoidable. Today's S&P Case-Shiller home price index showed another rise in Dallas home prices in November. This is essentially lagged data confirming what most prospective DFW home buyers already knew, namely that Dallas area home prices are pretty damn high. The national index showed that U.S. home prices were up 6.2 percent, or roughly three times average U.S. hourly income growth. The BEA [...]

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