Statistics

North Texas Housing Market Looks to Fed for Signs of Relief

The North Texas housing market continues to hope for a soft landing by the Fed. Agents and market participants continue to front-run a Fed pivot that hasn't happened. There are plenty of people in the real estate industry who want and need lower rates to bolster their business. Many of these same people are agents and levered speculators who feasted on the $trillions in stimulus that drove the markets to their bubble highs. Fortunately cooler heads are currently driving policy. Normalization in the housing market continues to trim some of the froth from the housing [...]

North Texas Housing Market Correction Taking Shape

A housing market correction is coming to North Texas. Don't say you weren't warned. The data points have been piling up for months. The only question remaining is how this all plays out, or more specifically how much pain the Fed is willing to tolerate. Inflation Rages Today's headline print for CPI inflation came in at a red-hot 7.5%. Despite many experts' assumptions that inflation would be moderating, core inflation has actually been increasing in each of the last three month's readings from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Jerome Powell and the FOMC decided to [...]

Denton County Housing Market Now Dependent On Fed Liquidity

The Denton County housing market is now a dependent of the Fed. Over 3 $trillion in quantitative easing has ramped home prices to record highs while driving inventory to record lows. North Texas housing no longer resembles a normal market. Borrowers can now be in COVID mortgage forbearance for up to 15 months while the Fed is busy blowing another massive asset bubble. The American Enterprise Institute has called out the Federal Reserve for blatantly distorting the housing market, but the Fed is still flooding the system with liquidity. Some FOMC officials are calling for [...]

North Texas Housing Bubble Gasping For Air

The North Texas housing bubble was gasping for air in December. Inventory continued to dry up across the Dallas Fort Worth market, helping to push median and average home prices up 9.7 percent and 12.3 percent respectively. Prices on a per square foot basis hit fresh new highs in North Texas as 2020 came to a close. Ironically we saw a bevy of Federal Reserve officials calling for more inflation in the economy last week while home prices were posting double-digit year-over-year gains. North Texas home sales were up 16 percent from December of 2019. [...]

North Texas Real Estate Market Partying Like It’s 1999

The North Texas real estate market continued to ramp higher in August. Median home prices in Denton County jumped 6.3 percent last month, with average prices rising 7.4 percent compared to a year ago. Denton County home sales increased 10 percent, while pending sales for Denton County homes shot 33 percent. Home buyers are still riding that wave of liquidity, and who can blame them. Mortgage rates just hit a new record low in the latest weekly survey, with the rate on the 30-year fixed dropping to 2.86 percent. Those low rates helped push North [...]

Denton Texas Employment Rebounds, But More Assistance Needed

Denton Texas employment levels continued to rebound in June, but it is obvious more state and federal assistance will be needed to weather the Covid-related job losses. Yesterday Texas reported the 3rd consecutive day of triple digit fatalities and a record high single day death toll of 174 people. Denton County saw its largest one day spike in coronavirus cases during the pandemic. The recent spike in Covid cases and fatalities in the state of Texas has put Texas' economic reopening on hold. The start of the new school year is still a moving target [...]

North Texas Housing Market Hit With Two Viruses

The North Texas housing market is being hit with two viruses. The Covid-19 coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns which halted economic activity resulted in a 26 percent decline in home sales in May. That was the worst annual decline for the Dallas-Fort Worth housing market in a decade. Contrary to the story spun in the area's largest newspaper it wasn't the pandemic that "chased buyers away". The 42 million new unemployment claims and a cliff dive in the stock market were responsible for that. It's difficult to get a mortgage when you are on unemployment, [...]

Coronavirus Hits DFW Home Sales, But Prices Holding Up

DFW home sales took another hit in April. Home sales slid 18 percent during the month of April as the coronavirus took a toll on the Dallas-Fort Worth real restate market. Pending home sales slid even further, falling 24 percent for April. Despite the noticeable seasonal increase in activity during the past few weeks, it appears the spring/summer selling rush we would typically expect is going to be muted by Covid-19 this year. With over 33 million Americans filing for unemployment during the past two months, a downturn in real estate activity should be expected. [...]

North Texas Real Estate Gets Coronafied As Fed Nationalizes Bond Market

North Texas real estate is going to get coronafied, and the coming months will reveal the extent of what looks to be lasting damage for the local real estate market.  The official press release estimates compiled by the A&M RECenter and regurgitated by major media outlets pegged March home sales for a 4 percent increase. It's important to keep in mind these press release numbers are statistical estimates which run off of algorithms accounting for late closings. Sometimes the padding added for late closings or contract activity is overdone, and I believe March is one [...]

Contracts For North Texas Home Purchases Still Shrinking

I have been monitoring the contracts for home purchases in the North Texas area since last week, and the numbers are not encouraging. The number of active option contract properties (listings where the home has gone under contract with a buyer option to back out) continues to shrink. This is not surprising considering the economic backdrop, but it also points to a more prolonged downturn than many in the real estate industry were expecting. Pending sales data for March will not be pretty, but the April data for North Texas home sales could be an [...]

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