Supply of DFW Homes Down!
At the end of 2011, the number of pre-owned single-family homes on the market in the Metroplex was at the lowest level in a decade.
About 27,000 homes were listed for sale with real estate agents in North Texas, 35 percent less than the record 41,647 listings in 2007 and the lowest number since 2001, according to statistics from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University and North Texas Real Estate Information Systems.
“Since sales have maintained a fairly consistent level, the inventory measure is down under five months, which would normally indicate a very strong sellers’ market,” said Center Research Economist Dr. Jim Gaines.
And it’s not just existing homes that are down in number. The Dallas Morning News reported that around 3,000 finished vacant new homes are in the DFW area. That’s about a fourth as many as in 2007.
Source: Dallas Morning News
Read MoreDallas-Fort Worth pre-owned home sales climb 18%
North Texas home sales jumped 18 percent in May, the third month in a row of double-digit annual gains.
Local real estate agents sold 7,119 pre-owned single-family homes last month, the highest monthly total so far this year. Through the first five months of 2010, sales of homes through real estate agents’ Multiple Listing Service are up 12 percent over the same period last year, the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University and the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems said Monday.
May home sales got a boost from the federal tax credit that provided up to $8,000 to homebuyers who had a house under contract by the end of April. Now that the federal tax credit has expired, most analysts anticipate residential sales will cool off.
Indeed, pending home sales are down 23 percent in North Texas, indicating a slower sales pace ahead.
“There may be a few more tax credit sales that will close in June, but the impact will likely be less than the previous two months,” said David Brown, who heads the Dallas office of housing analyst Metrostudy Inc. “We have seen new contracts have slowed in markets across the country with the expiration of the tax credit.”
The median pre-owned home sales price last month was $151,980, up 2 percent from a year earlier. The number of homes on the market last month was down 2 percent from a year earlier, according to the latest MLS reports.
In May, there was a 6.6-month supply of pre-owned single-family homes listed for sale in North Texas. A six-month inventory is considered a balanced market.
Any significant year-over-year declines in home sales probably won’t show up until fall, since that’s when the federal tax credits first began to boost home sales in 2009.
“Expect September, October and especially November numbers to look really bad by comparison to last year’s when the credit was in full force for first-time buyers,” said James Gaines, an economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. “Ironically, mortgage rates under 5 percent don’t seem to be making much difference, except that we don’t know how bad the market might look if rates were, say, around 8 percent instead.”
Homebuilders said new-home sales began to slow in early May after the tax credits expired, said Ted Wilson of Dallas-based housing analyst Residential Strategies Inc.
“Builders remain hopeful that the job growth seen so far this year keeps coming and that sales continue their modest recovery in the second half of the year,” he said.
Source: The Dallas Morning News
Read MoreU.S. PENDING HOME SALES UP
The number of new sales contracts on existing homes jumped a seasonally adjusted 6.3 percent in December as buyers took advantage of lower mortgage rates and falling prices, the National Association of Realtors reported today.
The pending home sales index rose 6.3 percent in December and is now up 2.1 percent compared with a year earlier.
The index is based on signed sales contracts, which usually occur a month or two before the sale is closed.
Source: MarketWatch
Read MoreTexas Existing Home Sales Market Overview
A total of 16,711 existing homes were sold in Texas last month, a 17 percent decline from October 2007, according to MLS data compiled by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. The median price dropped 0.8 percent to $142,300 during the same period, and the state finished the month with a 6.8-month inventory of existing homes.
Here is how select Texas cities fared in October (data current as of Dec. 2, 2008):
Amarillo
226 Sales | Change from Last Year – down 7%
Median Price – $130,000 | Change from Last Year – up 12%
Months’ Inventory – 5.6 months
Austin
1,464 Sales | Change from Last Year – down 23.4%
Median Price – $189,000 | Change from Last Year – up 4%
Months’ Inventory – 5.9 months
Dallas
3,471 Sales | Change from Last Year – down 17.8%
Median Price – $155,700 | Change from Last Year – up 0.6%
Months’ Inventory – 6.3 months
El Paso
413 Sales | Change from Last Year – down 5.9%
Median Price – $130,500 | Change from Last Year – down 0.3%
Months’ Inventory – 12.6 months
Fort Worth
730 Sales | Change from Last Year – down 20.9%
Median Price – $109,100 | Change from Last Year – down 6.6%
Months’ Inventory – 5.9 months
Houston
4,671 Sales | Change from Last Year – down 20.1%
Median Price – $142,400 | Change from Last Year – down 2.8%
Months’ Inventory – 6.4 months
Lubbock
192 Sales | Change from Last Year – down 23.8%
Median Price – $116,400 | Change from Last Year – up 6.4%
Months’ Inventory – 5.4 months
San Antonio
1,470 Sales | Change from Last Year – down 14.6%
Median Price – $143,500 | Change from Last Year – down 0.6%
Months’ Inventory – 8 months
Waco
166 Sales | Change from Last Year – down 9.3%
Median Price – $117,500 | Change from Last Year – up 9.2%
Months’ Inventory – 8 months
Nationally, sales of existing single-family homes dropped 1.6 percent over the past year to a 4.98 million seasonally adjusted annual pace, according to the National Association of Realtors. At $183,300, the median sales price was down 11.3 percent from a year earlier. Inventory was at 10.2 months.
Meanwhile, sales of new homes nationally were at 433,000 in October, off more than 40 percent from a year ago, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The median sales price was $218,000. At the current sales pace, there was more than an 11-month inventory.
Source: Real Estate Center
Read MoreHOME SALES RISE UNEXPECTEDLY
Sales of existing homes posted an unexpected increase last month after six straight months of decline, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
NAR reported that sales of existing homes rose by 2.9 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.03 million units, the biggest increase in a year.
The median existing sales price last month fell to $195,900. That was the largest year-over-year drop on records that go back to 1999.
Sales surged by 11.3 percent in the Northeast and were up 2.5 percent in the Midwest and 2.1 percent in the South. The only region that had a decline was the West, where sales dropped by 1.1 percent.
Source: Associated Press
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