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Dallas Housing Poised For A Rebound - But How Big?
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After slogging through two years of decline, the North Texas housing market is headed for a rebound in 2010. The only question, analysts say, is how strong the bounce-back will be. And that depends on the economy, of course.
"Any sustained turnaround in sales and construction activity will definitely depend on the economy and job growth," said D'Ann Petersen, a business economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Petersen said there are signals that the worst is over for the Dallas-Fort Worth housing market. Next year will look better for builders and buyers.
During the last two months, sales of pre-owned homes have increased significantly from year-ago numbers, and price declines have slowed. At the same time, the number of homes for sale in North Texas has fallen to the lowest level in more than two years.
Given the demand from homebuyers, builders will have to start more houses in 2010, said David Brown, an analyst with Metrostudy.
"There now is currently less than a six-month supply of homes priced under $250,000 and just over a six-month supply of homes priced between $250,000 and $500,000," Brown said.
Builders started only about 13,000 homes this year in North Texas the smallest production volume in almost two decades.
Ted Wilson of Residential Strategies Inc. is projecting about 15,000 home starts in the DFW area next year. [Dallas Morning News]
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Welcome To Our Website
This website is one piece of a multi-faceted service commitment that combines personal, one-on-one attention with dynamic web and e-mail resources to deliver the most comprehensive and timely service to you.
As your real estate agent, We bring years of experience successfully buying and selling homes in the local market. We know the neighborhoods, schools, market conditions, zoning regulations and what it takes to make the deal go through.
It takes a full-time commitment - anything less and you'd be short changed. As full-time agents, We're able to "work the market" for you, keeping up-to-date with new listings and conditions as they impact the market.
It would be our honor to serve as your real estate agent. Let's get together to talk about your home buying and/or selling plans. Call us at 469-363-0209 or send us an e-mail info@TexasRealtorGroup.com, we'll set-up a time to meet that is easy and convenient for you.
We look forward to working with you!
Chuck Horton
Texas Realtor Group
469-363-0209
info@TexasRealtorGroup.com
P.S. If you're not ready to meet in person, please tour our website. We're sure you'll find the resources here useful and helpful. Enjoy!
    
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Economic development leaders
bullish on Dallas area
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas-Fort Worth area is well-positioned to grow new business after the recession ends, economic development leaders predicted Thursday in a presentation to a local real estate group.
"We have a lot of things going for us," Karl Zavitkovsky, the city of Dallas' director of economic development, told executives at a meeting of the North Texas CCIM real estate property group. "I think we will come out of this earlier than elsewhere in the country and in a lot better shape."
North Texas is not at the epicenter of today's economic and housing downturn, as it was in two previous economic ones the 1980s savings and loan crash and the more recent burst of the dot-com bubble.
"We see us having a better ability to weather the storm," said Jay Chapa, Fort Worth's director of economic and community development. "It's helping us have a softer landing in this downturn."
Robert Sturns, Arlington's economic development manger, said the opening of the new Cowboys Stadium and other gains have insulated his city from the worst national economic situation in generations.
"I wonder where the recession is happening," Sturns said. "I see people shopping and dining."
Since Texas has not suffered the steep declines seen in many parts of the country, local boosters are bullish on the area's prospects once companies start hiring again.
"There is pent-up demand with a lot of people sitting on the sidelines," said Sally Bane, who heads Plano's Economic Development Board. "When the conditions begin to improve, a lot of people are going to come off the fence."
But Bane predicts that businesses will still be frugal about their real estate needs.
"They are looking very strongly at what space they are going to need," she said. "But I think we will be successful in pulling some new business into this area."
Inquiries from companies looking to relocate to the Frisco area are up substantially this year, said Jim Gandy, president of the Frisco Economic Development Corp.
"But they are moving real slow," Gandy said. "They are taking more time to evaluate opportunities.
"They are doing hard bargains with building landlords.
Dallas Home Prices Remain Strong,
Even In A Declining Market.
S&P Press Release: Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, shows continued broad based declines in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States, with 14 of the 20 metro areas showing record rates of annual decline and 14 now reporting declines in excess of 10% versus October 2007.
"The bear market continues; home prices are back to their March, 2004 levels." says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. "Both composite indices and 14 of the 20 metro areas are reporting new record rates of decline. As of October 2008, the 10-City Composite is down 25.0% from its mid-2006 peak, and the 20-City Composite is down 23.4%. In October, we also saw three new markets enter the ‘double-digit’ club. Atlanta, Seattle and Portland are reporting annual rates of decline of 10.5%, 10.2% and 10.1%, respectively. While not yet experiencing as severe a contraction as in the Sunbelt, it seems the Pacific Northwest and Mid-Atlantic South is not immune to the overall demise in the housing market."
Three of the metro areas have given back, on average, more than 30% of the value of homes since October of last year. Phoenix remains the weakest market, reporting an annual decline of 32.7%, followed by Las Vegas, down 31.7%, and San Francisco down 31.0%. Miami, Los Angeles, and San Diego were close behind with annual declines of 29.0%, 27.9% and 26.7%, respectively.
Monthly data also does not show much improvement in the national housing market. All 20 metro areas, and the two composites, posted their second consecutive monthly decline. In addition, six of the MSAs had their largest monthly decline on record Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, Minneapolis, Tampa and Washington. Most of the positive monthly data recorded in the spring and summer months, merely reflects seasonal patterns in home prices, as opposed to a turnaround in the downward spiral in national home prices.
Dallas and Charlotte faired the best in October in terms of relative year-over-year returns. Still in negative territory, their declines remained in low single digits of -3.0% and -4.4%, respectively. It should be noted, however, that both of these values are worse than those reported in the September data. In addition, Charlotte also reported its second consecutive largest monthly decline on record, down 1.8%. Cleveland and Denver were the only markets that showed any improvement in its year-over-year returns compared to last month’s report.
Bargins Found In Foreclosures!
"Right now may be the best buying opportunity we’ve seen in a while...in many North Texas neighborhoods property values are down, foreclosures are up, and interest rates are 1.25% away from all-time record lows.
“We are again seeing first time home buyers and savvy investors back in the market trying to take advantage of the opportunities afforded us by the mortgage crisis. Smart buyers are seeing this as a perfect time to obtain something very positive from this gloomy and uncertain time.
Foreclosed homes now make up a sizable portion of the housing for sale in North Texas.
Currently, there are more than 3,100 foreclosed properties identified in the Realtors' local multiple listing services. But the number is definitely higher since not all sellers of foreclosed houses choose to identify the properties as distressed sales.
Are you a first time home buyer or has it been awhile since you bought a home, or perhaps when you bought your first home you were not explained or given proper guidance in the mortgage and real estate process? "Knowing and understanding everything from your credit, creative ways of coming up with a down payment, using your IRA to invest, tax strategies, how to save money with better home loan strategies and much, much more is imperative in today's market," says Chuck Horton. With a plethora of information available, we empower buyers and sellers to be able to make better and more informed decisions relative to the current market to maximize their opportunities while minimizing their market risk.
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DFW October home foreclosure postings up 35 percent |
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Home foreclosures this month surged even higher in the Dallas-Fort Worth area - up more than 35 percent from a year ago. Through the first ten months of 2008, more than 42,000 DFW area homes have been posted for foreclosure auction, according to Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service Inc. "Everything is up significantly, and the market is still very unstable," said chief executive George Roddy. "I'm not sure why we are seeing this flood of foreclosures toward the end of the year." Home foreclosures postings through October are up about 20 percent from the same period last year and up more than 30 percent from 2006. About 40 percent of the houses posted for foreclosure each month are sold at auction by the lender. The latest foreclosure postings for October's auctions showed the biggest jump was in Collin County - up 50 percent from a year earlier. Postings in Tarrant County were up 38 percent, and they rose 32 percent in Dallas County.
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Foreclosures hit almost every DFW neighborhood |
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A close look at homes lost to foreclosure in the first half of the year shows that the pain is being felt in almost every neighborhood. The largest number of foreclosures in the first six months of the year were in ZIP codes 75115 - which includes most of DeSoto - and 75052, Grand Prairie, according to data supplied by Foreclosure Listing Service. Broken out by city, the largest number of foreclosed homes in the first half of the year were in Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and Garland. The foreclosed homes in the five-county area on average had $123,668 in debt, a tax value of $148,384 and loans that were four years old. The foreclosed residences averaged about 1,941 sf. And the average age of the homes was 24 years. "If you look at those areas, most of them have subdivisions that have been built in the last few years and that are way out," said George Roddy, Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service. "They wanted to get in a new home and get in it cheap and weren't thinking about the cost of commuting." Currently, there are more than 3,100 foreclosed properties identified in the Realtors' local multiple listing services.
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Tough times ahead, but state's economy better than most |
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With fears of a national recession growing by the day, Texas is still expected to avoid the worst of it, thanks to momentum from the state's booming energy business, healthy technology industry and strong foreign trade. "I think we're probably in a recession right now," said Bernard Weinstein, a University of North Texas economist, referring to the U.S. economy as a whole, with its housing bust, weak consumer spending and cooling job market. "But from an economic perspective, the best place to be in the United States in 2008 is Texas," Mr. Weinstein said. "The national economy may contract, but we'll just have a slowdown here." Some potential weak spots are retail, restaurants and manufacturing. Housing might be the most troubled part. North Texas never saw the skyrocketing home values common in California, Florida, the Northeast and parts of Nevada and Arizona. So the housing bust here is apt to be less painful. But it is already taking a toll. Dallas home prices have been flat, and many neighborhoods, especially those with low-priced and moderately priced homes, have seen declines. Sales of preowned homes in North Texas plunged 25 percent in December, compared with the same month in 2006, according to North Texas Real Estate Information Systems Inc. New home starts dropped 36 percent in 2007 compared with the previous year, said Ted Wilson with Dallas-based firm Residential Strategies Inc. At the peak of the housing market in 2006, the Dallas-Fort Worth area was seeing more than $11 billion a year of home construction. This year, Wilson expects a figure closer to $9 billion. The manufacturing industry may also see added job losses. While the U.S. economy has been losing manufacturing jobs for years, Texas bucked that trend in 2005 and 2006, gaining more than 39,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In 2007, the state's manufacturing industry shed 6,300 jobs through December, although North Texas posted a small gain. The Barnett Shale natural gas development has made the area one of the hottest natural gas plays in the country, injecting cash into the local economy and supporting thousands of jobs. Between 2005 and 2007, the Dallas-Fort Worth area's job base grew more quickly than that of any U.S. city except Houston, according to the Labor Department. And it added more jobs than any major city except New York. Dallas grew by 160,700 during the period, while the Big Apple added 180,000. The Dallas Fed's local business cycle index, which tracks economic activity, shows signs of stress. The indexes for Dallas and Fort Worth grew more slowly than those of Houston, San Antonio and Austin in November. And the statewide index itself was up 2.7 percent in November, compared with October's 2.9 percent rise.
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This information was provided by:
Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University
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Today's Rates:
| 30-yr Fixed | 4.97% | 5.13% | | 15-yr Fixed | 4.33% | 4.56% | | 1-yr Adj | 4.27% | 5.3% |
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