Articles Tagged "Texas"

The North Texas housing market is downshifting quickly, with Dallas-Fort Worth being the only U.S. market to see a decrease in home sale prices last month, according to a report released today.  DFW home prices are down 1.9% year over year in July, according to the latest Re/Max National Housing Report.

And what a difference a month makes.  Last month, DFW led the U.S. for home price increases, with June prices up 29.3% over the previous year.   In hard numbers, home sales prices in DFW fell to $413,900 in July from $422,000 in July 2021.   Homes in DFW spend an average of 23 days on the market before selling.

Higher interest rates and inflation, as well as record home prices, triggered a sharp drop in demand for housing, said Todd Luong, a realtor with Re/Max DFW Associates:  "Here at our Re/Max office in Dallas-Fort Worth, our listings are currently getting on average 2.7 showings per week," Luong said. "Last year, at this same time, our listings were earning on average 5.9 showings per week. That is a huge drop in buyer demand compared to the previous year. Record home prices and higher mortgage rates have forced many potential buyers out of the market, especially first-time homebuyers."

While the latest trends may disappoint some sellers, buyers now have more choices and better opportunities for good deals, Luong said.   Luong said that the DFW housing market has been challenged with low inventory for years and reached an all-time low earlier this year, with only a two-week supply. Now, however, inventory is increasing.  "Although buyers have more choices now, it is still not a balanced market as we only have about a two-month housing supply," Luong said. "In a normal market, you have about a five to six-month supply of housing."

A new report from Zillow also found falling home values, although the numbers didn't match Re/Max's precisely because of different study methods and different geographic definitions of DFW as a metro area, among other reasons.  According to Zillow's findings, the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area's typical home value is $396,904, down 1.1% since June, the first month of decline. Values are up 55.4% since July 2019.

Zillow also reported that the mortgage payment on a typical home in DFW is $2,633 a month, including taxes and insurance. That's up 77.4% compared to July 2019.

According to Zillow, inventory in DFW has risen 10.2% since June, and the share of listings with a price cut in July was 22%, compared to 15.6% in June.  Nationwide, after two years of unprecedented growth, home values fell for the first time since 2012 as competition for houses eased, according to Zillow's July market report.

The slowdown is being driven by decreased competition among buyers. Zillow's analysis says that affordability pressures have pushed many to the sidelines, and buyers are waiting in the wings to resume their search if and when prices relax a bit.  Skylar Olsen, Zillow's chief economist, called the flattening of home values "a badly needed rebalancing.  This slowdown is about discouraged buyers pulling back after the affordability shock from higher rates," Olsen said. "As prices soften, many will renew their interest, and we will continue our progress back to 'normal.'"

Luong said he sees positive signs in the market.  The interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage dropped below 5% after peaking in June. More than 290,000 new jobs were added in Dallas-Fort Worth last year, so North Texas has one of the strongest labor markets in the country.   "Reasonably priced homes that are in good condition and move-in ready are still selling very fast," he said. "However, the bidding wars have subsided considerably across the board."

• Dallas Business Journal, August 19, 2022

Housing Prices in DFW and Austin Have Surged Dramatically

The last time the national housing bubble burst, Dallas-Fort Worth and the state of Texas emerged comparatively unscathed from the massive 2008 home price corrections and foreclosure wave that slammed most of the country, including other Sunbelt markets like San Diego, Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

A big reason was that home prices in the Lone Star State didn't skyrocket in the early 2000s preceding the subprime-mortgage-induced smackdown by nearly as much as prices in California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada. Texas hadn't partied as hard as its Sunbelt compadres heading into the crash, so its hangover wasn't as bad.

This time, Texas — DFW and Austin especially — may not be so lucky if the national housing boom is a bubble and a popping ensues, a new study suggests.  This time, housing prices in DFW and Austin, and to a lesser degree Houston and San Antonio, have surged, driven in large part by population and jobs growth spurred by companies large and small relocating to the state.

As of April 30, Austin was the second most overpriced housing market in the nation, and DFW was the 18th most overpriced, according to research by Florida Atlantic University.    The recent heavy demand for homes put buyers at a "major disadvantage," said Ken H. Johnson, an economist in FAU's College of Business. To have an offer accepted, buyers had to outbid multiple competitors, he points out.  Soaring prices fueled by the onset of the pandemic in 2020 and near-record-low mortgage rates have pushed the national housing market into a "crisis stage," and a reckoning is due, the Florida Atlantic researchers' latest report says.

On one hand, the reckoning will likely hit the areas of the country with the biggest run-ups the hardest. On the other hand, areas of the country with persistent inventory shortages and increases in population, such as Texas, Florida and parts of the Northwest, likely won't see as steep of declines in home values, the researchers say. 

• Dallas Business Journal, May 28, 2022

Almost 60,000 more single-family homes for the DFW area

Housing starts climbed by more than 20% in 2021 across North Texas, hitting a new record level of over 58,000 units. The developers of the sprawling residential communities that most of those homes are being built in are busy making room for more.  The Dallas Business Journal, with input from Dallas-based housing market analysis firm Residential Strategies Inc., has compiled a list of a dozen of those developments to keep an eye on for the rest of this year and the next decade or so. 

The list is not comprehensive, but the communities selected for this roundup were selected because they stand to have a major impact on their surrounding areas and shape how Dallas-Fort Worth morphs and where its people live for years to come.   Presented in no particular order, the selections were limited to housing developments that are in early stages and phases:

Elevon, Lavon

The Elevon housing development will bring more than 4,500 single-family homes to 1,500 acres north of Wylie and partially within the Collin County city of Lavon.  Work on the projected $2 billion community east of Plano started in early 2021 by Dallas-based MA Partners LLC.  When completed, Elevon is designed for roughly 4,700 single-family homes, about 1,000 multifamily residences, an 80-acre business park and more than 100 acres of mixed-use construction. The 300-acre initial phase will have 1,000 homes.  MA Partners has developed projects in North Texas, Austin and Houston, including communities the company has in progress in Dallas, Fort Worth and Melissa.

Cartwright Ranch, Crandall

Centurion American Development Group is developing Cartwright Ranch on more than 1,300 acres along Interstate 20 in the Kaufman County city of Crandall.  Plans call for roughly 4,000 homes on the site near Terrell.  Industrial and retail uses are also planned along with the single-family residential in the Farmers Branch-based Centurion American Development Group project.  

Painted Tree, McKinney

The new Painted Tree residential community under development in McKinney will include about 3,400 residential homesites at full buildout ranging from detached townhomes and cottages to larger single-family homes and some custom homesites.   Located north of U.S. Highway 380 near Lake Forest Boulevard, Painted Tree is one of the largest residential developments underway in North Texas. It will have 1,200 single-family homes for purchase in its first phase, and 275 built-to-rent homes will be part of the phase.  Tom Woliver, co-president and founder of Dallas-based Oxland Advisors, the developers of Painted Tree, called it a record-breaking phase one delivery.  "This may be the largest phase one in DFW in history," Woliver said. "It's a pretty aggressive phase one."

The homebuilder line-up for Painted Tree includes Trophy Signature Homes, Normandy Homes, CB Jeni Homes, Tri Pointe Homes, David Weekley Homes, Highland Homes and Drees Custom Homes.  The 1,100-acre residential community is projected to open in 2022.  Amenities at Painted Tree will include 25 miles of looped paths and trails, a 20-acre lake, 11.5-acre signature trailhead and community gathering space called "The Outpost," pools, parks, adventure playgrounds and more.

Hunter Ranch, Denton

Hillwood Communities plans to kick off construction later this year on the 3,200-acre Hunter Ranch development on Interstate 35W in Denton, which is master-planned for more than 6,000 houses.  Located at I-35W and Robson Ranch Road in far southwest Denton, the property includes the landmark Pilot Knob rock outcropping, which Hillwood plans to protect with the buildout.  The city of Denton has already zoned Hunter Ranch and the adjoining Cole Ranch to bring thousands of new homes to the area.

Hunter Ranch and Cole Ranch would encompass about 6,400 acres and bring a combined 19,350 new homes to Denton, boosting the city's housing stock by roughly 50 percent. Together, the development would include 12,900 single-family homes and 6,450 multifamily units, according to prior reports to Denton's City Council.  In addition to 6,500 single-family home sites, Hunter Ranch is planned to have 3,500 multifamily units, about 4 million square feet of commercial construction along I-35W and about 1 million square feet of retail.  Phase 1 will deliver some 800 lots in late 2023, according to Hillwood Communities' Fred Balda.

Prairie Ridge, Midlothian

The Prairie Ridge residential community under development near Midlothian will eventually add 4,600 homes to North Texas at full buildout.  The 1,500-acre master-planned community is being developed by Dallas-based Provident Realty Advisors. The site is off U.S. Highway 287 near Midlothian.  The community will have multiple amenity centers, swimming pools, walking trails and fishing ponds.  Provident Realty also developed Paloma Creek off U.S. Highway 380 in Denton County, which now has more than 5,000 homes. Provident is also developing the Tavolo Park community in southwest Fort Worth.

Pecan Square, Northlake

Pecan Square in Northlake, developed by Hillwood Communities, is the youngest and most successful master-plan launch to date for the Dallas-based residential company, according to Fred Balda, president of Hillwood Communities. It continues to draw buyers with its Town Square concept and on-site co-working space, Balda said.  Pecan Square sold 495 homes in 2021 and 509 the year prior, making it one of the top-selling master-planned communities in the nation in both years, according to John Burns Real Estate Consulting.  More than 30,000 square feet of indoor/outdoor amenity space forms the heart of the $1.5 billion community, including a large former horse arena now repurposed as the event and sports hub for residents.

At buildout, the community will consist of more than 3,000 homes. It's being built on 1,157 acres near the southwest intersection of I-35W and FM 407 in Northlake. Builders include Ashton Woods, CalAtlantic Homes, DR Horton, David Weekley Homes, Highland Homes, Perry Homes, Plantation Homes and Pulte Homes.  Hillwood's Union Park community in Little Elm also made the Burns list of top master-planned communities, with 460 homes sold in 2021 and 607 home sales in 2020.

Silo Mills, Godley

A partnership between Southlake-based Terra Manna and Prophet Equity broke ground late last year on the first phase of Silo Mills, an 840-acre master-planned community in Johnson County.   Located on FM 917 and west of Chisholm Trail Parkway, the residential development is within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Cleburne and Burleson.  Silo Mills will offer 2,500 home sites upon buildout. The first phase will have 262 sites of 50-, 60- and 70-foot lots.   Antares Homes and Bloomfield Homes are the designated homebuilders, and model homes are anticipated for spring 2022. Prices will start in the high $200,000s.  The development will include a resort-style swimming and entertainment complex, parks and playgrounds, trails, water features and preserved green space. The Godley ISD will serve the families in Silo Mills, which will have a new elementary school.

Green Meadows, Celina

Tomlin Investments is building the $2 billion, 1,400-acre Green Meadows master-planned community on Legacy Drive one mile west of the planned Dallas North Tollway extension on the west side of Celina.  Green Meadows will have more than 4,000 home sites at buildout.   The first phase of homes is priced starting in the high $200,000s, and homebuilders on the project include Castlerock Communities, Gehan Homes, Pacesetter Homes and Stonehollow Homes.  Green Meadows, located at Legacy Drive and Punk Carter Parkway, will have a 10,000-square-foot clubhouse with party rooms and a full kitchen, workout facility, a large covered patio, pool with two giant water slides, splash pool, large deck and playground.

Legacy Hills, Celina

The massive Legacy Hills community along the future extension of the Dallas North Tollway through Celina is expected to include 7,000 single-family homes.  The development, spanning 3,200 acres, is also planned for 4,100 apartment units, 100 acres of commercial space, a 27-acre sports park, two Celina Independent School District schools, an extensive network of walking trails, seven amenity centers and a championship golf course.  Centurion American Development Group out of Farmers Branch is tackling the project.  Homebuilders committed to the Legacy Hills development include Ashton Woods, Beazer Homes, DR Horton, First Texas Homes, Lennar Homes, M/I Homes and Mattamy Homes.

Celina and Frisco, Prosper, Forney and Little Elm were some of the hottest markets in North Texas and the nation for new home construction last year.  Last year, Celina, the top residential construction market in North Texas, issued 2,516 building permits in 2021, up 35% from the 1,862 issued in 2020, which was up 49% from the 1,862 permits in 2019.

Mosaic, Celina

Prosper-based Tellus Group has purchased 686 acres in Celina for a new $1.5 billion master-planned community called Mosaic, which will have roughly 3,000 higher-end homes.  The Mosaic property is immediately north of Windsong Ranch in Denton County, just off Frontier Parkway. It's nine miles southwest of downtown Celina and roughly one mile from the Dallas North Tollway.

The community will have a nature-inspired lifestyle theme to encourage residents to connect with the world around them, said Craig Martin, president and founding partner of Prosper-based Tellus Group LLC.  "We have a long track record for developing residential communities of the highest quality while maintaining a commitment to environmental stewardship, value investing and thoughtful land planning," Martin said.  Tellus is perhaps best known for developing Windsong Ranch in Prosper, which boasts a large freshwater lagoon surrounded by white sandy beach as an amenity.

Rolling V Ranch, Rhome

The sprawling Rolling V Ranch residential development northwest of Fort Worth will accommodate 12,500 homes.   Dallas-based PMB Capital Investments has acquired more than 3,400 acres of land for the project near the intersections of State Highway 114 and U.S. 287 in Wise County, with sections of the property in the towns of Rhome and Newark.  In addition to the homes, the project includes over 300 acres of commercial property. The development is estimated to take 30-plus years to build out fully.

Monterra, Fate

Monterra is a 231-acre master-planned residential community in Fate, one of the fastest-growing cities in Rockwall County and the state.  The property, purchased by Dallas-based Wynne/Jackson real estate development firm in the third quarter of 2021, is located on Ben Payne Road, which runs perpendicular to Interstate 30 and provides direct access to the I-30 frontage road. The total project will consist of about 650 lots ranging in size from 50-feet wide to 70-feet wide.   Development began in late 2021 on the project's initial phase, which includes about 250 lots and the amenity center and the initial trail system.  Homebuilders in the project include K.Hovnanian Homes, Grand Homes, Highland Homes and David Weekley Homes, according to Wynne/Jackson.

• Dallas Business Journal, February 25, 2022

Data source: U.S. Census Bureau

·         Urban Edge

The pandemic-fueled Texas house-buying "frenzy" is in the rearview mirror, but it's being replaced by more long-run, sustainable rates of growth on the road ahead, according to a research economist for the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.  Housing sales growth and price growth have peaked and are slowing, the center's Luis Torres said. In addition, months of inventory, listings and days on market have bottomed and are beginning to rise.  "Texas housing sales accelerated after the pandemic shut down the economy in March and April of 2020," Torres said. "This caused the already depleted inventory of homes for sale to reach historic low levels and led to exuberant home price growth."  Texas Real Estate Research Center forecasts for 2021 and 2022 include expectations for strong demand, improving inventories, moderate price growth, and slowly rising mortgage rates.

• Dallas Business Journal, November 10, 2021

More than one of every 10 people moving to Texas during the 2020 pandemic year was from California. Florida, Colorado, Illinois and Louisiana rounded out the top five states exporting people to the Lone Star State.

INFUTOR AND TEXAS REAL ESTATE RESEARCH CENTER AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

We already knew that many of the transplants to Texas hail from California. Now we know just how many.

More than one of every 10 people moving to Texas during the 2020 pandemic year was from the Golden State, according to a study released this week by the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.

In addition, California ranked as the top "move-to-Texas state" in 19 of the last 20 years, said Luis Torres, research economist at the center.

The only exception was 2005 when Hurricane Katrina pushed waves of Louisiana residents into the Lone Star State. 

The share of Californians relocating to Texas has increased every year since 2011, Torres said.

Florida was the second-largest source of new Texans, with a 7.2% share — still less than half of the California influx. Rounding out the top five sources were Colorado, Illinois and Louisiana. International movers were not included in the study.

Another recent study quantifies the companies moving out of California, finding that for the first six months of 2021, the number of companies relocating their headquarters out of the state is running at twice the rate for 2020.

Some 265 companies moved their headquarters to other states from Jan. 1, 2018 through June 30, 2021, based on the date of the announcement or date of documentation with the state, whichever came first, according to a study by McKinney-based Spectrum Location Services and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

According to the paper by Joseph Vranich and Lee Ohanian:

"The losses are accelerating in that such relocations in the first half of 2021, which total 74, exceed that for all of 2020. Every month in 2021, twice as many companies are relocating their headquarters as in the prior year. The half-year monthly average for 2021 also significantly exceeds the monthly averages for 2018 and 2019."

For former California firms, Texas tops the popularity list, attracting 113 of the 265 companies, followed by Arizona and Nevada, according to Vranich and Ohanian's research.

North Texas landed 41 of the 113 companies, the Austin area won 57, the Houston area claimed nine and the San Antonio area lured six.

Shifting back to the migration of people, the majority of newcomers to Texas were from Los Angeles County, making up 3.1% of the total migration, according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center's findings.

"This is not surprising since Los Angeles County is the most populated in California," Torres said. "Four other Southern Californian counties — San Diego, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino — made up the top 10 counties with residents moving to Texas."

"Contrary to popular belief, the majority of people moving from California are coming from the southern part of the state and not from Silicon Valley, which is farther north," Torres added.

Other U.S. counties in the top 10 sources of new Texans were Maricopa (Arizona), Cook (Illinois), Clark (Nevada), El Paso (Colorado), and King (Washington).

The influx of Californians in Dallas-Fort Worth has repercussions across a wide range of industries, including residential real estate, said Sharon Brown, general manager for DFW for Opendoor.

"California buyers are still coming in," Brown said. "They're still displacing folks who are moving out to the suburbs, getting bigger and better homes for their money."

• Dallas Business Journal, October 28, 2021

• 11^th Largest Economy in the World – 1.6 Trillion annually – Greater than Russia or Australia
• 29 million population – larger than Australia, and just under Canada in size
• Tax Donor Status – Texas could pay less federal income taxes.  For every $1 we pay, the state only receives 94 cents in return
• Energy – Texas is self-sufficient.  The US has three energy grids – West, East and Texas.  No other state is self-sufficient in Energy.
• Could we secede?   No, the federal government has made laws against secession
• BUT, Texas could legally divide into 5 states,  This was part of our constitutional agreement with the US when Texas was admitted as a state.  Then Texas could have 10 senators, rather than 2.   This could be done without the approval of the US Congress.

Interesting Facts, You Tube 2019

Dallas is one of the U.S. metro areas where rising home prices have hurt homeownership the most. Dallas, Denver and Houston were identified as the markets where there is the most downward pressure on homeownership, according to a new report by Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University faculty. The study ranked areas where the markets have tilted in favor of renting over buying homes. Researchers traced housing conditions in 23 markets for the report. Dallas was the most unfavorable for homeownership among the cities surveyed. "Of the metros in our index, Dallas is the highest and exhibiting the greatest downward pressure on the demand for homeownership," said Ken Johnson, real estate economist in FAU's College of Business. "The extraordinary appreciation in the area is a major driver of this score."  Dallas' housing market has taken off since the Great Recession, with soaring prices.

• Dallas Morning News, March 20, 2019

The latest North Texas housing market numbers are not very encouraging, to say the least. Home sales were down in many Dallas-Fort Worth neighborhoods in February, and median home sales prices dropped for the first time since 2008-2009 in both Dallas and Rockwall counties.  Dallas County home sales prices fell 2.5 percent in February from a year ago, according to the latest figures from the MetroTex Association of Realtors. Median sales prices slid 4.5 percent in Rockwall County.  Collin and Denton counties eked out tiny year-over-year home price gains last month — less that 1 percent ahead of February 2018.  The only solid home price gain in the region came in Tarrant County, where houses are still relatively affordable.  Lower and moderate-priced house sales are still strong while purchases of expensive properties have lagged.

• Dallas Morning News, March 22, 2019

Texas Ranks 45^th on Taxation

Taxes are one of the few certainties in life — but they do not have to be a great burden. From the checkout counter to the 1040 form due every April, what Americans end up paying in taxes depends largely on where they live.  While all Americans are generally subject to the same federal tax code, each of the 50 states has broad authority to levy its own sales, income, and property taxes — or not.

With data from tax policy advocacy group Tax Foundation, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the total tax burden as a share of income on a per capita basis to identify the states with the lowest and highest tax burden. Federal taxes are not included in the calculation.  While every state government relies on taxes to operate, no two state tax structures are exactly the same. For example, four states do not charge a sales tax and seven states do not levy personal income taxes. In stark contrast, 13 states derive the largest share of their annual tax revenue from sales taxes and nine from personal income taxes.

THE SIX HIGHEST TAXED STATES

1. New York
2. Connecticut
3. New Jersey
4. California
5. Illinois
6. Wisconsin

THE FIVE LOWEST TAXED STATES

45. Texas

           * Taxes paid as percent of income: 7.6%

             * Income per capita: $47,362 (24^th lowest)

             * State Income Tax Collections: -0-  (tied for lowest)

             * Property tax collections per capita: $1,731 (13^th highest)

            * General sales tax collections per capita: $1,151 (5^th highest)

46. Louisiana
47. Tennessee
48. Wyoming
49. South Dakota
50. Alaska

- 24/7 Wall Street, March 2019

When economist James Gaines gave a talk recently about the economy and the real estate market, his biggest audience response came from an unexpected topic.  Gaines, chief economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, told hundreds of local real estate agents what to expect in the years ahead regarding the state's population growth and demographic changes.

"Do you know what Texas looks like in 30 years?" Gaines asked the audience.  "California," he offered as the whole ballroom of folks groaned and rolled their eyes.  Nothing gets a bunch of Texans more riled up than to tell them they are turning into California. 

"I have used that line a number of times and get the same reaction," Gaines said. "People are always asking where are we going and what will we look like.  "I'm serious about it," he said. "The problems, the issues, politically, socially, economically, land use, housing resources — go down and tick off the issues. We are going down the same path."

Gaines said the rapid growth of jobs, population and wealth that California has seen over the past few decades is similar to what Texas is now experiencing. That means the state faces the same opportunities and increasing challenges.  D-FW's population, now around 7.5 million, is expected to hit 10 million by 2030. 

Texas is already creating more jobs than California. And last year, the two fastest-growing population centers in the U.S. were in Texas: the D-FW metro area and Houston.

Still, even with the folks leaving the state, California has 10 million more residents than Texas. And median home prices there are more than twice what they are in the Lone Star State.  A house in Texas' most expensive metro area — Austin — that will cost you just over $300,000 will go for twice that in Los Angeles and more than $1.5 million in San Francisco.  With soaring home and apartment prices on the West Coast and a shortage of affordable labor, no wonder everyone, from recent college grads to Amazon's top brass, is looking east for greener pastures. And Texas is at the top of their shopping list.

• Dallas Morning News, November 2, 2018

No place builds more new houses than Dallas-Fort Worth.  As of the third quarter of this year, D-FW was the solid leader in U.S. homebuilding with almost 35,000 single-family annual home starts, according to a new report by housing market analysts at Metrostudy Inc.  Houston was second nationally with 29,370 home starts in the 12-month period ending in September. D-FW and Houston have topped the country in home construction for several years.  And the two Texas titan building markets show no sign of a slowdown. D-FW starts were up 8.7 percent and Houston starts were 6 percent higher than a year ago, Transwestern found.

While D-FW builders are still busy, what they are building has changed, according to Metrostudy's Paige Shipp. "Over the past 12 months, builders and developers have been addressing the need for affordable new homes by developing in previously overlooked submarkets and building smaller, less amenitized homes," said Shipp, regional director of Metrostudy's D-FW market. "As such, the median price has dropped since last year.The decrease in price is not devaluation, rather it's an indication that buyers are purchasing smaller, more affordable homes."

Shipp said that homebuyer traffic has slowed in North Texas in recent months. "While this cooling may worry some, it should be viewed as a positive stabilization of an overheated, frenzied market," she said. "Builders and developers should use this opportunity to catch their breaths and return to the fundamentals of homebuilding including land acquisition and selling." Shipp said the inventory of vacant new homes in the D-FW has increased to the highest level since 2012.

Dallas-area home prices grew less than 5 percent in August from a year earlier, according to the latest nationwide comparison.  It was the first time in almost six years that Dallas-area home appreciation has been at such a low level in the closely-watched Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index.  "Following reports that home sales are flat to down, price gains are beginning to moderate," S&P's David M. Blitzer said in the report. "The seasonally adjusted monthly data show that 10 cities experienced declining prices.  Other housing data tell a similar story: prices and sales of new single family homes are weakening, housing starts are mixed and residential fixed investment is down in the last three quarters."

Home prices in North Texas have cooled in 2018 after years of double-digit percentage annual gains. Still, Dallas-area prices are about 45 percent higher than a decade ago, before the economic downturn and housing crash.  "There are no signs that the current weakness will become a repeat of the crisis," Blitzer said. "Without a collapse in housing finance like the one seen 12 years ago, a crash in home prices is unlikely." 

The slowdown in home price growth may be good news for potential buyers who have struggled to find homes they can afford.  "It's more welcome news for would-be homebuyers, who must be breathing a collective sigh of relief that home price growth finally has slowed," Skylar Olsen, Zillow's director of economic research, said in a statement. "Softening appreciation after the rapid growth of just a few months earlier is a sign that fierce competition is dying down.  Potential buyers who were intimidated during the heat of the market may find the breathing space now to make a calm, considered decision about whether to lock in a mortgage before rates rise further."

• Dallas Morning News October 31, 2018

Dallas homes for sale enjoy some of the most beautiful autumn conditions anywhere in Texas. Our real estate agents love every minute of it – and we also love helping people get homes ready to put on the market during one of the best times of the year.

No matter whether you're considering selling your home or want to spruce things up, there are several things you can do to be prepared. With a little effort at the start of the season, you can keep your property clean and neat.

A little work today can save you on repair bills and other troubles later! Plus, the weather couldn't be better for it.

Let's look at things every Texas homeowner should do to get ready for fall.

Getting Your Yard and Property Ready for Fall

• Winterize Your Sprinkler System
  Drain all the water from your sprinklers. This is done by turning off the water supply through closing the main valve to the sprinkler system, then opening each one of the manual drain valves until all the water drains out. This prevents water from freezing and cracking your pipes.
  
  
• Clean Out Your Gutters
  When gutters are full of leaves, it can lead to lasting problems for your roof. Improper drainage of fall rains may cause water to seep into the ground at the foot of your home and damage your foundation. A complete cleaning before leaves start falling makes life easier.
  
  
• Check Up on Your Weather Stripping
  Weather stripping will naturally develop some gaps around doors and windows. It's essential to fix these; resolving them improves your home's energy efficiency both in cool and warm weather. This only takes a few minutes per window and is a great DIY project.
  
  
• Inspect Your Window Caulking
  While you're looking at weather stripping, check out caulking around windows, too. Remember, windows don't last forever: They warp over time by expanding and contracting when the weather changes. Windows older than ten years should usually be replaced.
  
  
• Inspect Your Roof
  Your roof doesn't require quite as much attention as the rest of your exterior, but it's still a good idea to have someone take a look at it every two to three years. No matter the time of year, you should get a roof inspection after every major storm system.

Getting Your Home's Interior Ready for Fall

• Clean the Carpets
  A professional carpet cleaning is a great way to evict any sand that's gotten into your carpets as a result of summer gatherings.
  
  
• Deep Clean Everything
  If you have the time and energy, now's the perfect chance to start over with everything clean in the kitchen and bathrooms.
  
  
• Check the Furnace
  It's probably time to change the furnace filter. Ideally, you should also get an expert to give your system a maintenance check.

At RE/MAX DFW Associates, we're proud to be one of the largest RE/MAX companies in the United States. We're not just the largest in Texas, but #1 in the US Southwest. We've gotten there with a combination of expert advice and stellar service.

If you've been thinking about making your move to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we can help you. We'll work with you every step of the way to answer your questions, help you avoid setbacks, and get you to closing fast. 

Contact us today to find out more. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

The latest forecast from CoreLogic calls for only about 2.7 percent home price growth in D-FW in the next 12 months.
- Dallas Morning News, October 15, 2018

Don't look for Dallas-Fort Worth on the list of cities economists expect to have the biggest home price gains in the year ahead. Nationwide prices are expected to rise by less than 5 percent in the year ahead, according Veros, a risk management and valuation firm. "Our latest VeroForecast indicates that on average, for the top 100 most populated metro areas, we expect 4.5 percent appreciation over the next 12 months," Eric Fox, vice president of statistical and economic modeling at Veros, said in the report. "We are forecasting that the overwhelming number of metros across the nation, approximately 97 percent, will appreciate, with just three percent depreciating during this period."

"The days of easy 10 percent price gains in one year are over," Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, told real estate agents. For sure that is so in Dallas-Fort Worth. Median sales prices in North Texas were up 9 percent last year, and rose 10 percent in 2016 and 2015 and were 11 percent higher in 2014. Through the first nine months of 2018, median sales prices of houses sold by local real estate agents are just 5 percent greater than the same period last year.

A forecast for the next 12 months sees 2.1 percent home price growth in the D-FW area, according to CoreLogic. That's much less than their U.S. 1-year price forecast rise of 4.7 percent. After several years of double-digit percentage home appreciation in North Texas, the latest price forecasts may seem dismal. But a slowdown in home price gains is just what the D-FW area needs at this point in the cycle. The best way to prevent another housing bubble is to let a little air out of the market before things get too overvalued.

         By Claire Ballor  – Staff Writer, Dallas Business Journal, October 10, 2018

With a relatively low cost of living and population growth projections that outstrip other U.S. cities by two times, Dallas-Fort Worth has been named the top real estate market to watch in 2019.

The Emerging Trends in Real Estate for 2019 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute ranked the Metroplex as the number one market for overall real estate prospects in 2019 out of 78 other cities.  Austin and San Antonio also made it into the top 20 for overall real estate prospects in the annual forecast report, which is compiled from thousands of interviews with real estate experts across a spectrum of industries.

Mitch Roschelle, a partner at PwC, said the economic data points analyzed for the report suggest the strength of the economy and the discipline being practiced in the real estate market.  "If there is a downturn ahead of us, it won't be real estate that caused it," he said. "Right now there's way more discipline in all activities in real estate than there has been in any other time in the modern era. We haven't gotten ahead of ourselves in terms of real estate development. I hope that real estate folks remain as conservative as they have in creating new supply."

Roschelle said he's seeing that conservative behavior in Dallas-Fort Worth and it has kept the market from getting ahead of itself despite the ever-growing demand and push for growth.

As for what makes North Texas the one to watch next year, he said several factors come into play.

"The things that have been important in years past have been markets that have low cost of living and low, relative to the national average, cost of doing business. That's where companies want to be and that's where people want to be," Roschelle said.

The low cost of living, low cost of doing business and tax efficiency continue to draw people to Dallas-Fort Worth, he said. And so much so that the area's population growth rate is projected to be more than two times the national average in 2019.

"The growth in the population is skewed towards younger folks in Dallas," Roschelle said. "The growth in the 0 to 24 age category is high and in the 25 to 40 category. [The population] is becoming younger, and those people are all the workers for the future."

But as the population in the Metroplex grows, affordable housing is becoming more of an issue. Although affordable single-family homes are a contributor to Dallas-Fort Worth's success, there aren't enough of them, according to the report.  The report says focus group respondents in the Dallas area pointed to an increasingly prevalent "not in my backyard" mentality as the reason for the slow down in available workforce housing.

"Dallas traditionally was a place where there was a piece of land, and if someone wanted to build on it, they just built on it," Roschelle said.  Now, though, developers are often met with a "you're not building that thing near me" attitude, which tends to add hurdles like cost and time, he said. This contributes to the problem that Dallas-Fort Worth is facing with additions to housing supply not keeping pace with demand.

What the Dallas area has going for it, though, is a diverse and stable employment base thanks to the wide spectrum of industries represented in the area, Roschelle said. The report indicates that the market is expected to have high growth and low volatility when it comes to employment in 2019.

Here are a few things the report says to keep an eye on in 2019:

Best bets

• Industrial development investments: With the expansion of the e-commerce industry, industrial facilities, which are seeing historically low vacancy rates, will continue to be in high demand. "Barring a trade war of serious proportions, industrials offer great risk-adjusted returns," according to the report.
• Garden apartments: "While the multifamily sector registered an overall NCREIF total return of 6.38 percent, the garden apartment component was near a double-digit total return at 9.33 percent," the report says. Appreciation in value is what accounted the over-performance for such properties. And the pricing for garden apartments, or low-rise complexes typically with direct access to outdoor space, reflects a higher-yield 5.7 percent cap rate compared to the 4.9 percent cap rate for mid-to-high-rise properties.
• Quick-flip, value-add deals: Timing with these deals is key, the report says. They should be executed by 2020 to maximize late-cycle opportunity, "and the geographic focus needs to be in markets where assets have not yet been priced to perfection."
• Redeployment of retail properties: "Many shopping center properties are just not going to come back as successful retail assets," the report says. But many have potential for alternative uses like mixed use for properties in close-in suburbs or distribution centers that can capitalize on the e-commerce trend.

Issues on the horizon

• Insurance costs related to increasing natural disasters: The report says the volume of natural disasters in 2018 is evidence that the risk of such catastrophes – "most due to climate change" – has been intensifying. Because of this, insurers and reinsurers are experiencing massive payouts and will be pricing this into premiums in the future. "Having adequate coverage and budgeting for increased operating expenses should definitely be high on the list of items that property owners need to watch in 2019," according to the report.
• Cybersecurity vulnerabilities: Cybersecurity issues that come with increasing interconnectedness have become more and more obvious and have affected many industries including real estate. "One REIT interviewee highlighted a need to establish industry norms and best practices for both primary defense purposes and for evaluating risk/reward parameters stemming from technology," the report says.
• Infrastructure: Deficiencies in infrastructure are impactful for real estate. The report pulled data from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which shows the multitrillion-dollar shortfalls in investment in key assets and the associated costs that affect businesses. "By 2025, the United States sacrifices $3.9 trillion in GDP and $7 trillion in reduced business sales. Failure to address the issue means 2.5 million fewer jobs created and a shortfall of household income of $3,400 annually," according to the report.
• Immigration: "The draconian approach to border security is a massive self-inflicted wound with immediate negative economic consequences and long-term weakening of our national growth potential," the report says. The impacts on demand growth, the reduction in the baseline for real potential GDP growth and the implications for bringing the country's fertility rate below population replacement level should be reasons for pause, it says.

The number of "For Sale" signs is growing in North Texas' housing market.  The Dallas-Fort Worth area has had one of the biggest increases in the country in the number of homes listed for sale, according to Realtor.com. D-FW ranked eighth among the 10 major U.S. markets with the greatest increase in home listings in September, up 14 percent from the same period a year ago, according to Realtor.com.  Local real estate market numbers show that almost 26,000 preowned single-family homes were listed for sale in August with North Texas real estate agents. That's the highest volume in six years.  Nationwide, home inventories are at a 5-year high, according to Realtor.com.  "After years of record-breaking inventory declines, September's almost flat inventory signals a big change in the real estate market," Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com, said in the report. "Would-be buyers who had been waiting for a bigger selection of homes for sale may finally see more listings materialize.

• Dallas Morning News, October 3, 2018

NOTES: Median home price is based on Q1 2018. Home price to income is calculated using median home price and median family income. SOURCES: Synergos Technologies, Realtor.com, Moody's Analytics, NOAA, Ed.gov. Illustrations  by Martin Laksman. For full Best Places to Live methodology, see money.com/BPLmethodology.                                                                                                                                                                                    

Money is the latest national publication to sing the praises of Frisco, listing the North Texas suburb as No. 1 in its 2018 best places to live report. After compiling data on everything from school graduation rates to median home prices, the fast-growing community north of Dallas beat out 582 other communities -- many of them suburbs -- to claim the top spot.  One of the highest grades in the report went to Frisco's education system.  "With more than 70 campuses, the Frisco Independent School District has the highest graduation rate of all the cities and towns Money evaluated this year," the report said. Frisco's graduation rate is 98 percent.

It lists Frisco's population as about 179,000, its median family income as $129,118 and its median home price as $349,000. In explaining its methodology, the finance-focused publication looked only at places with populations of 50,000 or greater. "We eliminated any place that had more than double the national crime risk, less than 85 percent of its state's median household income, or a lack of ethnic diversity. This gave us 583 places," Money said."We put the greatest weight on economic health, public school performance, and local amenities. Housing, cost of living, and diversity were also critical components," it said. The methodology information listed online did not say how the study's authors defined "lack of ethnic diversity." Frisco's population is 75 percent white, according to Frisco.com. 

Money also lauded Frisco for it public-private partnerships -- particularly the Ford Center at The Star. That athletic facility, built as part of a partnership with schools, the city and the Dallas Cowboys, doubles as a place for school football games and a practice field for the NFL team.   The Star also serves as the Cowboys' headquarters.

Frisco, Allen and McKinney routinely show up on "best of" lists. In 2016, career expert website Zippia named Frisco as the most successful city in America.The only other Texas city in Money's top 25 was Flower Mound, which ranked 16th.

• Dallas Morning News, September 17, 2018

Dallas-Fort Worth was one of the top destinations for domestic migrants from California in 2017, according to a recent study.  There were 1,051 moves from coastal California, the home of some of the country's toughest housing markets, to Dallas in the first quarter of 2017, according to Alexandra Lee, a housing analyst with the real estate listing and research site Trulia, which did the study.  Out of 19,132 moves out of the region during that time period, 5.5 percent went to D-FW.   Houston is also a popular destination for people fleeing the California coast — 3 percent of the migrants in the study came to Texas' most populous city, meaning that 8.5 percent of those in the study came to either Dallas-Fort Worth or Houston.   The Trulia report looked at census data for transplants from four coastal California hubs: San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego. Homes in those markets listed for an average of $720,000 in March 2017, Trulia says, compared to $313,000 in Dallas and $250,000 nationally.   The home prices in these cities is clearly a major determinant in whether people leave California and to where they move, Lee said over email, but it's not the be-all and end-all.  Texas is a big destination for job-to-job flows, a U.S. Census Bureau-designed statistic that measures flows of employees from one company to another when they've been at each company longer than three quarters. The biggest source of these flows is California, which contributed 6,884 in the first quarter of 2016.

• Dallas Morning News, June 28, 2018

Dallas' housing market gets top marks in a new consumer study by JPMorgan Chase.  The banking giant teamed up with Pulsenomics to ask homeowners about current market conditions, their aspirations for homeownership and outlooks for home values and affordability.  Dallas headed the housing confidence ranking ahead of Denver, Las Vegas and San Francisco, according to Chase.  "These record results were driven by healthy assessments of local real estate market conditions among existing homeowners, but even more so by surging expectations among renters," Terry Loebs, founder of Pulsenomics, said in the report. "Seven in ten renters now express confidence in their ability to afford a home someday, and nearly three-quarters of those with an opinion say that buying a home is the best long-term investment a person can make."  Dallas-area residents polled by Chase in the survey had the strongest homeownership aspirations.  Eighty percent of Dallas renters Chase surveyed said they are confident they will eventually own a home. And 70 percent said they plan to purchase in the next five years.

• Dallas Morning News, July 5, 2018