Dallas-area homebuyers to scramble this spring
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Louis DeLuca/Staff Photographer
Dallas-area homebuyers will have to hustle to make a purchase in this spring's housing market, experts predict.
Published: 30 January 2014 08:33 PM
Updated: 30 January 2014 08:33 PM
If you want to buy a house in the Dallas area this spring, start looking right now.
Be prepared to pay a lot more and have much less to pick from than you’re probably expecting.
That’s what real estate agents and housing analysts are warning potential North Texas homebuyers.
And they aren’t just hollering wolf.
The supply of homes for sale in this area is at a record low. And demand for housing in the Dallas market is the best it’s been in probably a decade.
I’m thinking that’s the ingredients for a crazy home market this spring and summer.
David Brown, who heads the Dallas office of Metrostudy Inc., agrees.
“It’s going to be another challenging year for homebuyers,” Brown said. “Inventory is absolutely the lowest I have seen in my records.
“When the buyers come out, they are going to see fewer options than last year,” Brown said. “I’m looking for another frenzy in the spring.”
Spring 2013 was a mess for potential homebuyers. Homes were selling here as fast as they came up for sale — sometimes for more than asking price.
Buyers who came back to the market after sitting things out during the recession had to scramble to land a home. Some couldn’t and gave up.
Real estate agents and economists expected that with the significant rise in home prices in North Texas in 2013, more properties would go on the market to take advantage of the strong buyer demand.
But that didn’t happen.
Two-decade low
The number of pre-owned homes for sale in North Texas is at the lowest level in almost 20 years.
And the supply of housing available to buyers — about 2.5 months — is the lowest it’s ever been. New home inventories are even tighter.
In some popular suburbs, the supply of pre-owned houses listed for sale at the end of 2013 was even lower. Grapevine, for instance, had only a 1.3-month inventory. The supply was only 1.5 months in Coppell and 1.6 months in Plano.
Some potential buyers scout the market and walk away, Brown said.
“One Realtor described it to me as buyer fatigue,” he said.
After looking at how little is available, some folks forget the notion of selling their current home and moving up.
North Texas home sales are likely to be held down this year only because agents and builders don’t have enough houses to peddle.
“The market will not have the ability to grow at the same rate in 2014 as it did in 2013 because of the supply constraints,” said Brown.
That’s a problem for the thousands of out-of-state workers that are coming to North Texas.
‘Nothing to show”
“Agents are contacting me almost every day wanting to know what I have coming on the market, as they have nothing to show to incoming buyers,” said Barry Hoffer, a longtime Dallas agent with Ebby Halliday Realtors. “It looks to me like [this spring] is going to be a continuation from 2013, but even more stressful with less inventory available.
“I just listed late last Thursday afternoon in the MLS a home in Far North Dallas for what I thought was a fairly aggressive price of $245,000,” Hoffer said. “We had 19 showings in 48 hours, and the home went under contract within two days for $5,000 over the asking price.”
While that might be good news for sellers, it will be bad for the North Texas economy if the situation doesn’t change, forecasters say.
“The No. 1 economic challenge for Texas going forward is if we don’t start building more homes and putting more subdivisions on the ground, the prices of housing will get so expensive that employers will no longer be able to attract workers,” warned Mark Dotzour, an economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. “It’s an absolute disaster for economic development.”
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