Starting Home Prices and Good School Districts: How does Dallas Stack Up Nationally?

How much does it cost to buy a home in a good school district in the Dallas area? What do single-family rents look like in Dallas? And are people remodeling? We find out in a roundup of real estate news.

Starting Home Prices and Good School Districts: How does Dallas Stack Up Nationally?

When comparing starting home prices, Dallas fares well among other top metros when factoring in good school districts, analysis by JLL revealed.

The analysis, which looked at the top 20 metro areas (including suburbs), looked at the starting range for a standard three-bedroom, two-bath home in a great school district.

“These types of neighborhoods averaged 28 miles from the downtown area, representing a significant commute from some of the key employment hubs,” the analysis said.

JLL used the GreatSchools ratings in Zillow to look for single-family home listings within the attendance zones of schools that rate 9/10 or 10/10.

“We then looked at the cheapest available single-family homes in those areas that were built less than 35 years ago, excluding fixer-uppers, teardowns, auctions, and foreclosures —  to consider conventional listings that were essentially or close to in move-in condition,” the analysis said.

The Dallas MSA, which is the fourth-largest metro area among the 20, came in at $315,000. Houston weighed in at $218,000, making Texas a decent bargain when compared to other metro areas.

Dallas Rents Increase Again, But Not As High as 2017

Dallas single-family rent rates have increased this year, but not at the pace they did in 2017, a year-over-year comparison by CoreLogic revealed.

In 2017, rents increased by about 3 percent. A year-over-year comparison of 2018 so far shows that rents have increased by about 2 percent.

Nationally, single-family rents have increased at a steady pace for the past eight years, according to CoreLogic’s Single-Family Rental Index.

“Year-over-year rent price increases have slowed since February 2016, when they peaked at 4.2 percent, and have stabilized over the last year with a monthly average of 2.7 percent,” said economist Molly Boesel. “In April 2018, single-family rents increased 2.9 percent year over year, a 1.3-percentage-point decline in the growth rate since it hit a high of 4.2 percent in February 2016.”

CoreLogic’s SFRI measures rent changes in the same rental properties over time. Those single-family rental homes include condominiums.

The same analysis found that rent growth is accelerating for the high-end rental property market, where the growth was 1.1 percentage points higher than last year. Low-end rent Hurricanes from last year are still impacting rents in markets like Houston and Miami, too.

“Rents continue to increase in metro areas such as Houston and Miami that were hit by hurricanes last year and left with tighter rental supplies,” Boesel said. “Houston rents rose 4.1 percent year over year in April 2018 and Miami rents increased 2.1 percent. Prior to the 2017 late-summer hurricanes, rents had been decreasing in those two metro areas.”

Outlook for Home Remodeling Bright, LIRA Says

Homeowners will likely increase spending on remodeling and repairing their homes in the coming year, the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) revealed this week.

The LIRA is compiled by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, and takes a short-term view of national home improvement and repair spending in owner-occupied homes.

Overall, analysts project that the annual growth in remodeling spending will taper somewhat in the first half of 2019, but will hold at around seven percent regardless.

“A growing economy and stronger job market are boosting owners’ willingness to invest in home improvements,” says Chris Herbert, Managing Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies. “Rising home values and increased home equity levels are also encouraging more owners to do larger upgrade and replacement projects.”

Low inventory of existing homes for sale is somewhat tamping down that growth, though.

“The low inventory of existing homes for sale is holding back even larger gains, since significant remodeling and repair often occurs around the time of a sale,” says Abbe Will, Associate Project Director in the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center. “Even so, annual spending on residential improvements and repairs by homeowners is expected to reach nearly $350 billion by the middle of next year.”

The LIRA is released in the third week of each quarter’s closing. The next one will be released in October.