Real Estate News: Dallas Home Sales Decline in October

How did Dallas do when it comes to home sales compared to the nation? Are we starting to see more inventory? Where are various generations choosing to live in Dallas-Fort Worth? We have all of that in this week’s roundup of real estate news.

DALLAS HOME SALES DECLINE IN OCTOBER

The number of homes sold across the country fell in October, including in Dallas, Redfin reported.

In Dallas, the median sales price in October was $280,000, down 2.8 percent from September, but overall unchanged year over year. Homes sold was down 3.3 percent in October to 4,630, and down 8.7 percent year over year. New listings were down .3 percent in October to 6,140, but up by almost 3 percent year over year.

U.S. home-sale prices increased in 4.5 percent in October year over year, to a median of $297,200. Prices increased 2.4 percent month over month.

“Despite this national increase, just 32 of the 71 largest metro areas Redfin tracks saw home prices increase from September to October, which suggests that the monthly gain is due to the share of homes selling last month shifting slightly to more expensive areas rather than individual homes increasing in value,” the report said, adding that more evidence that the market is heading for a cool down can be see in price drops.

“In October 31.3 percent of homes for sale had at least one price drop of more than 1 percent,” it said. “This is the highest share of price drops on record since Redfin began tracking this metric in 2010, and 6.3 percentage points above last October’s level of 25 percent.”

The number of homes for sale was up 1.3 percent year over year, and the number of newly listed homes rose 5.4 percent. The number of completed home sales dropped 5.7 percent from 2017.

“An increase in interest rates effectively makes home-buying more expensive because buyers have to pay higher monthly mortgage payments even if the sticker price hasn’t changed,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. “Some homebuyers are adjusting their price range down, and others are backing out of home-buying entirely–deciding that renting is a better deal. Sellers are now realizing buyer demand isn’t what it used to be and are dropping their prices. When buyers and sellers are on the same page, the market moves quickly, but since sellers were slow to react, we’ve seen a slowdown in the housing market.”

WHO IS BUYING HOMES, AND WHERE?

Realtor.com tracked homebuyers by generational propensity, and came up with these graphics to illustrate them.

INVENTORY CLIMBS, RENT CONTINUES TO SLIDE

The number of homes for sale in October nationwide rose 3 percent, the first year-over-year gain of more than one percent since 2014, said Zillow Director of Economic Research Aaron Terrazas.

That being said, with years of inventory declines behind us, inventory is still tight, with 1.62 million homes for sale in October, down from 1.96 million in 2014.

Inventory of homes valued in the bottom third nationally has been low and is starting to rise, gaining 6.8 percent annually in October,” Terrazas said. “That was up from a 3.7 percent year-over-year hike in September and a small 0.6 percent boost in August. Before that, the last time inventory among lower valued homes posted an increase was in September 2014.”

Top tier home inventory has been steadily high, and is now falling — it fell by 1.6 percent last month, year over year.

“Possibly because inventory gains have a long way to go before they make up for years of declines, home values continue to grow steadily,” Terrazas said. “Nationally, the median home value climbed 7.7 percent year-over year in October, the same as its September pace and in line with the 7.5 percent to 8 percent gains it has posted all year.”

Median rents continued to drop, falling 0.1 percent (or a dollar) nationally in October, to $1,442 a month.