Texas Realtors Casts Healthy Glow on State’s 2020 Housing Gains, Plus Other Reports

Texas home sales volume and home prices broke records for the sixth consecutive year while inventory hit an all-time low in 2020, according to the 2020 Texas Real Estate Year in Review report by Texas Realtors.

All of these records were accomplished while in the presence of a global pandemic, recession conditions, and high unemployment. These gains also happened while sellers, buyers, appraisers, and closing agents adjusted their traditional face-to-face home sales processes to account for physical distancing and safety protocols.

“Texas real estate sales broke records despite being in the middle of a pandemic,” Plano agent Marvin Jolly, 2021 chairman of Texas Realtors, said in the report. “Housing inventory dropped to historically low levels in many areas of the state, and that shortage of homes for sale made many markets extremely favorable to sellers and challenging for buyers.”

In the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington Metropolitan Statistical Area, home sales increased 8.7 percent in 2020 to 112,545 single-family home sales. The median price increased to 6.4 percent to $291,000. The price per square foot was $138.99, up 5.8 percent from a year ago.

Statewide, home sales increased 9.5 percent to 393,615 home sales while median price rose 8 percent from the year prior to $259,230.

Inventory dropped to 1.7 months, a decrease from 1.3 months in 2019. Ideally, a market balanced between supply and demand should be between 6.0 and 6.5 months of inventory, according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center.

“Inventories of homes priced under $300,000 will be especially low, affecting sales in that price range,” Luis Torres, a research economist with the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University, said in the report. “The economic recovery helped by the additional federal fiscal stimulus and vaccination rates will contribute to Texas housing demand in 2021.”

The data spotlights the 25 MSAs in Texas. Data was provided by the Data Relevance Project, a partnership among local Realtor associations, their MLSs, and Texas Realtors, with analysis by the Texas Real Estate Research Center.

Other Notable Reports

• Zumper: Dallas is ranked as the 33rd most-expensive to rent in January, according to Zumper’s National Rent Report. Dallas 1-bedrooms were going for $1,270, a 4.10 percent gain, and 2BRs were renting for $1,690, a 3 percent increase. Plano ranked 37th, Irving 44th, Fort Worth 50th, and Arlington 70th. The report covers 100 cities nationwide, with data aggregated from over one million active listings, and includes a National Rent Index for one and two-bedroom units. Read more here.
• WalletHub: 75 percent of Irving residents 16 and over are in the workforce with daily commutes of 24 minutes, making it the fifth-hardest-working city in the U.S., according to WalletHub. Other D-FW cities in the top 20 are Plano (11th), Dallas (13th), Fort Worth (16th), Garland (18th), and Arlington (20th). Read more here.
• Mortgage Bankers Association: The overall mortgage delinquency rate continued its downward trend in 2020 with over 264,900 Texas mortgages past due in the fourth quarter, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Of the past due, around 14,700 are 90 days delinquent. Read more here.