Dallas home prices surge on short supply
Diana Olick
| @diana_olick
Thursday, 19 Feb 2015 | 11:25 AM ET
Unlike much of the nation, Dallas is seeing a
warmer-than-average winter, and a very hot housing market. The median price of
a Dallas home was 12.3 percent higher in December 2014 than it was a year
earlier, according to the MetroTex Association of Realtors. That is more than
twice the national annual price gains.
"Buyers are seeing sticker
shock, but they're buying anyway," said Laura Barnett of RE/MAX DFW
Associates.
Barnett said she listed a house a
week ago at $399,900 and it has already sold for $416,000.
"We had five to seven offers.
It's like that anywhere. Anything below $500,000 is going to go quickly,"
she said.
Like much of the nation, Dallas has
a severe shortage of inventory, which is driving prices higher. There were 26
percent fewer homes for sale in December 2014 than in the previous December.
Closed sales were down 3.5 percent, but that is more a factor of limited supply
than of demand.
Dallas is seeing a strong influx of
residents, as large companies move workers into the area. Dallas is also seeing
Mexican nationals moving in, Barnett said.
While Texas has seen one of the
strongest housing trades in the nation during the economic recovery, there are
concerns that the falling price of oil will hurt the market. Dallas, however,
may be less sensitive to that than Houston, as there are a lot of other
dynamics in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The list of companies expanding into
the area is long: Toyota, Novartis, Barclays Bank, CVE Technology Group, to name a
few. While area real estate agents are certainly watching for energy-related
layoffs, they are not seeing many yet.
