"Last year, Rick Smith put his family's house in suburban Dallas
on the market, hoping to find a new home close to better schools and the
city's downtown. Selling the old house was a snap; buying a new one
wasn't. In January the family moved to a town home in a rental
community, and quickly found they weren't the only family forced into
renting. “If you drive around our community, you’ll see moving boxes
stacked up in the garages,” he said. “No one wants to unpack, because
they think they’ll be moving again soon.”
Welcome to Dallas in 2015, a city whose bustling economy is
attracting new residents at a rapid pace—and making it increasingly
difficult to buy a house. New listings get multiple offers in mere days,
said Steve Habgood, president of the MetroTex Association of Realtors.
Homeowners are increasingly reluctant to sell lest they wind up in
Smith's situation. "People are saying, 'Great, I can get a premium on
the price I paid, but where am I going to live once I sell?'" said
Habgood. "The options are pretty limited."
The metropolitan area of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington added
131,000 people in the year ended July 1, 2014, according to Census
estimates released this week—the second-largest influx in the country.
Homebuilders have been unable to keep up. There were 8,850 for-sale
listings in Dallas last month, down 17 percent from February 2014,
according to the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. That’s
only enough inventory to cover demand for the next 1.8 months.
The short supply isn't a new situation. When Bloomberg checked on the
local market in late 2013, it found prospective buyers offering cash
payments to take over purchase contracts, and homebuilders struggling to meet demand. What's remarkable is that supply is still lagging a year-and-a-half later.
The area's population is growing at a pace that makes building enough
houses difficult under any conditions, said Jim Gaines, a research
economist at Texas A&M. That challenge has been exacerbated by
financing conditions that took root following the housing bust, as
developers had a hard time borrowing money to buy land. Loans have been
easier for developers to come by since 2013, Gaines said, but turning a
large parcel into buildable lots can take years; in the meantime, it's
become harder for small and midsize builders to start new homes.
If there's an end in sight, it has less to do with new homes hitting the market, and more to do with a decline in oil prices slowing job growth
in the region. Dallas is less reliant on the energy industry than
Houston, said Gaines, but would still take a hit. "I almost hate to say
it, but it might be a good thing if the demand side of the equation does
lighten up,” said Gaines.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-27/it-s-almost-impossible-to-buy-a-house-in-dallas
