North Texas home sales fell in June as prices continued to soar

After nearly a year of strong increases, North Texas home sales declined in June compared to a year ago.

But the 3% year-over-year drop may not be indicative of a slowdown in the local real estate market.

Home sales in the region in early summer 2020 rebounded sharply from delayed purchases at the start of the pandemic. After sharp declines in April and May, June 2020 home sales rebounded here.

According to data from the Texas Real Estate Research Center and North Texas Real Estate Information Systems, the 11,554 single-family home sales this June were higher than the June 2019 purchases, before the COVID-19 closings.

And June sales are up about 10% from the number of homes traded in the region in April.

“I certainly wouldn’t think too much about this small drop in June year over year,” said housing analyst Paige Shipp of CDCG Real Estate. “I am always concerned about rising prices.

“They’re excluding people from the market, but I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Median home selling prices in North Texas rose 23% in June from a year earlier to a new record high of $ 350,000.

So far in 2021, prices for single-family homes sold by realtors are up 18% from the first six months of last year.

The huge price increase comes as the number of homes for sale in the area has fallen by 50% from June 2020 levels.

“This is economy 101 – supply and demand,” Shipp said. “If the supply is tight, it will continue to drive up prices.

“And people who need housing will pay what they have to pay. “

At the end of June, only 8,603 single-family homes were listed for sale to local realtors in the two dozen North Texas counties included in the survey – near an all-time low.

“I thought we would have more inventory on the market once people felt more comfortable putting their homes on the market,” Shipp said.

But many potential sellers find that they don’t have another property to buy if they sell their current home.

“There aren’t a lot of places to go,” Shipp said.

When homes hit the market, they sell out almost immediately. Properties that changed hands in June had only been listed for sale for an average of 20 days.

And homes sold for an average of 103% of asking price, according to June’s Multiple Listing Service Numbers. Many properties are trading at much higher premiums than the advertised prices.

In the first six months of this year, realtors sold 55,129 single-family homes, an increase of 7% from the same period last year.

The number of homes listed with agents last month was about a third of North Texas inventory as of mid-2019 before the pandemic.

“The limited number of listings today acts as a market regulator when it comes to monthly sales,” said Ted Wilson, director of housing analyst based at Dallas Residential Strategies. “Plus, with prices rising more than 20% year over year, housing affordability is once again emerging as a challenge for many households.”

Dallas-Fort Worth home sales and prices have reached unprecedented levels in the past year since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.

North Texas’s surge in shopping has been fueled by the migration of tens of thousands of new residents from out of state. And keeping mortgage rates low somewhat mitigated the impact of price increases.

Despite this, some analysts predict that the pace of home purchases will slow down later this year as higher prices push more first-time buyers away from the market.