North Texas home sales surged in January, starting the new year off with 12 percent more home sales than in January 2017.
According to recent data from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University and the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems, real estate agents sold 6,246 preowned single-family homes in January. That marked the highest number of preowned homes ever sold in January in that area. Such a surge in sales indicates that demand for existing homes in the area remains very strong.
In 2017, North Texas real estate agents sold more than 106,000 preowned homes–another record high–and total home sales were 5 percent higher than they were the previous year in 2016. This year’s increase follows a 6 percent gain in housing inventory.
“We are a supply-constrained market, so as soon as our supply increases, buyers rush to purchase it,” said Paige Shipp of housing market analysts Metrostudy, Inc. Shipp’s comments were originally quoted in an article from the Dallas Morning News. “I think 2018 is going to be another great year for our resale market.”
Despite the significant gains in Dallas-area home sales, reports from the same sources indicate that the rate of price appreciation is slowing down. This comes as good news for hopeful buyers who were once fearful of being priced out of certain markets.
According to recent data, the median price of houses sold by real estate agents last month increased only 5 percent from January 2017 to $235,000. In 2017, home prices grew 15 percent from the previous year.
Double-digit price gains were not uncommon in the Dallas market over the last several years, largely due to the supply not meeting the demand. Now it appears the rapid price acceleration will begin to slow down as more properties make their way onto the market.
“We still expect the D-FW housing market to be strong but it won’t be surprising if the rate of increase may slow down some,” said Dr. James Gaines, chief economist at the Real Estate Center, in a statement to Dallas Morning News.
Here are a few more highlights from the latest housing data in the Dallas-Fort Worth market:
- On average, it took 53 days to sell a home, up 8 percent from a year ago.
- More than 17,000 preowned houses were listed for sale through real estate agents at the end of January.
- There is currently less than a 2-month supply of houses on the market in the 24+ North Texas counties included in the research survey.
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