Market: Just How Bad Are We In North Texas?

Not bad at all, but if you are reading the Dallas Morning News, you would think we are just like the rest of the country and that the “Sky is Falling!” We are not. We didn’t share their growth and exaggerated prices, nor are we seeing the “fall” or huge reduction in prices.

Real Estate is like the weather. It’s local!

In the Nation, 2007 will still be the 5th highest year for the number of sales throughout the years, so that is not bad. That means that 1 in every 16 of you in the U.S. will buy a house or have bought a house in 2007.

Locally, our job rate is lower than most in the Country. There is good, steady growth with businesses and jobs. We have a very healthy interest rate hanging around 6 to 6.5%. We have 6 months of inventory for pre-owned homes as seen from our NTREIS MLS system which is a healthy amount of homes to have on the market. We haven’t had as many Home Equity loans foreclosing as other parts of the country since Texas just started allowing loans to pull out your equity a few years ago. At that time all the Lenders rushed into Texas thinking they would just clean up on the Equity loans but we were too conservative for them and the Legislature put too hard of guidelines to get such a loan easily. As a result when the prices adjust, Texas homeowners are not caught as other parts of the country. Our prices have increased but only about 1% but they have not fallen and that is important!