Weekly Market Update – November 12, 2019 – Dallas-Ft. Worth Real Estate

We are t-minus 49 days until the end of 2019 and wanted to take a quick look back over the past 5 years at the end of October.

October is often a month where homes are moving, however, the craziness of summer is over and we are transitioning into the “serious” home buyers and home sellers of winter. That gives us a good opportunity to look at a transitional month to see trends. Since we have been tracking these numbers weekly for the past five years, we can go back and see detailed market inventory statistics that aren’t able to be pulled in MLS if we were to go back and attempt to do it in arrears.

Below are the past 5 years of numbers for the week going over October 31st each year. This makes sure we include the homes that fall-out or go off the market at the end of the month (when most listing contracts would expire). When you evaluate the numbers, here are some interesting takeaways.

Home Buyers have 48% more homes to choose from than they did the same week in 2015. They also have 26% more “new inventory” compared to the same time frame.

Sellers are seeing more competition, yes, however interest rates are back down near 2015 levels and unemployment for North Texas for the last report in Sept 2019 is 3.1%. So jobs and interest rates are strong. The biggest challenge we have is affordability. Home prices have gone up at a faster pace over the past 10 years than we have seen in North Texas, so with the appreciation, first time home buyers are having trouble entering the market which then impacts the move-up buyers. This, in turn, ends up impacting the luxury market the most. Fear not, homes are still selling and buyers are still purchasing.

What do we do as sellers over the next few weeks?

1. We just need to be realistic that days on market will go up,
2. Pricing needs to be competitive if the pricing isn’t getting the results you want, we have to make adjustments and stay on top of it
3. We have to work twice as hard to build relationships with the buyers and their agents to draw in the feedback and the offers. If we don’t know what’s stopping buyers, we don’t know how to maneuver around it.