The Dallas-Fort Worth home market retreated in August, with preowned home purchases down from a year ago and prices growing at a slower rate.
Home sales in North Texas were down 1% last month from August 2017 levels.
In June, July and August — traditionally the hottest month for home sales — real estate agents sold slightly fewer houses than they did in the summer of 2017, according to the latest data from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University and the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems.
"I think in general there's a slowdown, yes, but again not a collapse by any stretch," said James Gaines, chief economist with the Real Estate Center. "Short supply is still a major headwind, demand is basically still good."
For the first eight months of 2018, sales of single-family homes through the real estate agents' multiple listing service are just 1% ahead of where they were in the same period last year.
"I believe this month's MLS data is an indication of DFW's residential real estate market stabilizing," said Paige Shipp with housing analyst Metrostudy Inc. "The root cause of the stabilization is price.
"As home prices appreciate, fewer and fewer buyers can afford them," she said. "I expect to see home sales numbers remain flat into 2019."
The slowdown in home sales growth this year comes after a long period of record sales and huge home price increases in North Texas. Median home resale prices in the area have risen almost 50% in the last five years.
But home prices increases have grown at a much smaller rate in 2018. In August, home sales prices in the area were up just 4% from a year earlier to $260,0000. And for the first eight months of 2018, sales prices are only 5% higher.
The number of houses listed for sale with real estate agents in the area was up 15% from August 2017 and is now at the highest volume in six years. Most of the increase in homes on the market has come in the higher price ranges.
"The amount of total inventory has climbed slightly over the past year, but much of this inventory has been in the $300,000 to $500,000 category," said Ted Wilson with Dallas housing analyst Residential Strategies. "There is such a limited amount of new home inventory coming to the market under $250,000, the overall closing pace has not been able to grow much.
"The competition for this affordable product has created much of the limited housing inflation that persists."
Even with the increase in houses for sale, in August there was still less than a 3-month inventory of properties for sale — still considered a tight market.
The average time it took to sell a house was 42 days — up 8% in time on the market from August 2017.
And there were 9,860 pending sales at the end of August — homes under contract but not sold — which is 2% less than a year earlier in the more than two dozen North Texas counties included in the survey.
