Home price gains in the Dallas area were dialed down in the latest nationwide comparison.
But the 8.5 percent annual price increase was still well ahead of the nationwide rise in the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index.
National home prices rose by 5.2 percent in March from the same month in 2016, according to the closely watched housing market measure.
Dallas’ home price rise in March was the lowest annual increase in nine months and a half percentage point below February’s 9 percent gain. But the home appreciation is still about twice long-term average increases in North Texas.
Case-Shiller reports that the biggest March increases were in Portland, Ore. (12.3 percent) and Seattle (10.8 percent). Dallas was tied with San Francisco with the fourth largest home price rise from a year ago.
“The economy is supporting the price increases with improving labor markets, falling unemployment rates and extremely low mortgage rates,” S&P’s David Blitzer said in the report. “Another factor behind rising home prices is the limited supply of homes on the market.
“The number of homes currently on the market is less than 2 percent of the number of households in the U.S., the lowest percentage seen since the mid-1980s.”
Dallas-area home prices are at a record level and are now more than 25 percent higher than they were before the recession, according to Case-Shiller.
Nationwide home prices are still about 10 percent below where they were in 2006.
With more than 80,000 people a year moving to North Texas, homes are in short supply. There’s less than a three-month supply of houses listed for sale with real estate agents in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Preowned home sales in North Texas are up 14 percent so far in 2016.
“It remains a tough home-buying season for buyers, with little inventory available among lower-priced homes,” Economist Svenja Gudell said in response to the latest Case-Shiller report. “The competition is locking out some first-time buyers, who instead are paying record-high rents.”
Article courtesy of Dallas Morning News:
http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2016/05/dallas-home-price-gains-slow-but-still-ahead-of-nationwide-increases.html/
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