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The North Texas real estate market, which includes Dallas Fort Worth, saw overall sales drop for pre-owned homes. This sounds like bad news, but it really is not. Most of the damage was done at the low end of the market where there is saturation as most of those looking for home ownership have achieved it. The middle and high end of the market are still doing very well.

So Dallas has stopped seeing gains at the low end of the market. Odds are appreciation outpaced the ability for entry level buyers to buy their first home, and that will correct quickly. The market works. Sometimes we are so intense on seeing a trend and trying to make a justification for our own beliefs that we forget that markets are very efficient, and correct before most analysts recognize the fact.

The North Texas home market started 2006 with a drop in sales. Preowned home sales were down about 4 percent in January from a year earlier, according to statistics released Wednesday by the North Texas Real Estate Information System and Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center.
January was the second consecutive month with a year-over-year sales decline.
More than 4,300 preowned homes were sold last month through the real estate agents’ multiple listing service. At the same time sales were easing, the median price of homes sold in North Texas jumped 9 percent to $144,000. That’s the biggest annual increase in prices in more than two years.
Real estate agents said Wednesday that the jump in median prices probably has as much to do with people buying more expensive houses as values rising. Fewer buyers of low-priced homes are currently in the market than a year ago, agents and builders say.
“We are not seeing as many first-time buyers – they have either purchased or with the slight uptick in interest rates, they may be holding off,” said agent Barry Hoffer with Prudential Texas Properties. Citywide, sales of homes priced below $120,000 were down significantly last month.  “If the interest rates bump up a little bit, it can make the difference between someone buying or not at the low end,” said Mary Frances Burleson, president of Dallas’ Ebby Halliday Realtors.
At the same time, more higher-priced homes are trading. In January, the number of million dollar and up homes sold in North Texas almost doubled from a year earlier. via Dallas Morning News

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