While home prices in North Texas may still be on the higher end, prospective buyers can at least take heart in the fact that there are more homes to choose from.
In recent years, the strong housing demand in North Texas has meant that people shopping for a home must compete with plenty of other buyers. Coming out of the pandemic financial fallout, it was not uncommon for housing inventory to sit at just two to three weeks, meaning at the then-current rate, it would take just two to three weeks to sell all available homes in the region.
The latest data, however, from April 2024 through January 2025, shows inventory in the Dallas-Plano-Irving market sitting at more than three months. In the Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine real estate market, the story is similar.
The result? Buyers are no longer faced with rapidly disappearing listings. Instead, houses remain on the market for substantially longer. It also means aggressive bidding wars fought between multiple buyers are less common.
“Let’s look at the bright side: As a buyer 2 1/2 years ago, you had to jump on the same house 20 other people were trying to buy,” real estate broker Joe Atkins of Atkins Realty said, per WFAA.
Despite the relief from some of the competition, buyers still face steep price tags. The matter is made worse since interest rates remain high.
As recently reported in The Dallas Express, despite the Federal Reserve having reduced the Fed Funds rate by a full percentage point since September, 30-year mortgage rates have actually climbed higher.
As of February 20, the average 30-year fixed mortgage in the United States stood at 6.85%. For comparison, it was 6.09% in mid-September 2024 when the Fed began to unwind rates.
Atkins expects more people holding out on selling and buying to begin settling for less-than-desired deals this year.
“Compromise…which I think is something that’s going to be big this year, because the stubbornness of a lot of sellers and the stubbornness of a lot of buyers have both been losing,” he said.