Luxury home buying is up in North Texas, eighty percent over last year, according to a new report from Texas Realtors.
Information gathered from November 2020 through October 2021 reveals that 3,818 homes valued at a million dollars or more were sold in Dallas, Ft. Worth, and Arlington, for a total value of over six billion dollars.
“A lot of people from all over the country are coming here at the fastest rate I’ve seen since I moved here in 2002,” says David Hunt, who has been in the industry for 20 years and currently is a realtor with Keller Williams Realty Inc. “I currently have seven clients who are looking to buy homes in the $1.2-$1.7 million dollar range that will be moving to Dallas within the next year.”
Thirty-two percent of the million-dollar homes sold in Texas were in the Dallas-Ft. Worth market, the highest percentage in the state. Houston follows with twenty-seven percent and Austin at twenty-six.
“Prosper, Celina, Savannah, Little Elm, they all allow you to have the [luxury living] and still get to areas of entertainment, nightclubs, restaurants within fifteen minutes without traffic. That’s what makes Dallas a choice for so many people around the country because you can still have affordable living and not have to live out in the boondocks,” says Hunt.
Buyers in Texas also benefit from lower square-footage prices compared to what they can find on the east and west coasts. Texas homebuyers, in general, spent $176 per square foot and luxury homebuyers spent $324 per square foot compared to luxury buyers in California, who pay between $736 and upwards of a thousand dollars per square foot.
“What defines a million-dollar home is rapidly evolving across the state,” Marvin Jolly, chairman of Texas Realtors, said in the new report. “There is strong demand in the luxury home market in Texas as many buyers from out of state are finding that they can afford a larger or higher-end home compared to the area they came from.”
Across Texas, almost 12,000 homes sold for a million dollars or more, ninety percent more than what was sold the year prior. The number of days a luxury home stayed on the market averaged fifty-five, with over 17,000 new homes listed from November 2020-October 2021.
Hunt says in 2022, rates are projected to go up two to three times which will equal less buying power for people.
“The pandemic changed the real estate game drastically due to people working from home and being able to move anywhere. Honestly, a million dollars ain’t nothing, and in the coming years, the luxury market will become even more competitive.”
