The rise in home prices is slowing in big cities across Texas as housing inventories rise and sales decline.
In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, home prices stalled on a month-to-month basis, holding firm at $430,000 from May to June, according to the Re/Max National Housing Report.
However, median home prices in Austin fell 2.27%, dropping from $550,000 in May to $537,475 the following month.
The housing markets in San Antonio and Houston faired a little better, reporting slight increases in median home prices.
San Antonio saw a slight increase from $339,317 in May to $340,000. Median home prices in Houston inched higher to $351,500 from $350,000 in May.
While the median home price in the Lone Star State has been cooling since January, the state’s months of inventory (MOI) metric is currently on the rise.
MOI is the number of months it would take for the current inventory of homes on the market to sell at the current sales pace.
Texas doubled its MOI since the start of the year, due in part to Austin’s robust increase in inventory, which recently surpassed Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston for the first time since 2019.
The average MOI in DFW was 1.8 in June, its highest level since 2020.
Houston had 1.9 months of supply. Austin and San Antonio clocked MOIs of 2.1 months.
North Texas real estate broker Joe Atkins stressed how fundamentally different the housing market is now compared to a couple of years ago.
Decrease “wasn’t even a word used in real estate for 18 months because everything sold,” Atkins told WFAA. “Now you’re seeing more price decreases at this point than I think we’ve probably seen since the pandemic.”
Even with home prices either stalling or decreasing, many homes are beyond financial reach for a lot of Texans because of rising inflation and increased mortgage rates.
Data from the Texas Housing Affordability Index (THAI) found that the “Dallas-Plano-Irving” area is just barely hovering in the “affordable” range, according to Texas Real Estate Research Center.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence at ATTOM, stated in July, “With interest rates almost doubling [in recent months], homebuyers are faced with monthly mortgage payments between 40% and 50% higher than they were a year ago – payments that many prospective buyers simply can’t afford.”
Still, Texas home prices remain relatively inexpensive compared to other states due to a boost in median family income.
According to the Texas Real Estate Research Center, the median family income in DFW increased by 9.4% in June from the year before. Austin saw an increase of 11.5%, San Antonio saw 12.7%, and Houston rose by 13.8% year over year in June.