The Dallas-Fort Worth housing market has been super hot for the last couple of years, but those in the housing industry say recent trends indicate the market may be cooling down.
The stiff competition in North Texas and across the state to buy a home was due to a low inventory of homes, causing buyers to purchase quickly and way over the asking price.
"The craziest one I heard is someone offered to give the seller an RV if they would accept their offer," said Shana Acquisto, a real estate broker who owns Acquisto Real Estate and is president-elect of the Collin County Association of Realtors.
She says those situations aren't happening as much these days as the market shifts due to higher interest rates and more inventory available.
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"The market is cooling somewhat, but I don't panic at all. I think the rate increase is good and it's doing what it was meant to do, which is stabilize and cool off our market, it was just out of control," said Acquisto.
She said the competitiveness of the last two years made it hard for buyers who were not able to play in the bidding wars.
"Unfortunately, it did kick a lot of buyers out of the market, where now we're seeing more buyers are having another opportunity to come back in and not be as competitive," said Acquisto. "So it's allowing people more opportunities to be able to secure a home."
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The Collin County Association of Realtors market review for August states that sellers were open to negotiating and accepting offers for less than their original list price for the first time since Jan. 2021.
"What this market means now is it's a better opportunity for buyers. You might not see multiple offers and bidding wars on every property. It's easier for buyers to buy right now, which is a good thing," said Kelly Boulton, whose been a realtor in DFW for 21 years.
She recently sold a home for a client in Valley Ranch in Irving that only sat on the market for a week.
"I listed this house, we sold it in the first week, but typical of the trend right now, we didn't get tons of offers," said Boulton. "We got a very good offer and we sold it just over list price in a week."
"We figured out the market was really sort of normalized again to where it was years ago, and despite that, we still thought we have a good sale offer," said Thaddeus Clavo, Boulton's client who recently sold his home. "
Boulton said when it comes to homes in the $300,000 to $400,000 range, she's still seeing a lot of competition as that has become a standard number for homes in DFW.
"Our sales are down but the home prices aren't necessarily down. So we have set a new market standard in our area and I do not see that going backward or going the other way," said Acquisto.
The report also states that in Collin County, homeowners paid a medial sales price of $528,399, which is 20.1% more than a year ago. Also, homes for sale remained on the market for about 24 days and sold at 97.9% of the original list price. A year ago in august, homes were on the market for about 2 weeks.
"We never have a crystal ball, but many economists are saying that prices are still going to increase just not at the crazy amounts that they were in the last two years," said Boulton.
She believes the market is starting to normalize, versus slowdown. Homes are still going fast, but with more inventory out there, the days of sellers expecting to receive offers way over the asking price are over, for the time being.
"I think the properties that are sitting there a little longer is because maybe sellers haven't quite adjusted to the shift in the dynamic of the market and they're pricing it slightly high," said Boulton.
In Collin County, the August housing report said buyers had 77.3% more inventory to choose from compared to a year ago and that there are enough homes to last 2.3 months which is 107.3% compared to last year. A six-month supply of homes for sale is considered a balanced market.
“We are seeing you know, more homes come into inventory, which means more opportunity for buyers. And we are seeing some price reductions because if a seller needs to sell they're having to do something to entice a buyer," said Acquisto.
Overall, realtors believe the market is still strong and continues to grow, but just at a different rate as compared to the last couple years.
