Dallas-Ft. Worth home prices fell by the smallest percentage in almost two years in the latest housing market snapshot. DFW prices were down only 1.6 percent in July from a year earlier in the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller home price index. Local home prices were up from June to July, the fifth consecutive month of increases. The July figure is also the highest point in the home price index since last September. This just released data is more proof that home price declines bottomed in North Texas in early 2009. The rate of annual decline in home price values continues to decelerate, and we now seem to be witnessing some sustained monthly increases across many markets. These figures continue to support an indication of stabilization in national real estate values.
Analysts are keeping an eye on how the housing market reacts later this year when a popular federal home buying tax credit expires. Nationwide home prices in July were still 13.3 percent below where they were a year earlier. But the index has been higher for three consecutive months, a strong indication that home prices have bottomed out. U.S. home prices are still almost 30 percent below their peak in mid-2006.
So far in 2009 the median home sales prices have dropped only about 2 percent in the residential sales industry's MLS. The Case-Shiller decline estimate is even less. "That's really saying prices are flat" said David Brown, who heads housing analyst Metrostudy Inc.'s Dallas office. "That's a very small number".
Case Shiller tracks the prices of typical single family homes in each metropolitan area. The index does not include condos, town homes, or new construction ONLY pre-owned homes.
** This was published in the Dallas Morning News by Steve Brown 9-30-09**
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