Home prices

Today, North Texans received news that people in many other parts of the country can only dream of hearing. Pre-owned median home prices increased last month from a year earlier. The increase was small – only 1 percent – but significant at a time when numerous other housing markets are still mired in a real estate slump that has sent home prices tumbling.

There was more good news in the new report released by the Real Estate Center at Texas A& M University. About 33,500 homes were listed for sale in North Texas in January – about 10 percent less than the same time last year. That amounts to less than a six-month supply, which many analysts see as a sign of a balanced market.

The current supply of single-family homes is one of the reasons why residential prices are on their way up. As the inventory of homes decreases, an area becomes less of a buyers’ market and prices begin to stabilize. In North Texas, median home prices were flat in 2009 while many other parts of the country saw double-digit declines. In more good news, real estate agent sold 3,300 homes through the Multiple Listing Service last month and 172 condominiums.

Major magazines have made it their business to come up with lists. There’s the Fortune 500, Forbes list of world’s richest people and U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings, just to name a few. But while it’s often a very good thing to appear on a national list, there are some lists that no one wants to be on. Forbes latest real estate lists are a case in point.

The magazine recently published a list of Cities with the Fastest-Falling Home Prices. Although Austin did make the top 10 list, Dallas did not.  A related list, Cities Where Homes are Losing the Most Value , did not have a single Texas city on it. Not surprisingly, that list was dominated by cities in California, Florida and Michigan. How about the list, Cities Where Americans Pay Most in Property Taxes? Well, Collin County and Fort Bend County did make that one, with taxes that were way above the national average. But Dallas County did not.   

Dallas also did not make the Forbes list of the World’s Happiest Cities  But maybe as the real estate market continues to improve, we could have a shot at that one.

U.S. home prices climb for the third straight month, though the nation’s annual rates are still declining. Dallas home prices rose 0.2% last month, and dipped only 1.2% from August 2009. To see how Dallas compares overall (quite well!) click this interactive map, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.