August 5, 2020

A Look at D-FW Real Estate Pandemic Chapter and Beyond

Almost all industries and markets seem to bend the knee but Dallas Fort Worth is out to tell a totally different story. Not even the worldwide spread of a dangerous virus can devour Dallas Fort Worth’s sizzling hot housing market after all. 

The general sentiment from consumer surveys is that now is “not a good time to sell a home because of COVID, economic uncertainty and social unrest, but the data is saying all the opposites. 

The No. 1 in Deal Finding, Real Estate IQ, takes a splash to the core situation of the Dallas Fort-Worth real estate business scene and figures out its mechanism to emerge unharmed during its pandemic chapter up to the next. 

COVID is Just a Phase 

At a time when COVID-19 and governments’ response to it has shuttered hundreds of commercial restaurants and retail stores — and 340,000 Dallas-Fort Worth residents have been added to the unemployment rolls since March — the price of buying a home continues to rise.

For the DFW area, home prices are back to their pre-COVID pace, and listings are being seen to spend slightly less time on the market than before. Real estate prices in Dallas-Fort Worth are still sizzling, despite the COVID shutdown, data provided by real estate researchers shows.

Real estate experts say the explanation as to why home prices have remained so high during the pandemic is simple. Many potential sellers pulled their homes off the market in March and April because they didn’t want strangers inside their homes. As a result, there were fewer homes for prospective buyers to choose from in March and April, leading to greater competition and higher prices for the limited number of dwellings that were available for sale.

It turns out that the biggest issues with this pandemic going on are the sellers didn’t really want to let prospective buyers inside their home because it was their safe space. 

That concern has eventually diminished. By May, more sellers were ready to put their homes on the market and let visitors inside for a look.

Staying Strong 

Dallas-Fort Worth was the second most competitive market in the United States in May 2020

Dallas-Fort Worth was the second most competitive market in the United States in May 2020, with 60.8% of homes facing competition among hopeful buyers. Boston was No. 1 nationwide, with 64% of homes being competitively bid last month, Redfin data shows.

The strength of the housing market has real estate professionals keeping their hopes up that the uptick in home sales that typically occurs during the spring is not permanent, but simply being delayed by a couple of months, and pushed deeper into the summer.

Bidding wars jumped in May because home buyers felt they were starting to get more clarity around where the economy was headed, with cities around the nation lifting stay-at-home and lock down orders. This gave house hunters more confidence to compete. 

Construction in Dallas-Fort Worth has already returned to pre-coronavirus levels, according to a report published by the Associated General Contractors of America. North Texas and Miami were the two metro areas to bounce back quickest in the U.S., according to the report.

Only 8% of construction companies planned to lay off or furlough workers in June, while 21% of companies planned to add workers moving forward according to AGC.

The reason for that is simple. There are jobs in these areas, and tens of thousands of people are still moving to these places looking to land those jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says 102,500 new jobs were created there in 2018. That helped cut the local unemployment rate to 3.3 percent lately—lower than the 3.9 percent national average. There are 3.7 million people in these areas going to work every day now.

But with coronavirus cases back on the rise in many states, only time will tell whether that confidence is sustainable. 

The Dallas-Fort Worth housing market is one of the least vulnerable in the nation to a housing market collapse triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic

Post-Pandemic and Beyond 

The number of clicks for Dallas-Fort Worth home searches is surging.

Of course, it could be just lookie-loos surfing the net with no real intentions to buy at all. But the more than 30% jump in online property views for D-FW is more likely another sign that the local housing market is recovering from the worst of the pandemic, according to experts at Realtor.com.

Nationwide home searches on the top home marketing sites are also up significantly from a year ago. And while listings remain down, there are growing signs that the home market is bouncing back from the worst of the pandemic. 

The Dallas-Fort Worth housing market is one of the least vulnerable in the nation to a housing market collapse triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report. Major Texas markets overall fare well in the report by ATTOM Data Solutions.

Dallas County ranks 477th out of 483 counties ranked, with the higher number being less at risk of fallout from COVID-19. Real estate experts believe DFW and Texas residential real estate markets to perform well above most markets nationwide in the post-COVID-19 world.

White-collar jobs are strong and leading indicators of real estate purchases and with historically low inventory, low rates, corporate relocations adding to an abundance of vacant jobs, but most of all pent up demand from a lukewarm spring, it will not only increase sales but keep prices stable in the remainder of 2020 all across DFW. 

Across the country, concerns are growing about how real estate sales will fare when fewer people have jobs and can afford houses and when even those with jobs grow more fearful of the long-term commitment of a mortgage.

The coronavirus crisis and shelter-in-place orders had impacted North Texas’ residential markets with fewer shoppers in the market in the peak spring selling season, and some sellers postponing or pulling their houses off the market, real estate agents say.

Texas has 10 of the 50 least vulnerable counties from among the 483 included in the report, followed by Wisconsin with seven and Colorado with five.

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With these reports coming out left and right, it resonates one thing about the Dallas Fort-Worth real estate industry. 

It was hammered by the pandemic in the last few months but because it contained one of the least risks to damaging fallouts, it became a formidable force to reckon with in terms of rebound mechanism. 

That single reason made experts conclude that DFW real estate would have a bright and promising future in the post-pandemic world and beyond. 

If you enjoyed reading and got  interested to get help to move forward with your business goals. Check out these institutions that are motivated to help you here in our REIQ Education. 

Sources: https://www.redfin.com/   https://www.agc.org/

https://www.realtor.com/ https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/attom-data-solutions-special-report/

Disclaimer: The blog articles are intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in the content is intended as legal or financial advice.