North Texas market bounces back
DALLAS — Home sales in North Texas exploded in July, rising 25% from a year ago to the largest ever single-month sales total.
It was the second month in a row that area home purchases bounced back from declines in April and May at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. July's sales spike follows a 16% annual increase in June.
Record low mortgage rates that have made home loan payments lower fueled the surge in buying. The gain for July was enough to boost the area's total sales for the first seven months of the year by 3% from the same period in 2019, according to data from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University and the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems.
The rise in July sales was expected, but the size of the gain was well ahead of most analysts' expectations.
“The continued strength of the resale home market in D-FW is surprising,” said Paige Shipp, vice president of market research at CDCG Asset Management. “We anticipated pent-up demand as we exited the lockdown, but the latest data proves it is more than just a delay in spring selling season.”
North Texas median home prices were up by 9%, the largest such annual increase in more than a year.
The $294,200 median sales price in July was a record high for North Texas.
The jump in home prices is caused by a growing shortage of houses on the market.
Only about 16,000 single-family homes were listed with real estate agents in the more than two dozen North Texas counties included in the July data — 40% less than a year earlier and the lowest inventory in more than three years.