New data concludes that Dallas-Fort Worth homeowners may be waiting longer to officially move elsewhere but are making large profits when the time does come to sell their homes here.
Attom Data Solutions recently determined that Dallas-Fort Worth residents selling their homes received an average sales gain of $78,437 in 2019. While that's $1,000 less than what was recorded in 2018, it is still more than the national record-setting gain of $65,500.
Collin County Association of Realtors President David Long says it's all dependent on the homeowner's individual situation.
“If they gained $65,000 in cash, it would depend on their overall situation and why they would want to make that move -- if they were younger and have children and wanted to move into a large home than what they had, or vice versa if they were older and wanted to downsize," Long recently told the Texas Business Coalition.
A Plano resident, Long listed several factors as to why locals choose to remain in their homes for extended periods of time with the biggest reason being the increasing prices of potential replacement homes.
“Home prices in Texas for many, many years would increase,” Long said. “There were some downturns, obviously, but they would increase say 1 to maybe 3 percent. Dallas is still a very desirable area in home price compared to many other markets around the country, but what happened from about 2012 through the beginning of 2018, the home prices were, for Dallas-Fort Worth, going up much more rapidly.”
According to Long, average median home prices across Texas were beginning to stabilize last year following a 1 to 4 percent downturn. Dallas prices increased by 0.2 percent to $375,000 and in Frisco by 1.6 percent to $420,000. Plano has retained an average median price of $340,000.
Each market has a unique landscape that determines the median price. For example, Frisco and McKinley still have much land with new builds going on, which raises the price.
Another reason Long cited was that some homeowners' incomes are not increasing as rapidly as home prices, which makes it a challenge to find affordable housing in a different location.
He referenced an example where he encountered a man moving to Dallas-Fort Worth from California, where he was renting his home, but also owned additional property in another state. Due to not selling that additional property before arriving in Texas, he could only afford a home worth under $300,000.
On average, Dallas-Fort Worth homeowners reside in their homes for 7.76 years before earning large returns, the Attom study said.
“It’s always been said for a long time that a person’s home purchase is frequently the largest, single investment they make,” Long said. “Most of the time it’s a very good investment because typically home prices continue to increase.”
Zillow states the Dallas-Fort Worth home market is now estimated to be worth $589 billion, ranking it as the 10th highest in the United States.
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