Real Estate Rumblings

Dallas housing market remains hot but experts say prepare for cooldown

Dallas single-family home prices are still up over last year, but that gap is starting to close. According to a new report from CoreLogic, home prices in the Dallas-Plano-Irving metropolitan were up 8.7 percent in May 2014 compared to the same period last year. On a month-over-month basis, home prices increased by 1 percent in May 2014.

Compare that to the 10.4 percent year-over-year increase in April, 11 percent in March, 11.3 percent in February and 12.2 percent in January, and you’ll start to see the trend. Dallas also dropped a spot among the top 10 housing markets to No. 8.

What’s happening in Dallas mirrors the national averages: a year-over-year increase of 8.8 percent and month-over-month increase of 1.4 percent. Across Texas, the numbers look similar: 8.9 percent gains over May 2013 and .9 percent gains since April 2014. However, Houston continues to buck the statewide and national trends, and its 13 percent increase in home prices over May of last year was enough to earn it a No. 3 spot nationally.

“May’s 8.8 percent year-over-year growth rate is down almost three percentage points from just three months ago,” says CoreLogic chief economist Mark Fleming. “The influences of modestly rising inventory and less-than-expected demand are causing price growth to moderate toward our forecasted expectations.”

A continued increase in prices across the country has positive and negative implications on the housing market, says Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “While the rapid rise in prices over the past two years has lifted many homeowners out of negative equity, it has also become a negative factor in buying decisions for prospective purchasers weighing affordability concerns.

As we move ahead, a moderation in home price increases over the next 12 months should help cool things down a bit and keep the housing recovery going.”

To determine the home price index (HPI), CoreLogic, a residential property information, analytics and services provider, looks at price, time between sales, property type, loan type and distressed sales. The CoreLogic HPI is a repeat-sales index that tracks increases and decreases in sales prices for the same single-family homes over time, which provides a more accurate “constant quality” view of pricing trends, as opposed to views of pricing trends based on analysis of all home sales.

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30 years or less

Dallas makes new list of easiest U.S. cities to pay off a mortgage

Houston home sales once again made history.

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Whether a homeowner's mortgage is for 15 or 30 years, paying off such a large debt can be an arduous process. But luckily for homeowners living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, paying off a mortgage is much easier than in most other metropolitan areas in the country, according to a new report by SmartAsset.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington earned a ranking of No. 13 in SmartAsset's new study analyzing the top 40 large U.S. metros where it's easiest to pay off a mortgage. Rankings were based on the principal and interest payments for conventional 30-year fixed rate mortgages issued in 2023, relative to the median income of new homeowners.

Leading the nation as the No. 1 easiest metro to pay off a mortgage is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

According to the study's findings, the median property value of a home in the Metroplex is $475,000, while principal and interest payments amount to $2,464 per month. Those monthly mortgage payments only represent 20 percent of a DFW homeowner's gross pay. SmartAsset also determined that the median income of new homeowner in the area comes out to $148,000 a year.

The report also reflects on the different life changes that can happen while paying off a house, such as starting a new job, starting a family, or even large economic events.

"After you qualify and buy the home, you could spend 30 years paying off your mortgage loan...So it’s important to have a strong emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses," the report's author wrote. "You may also decide to pay off your mortgage early, even when having the opportunity to invest those extra funds elsewhere."

Elsewhere in Texas, Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land ranked as the No. 2 easiest metro for paying off a mortgage, followed by San Antonio-New Braunfels as No. 5. Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown rounded out the top 10 with the lowest interest rates for new homeowners in 2023, at just 6.5 percent, the report found.

The top 10 U.S. metros where mortgages are easiest to pay off are:

No. 1 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
No. 2 – Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, Texas
No. 3 – Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Michigan
No. 4 – Cleveland-Elyria, Ohio
No. 5 – San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas
No. 6 – St. Louis, Missouri-Illiniois
No. 7 – Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wisconsin
No. 8 – Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Delaware-Maryland
No. 9 – Cincinnati, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana
No. 10 – Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, Texas

The report used data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for 2023, where median loan sizes and median interest rates were used to determine the monthly principal and interest calculator with SmartAsset’s mortgage calculator. This monthly mortgage payment (which excluded PMI, property taxes, and home insurance) was then compared with the median incomes of new homeowners.

The full report and its methodology can be found on smartasset.com.

real estate reports smartasset rankings dallas fort worth arlington