Fort Worth area home sales plunge in October. Has the slowdown affected prices?
When it comes to home sales, trends in Tarrant County are falling steeper than they did during the Great Recession, according to data from North Texas Real Estate Information Services.
Sales dropped 32% in Tarrant County from October 2021 to October 2022. That compares to a 26% drop between 2008 and 2009.
And we haven’t even hit the real estate market’s slowest time of year.
“Transaction volume will decline some more I think and seasonally we usually have our slowest time these next two months,” said Shelby Kimball, a Realtor and former president of the Greater Fort Worth Association of Realtors.
But the comparison to the Great Recession ends there.
“I think we are looking at a rate-driven issue here,” Kimball said. “That coupled with prices that really skyrocketed over the last two years. It’s made buying more expensive and now there’s a downward pressure on prices from these rising rates.”
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the sixth time in a row this week. Mortgage rates are hovering around 7%.
Meanwhile, home prices aren’t following the same trend.
While the median home price in Tarrant County fell from $365,000 to $353,000 from August to September, it is still up more than 13% from September 2021, according to data from the Greater Fort Worth Association of Realtors.
Kimball points to inventory, which is still constricted, in part due to the rise in mortgage rates, which is prompting recent buyers to stick with the low rates they’ve secured over the last few years.
“We still have good employment numbers, job openings and people are still moving here,” he said.
This story was originally published November 4, 2022 at 2:49 PM.
