Dallas Home Prices Up at the Lowest Rate in 7 Years
Nationwide home price gains were at the lowest level in four years, and Dallas-area prices were up only 3.8 percent year-over-year in the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price report. Dallas' home price increase in January was the smallest since 2012 in the closely watched monthly housing index. Nationwide, prices were 4.3 percent higher than a year earlier. "Home price gains continue to shrink," Standard & Poor's David M. Blitzer said in the report. "In 16 of the 20 cities tracked, price gains were smaller in January 2019 than in January 2018." The largest price increases were in Las Vegas, which was up 10.5 percent, and Phoenix at 7.5 percent. "Some cities where prices surged in 2017-2018 now face much smaller increases," Blitzer said.
Dallas-area home price growth has stalled in recent months as the number of houses on the market has surged. But even with the smaller recent gains, Dallas-area home prices are at an all-time high in the Case-Shiller index and are almost 50 percent ahead of where they were before the Great Recession in 2007. "The national housing market's ongoing, slow march back to 'normal' is continuing into the start of 2019 and setting up a spring in which buyers will have more power than they have in years but may still need to work hard to find a favorable deal," Zillow economic analyst Matthew Speakman said in a statement. "Formerly scorching hot, in-demand markets have seen home value growth steadily slow over the past few months. "The recent slowdown should be viewed more as the healthy rebalancing it is rather than a dramatic shift in trends or an impending sign that the strong fundamentals the housing market is enjoying are about to collapse..."
