Luxury Home Sales Are Lagging in D-FW
Luxury homebuyers are bouncing back after heading to the bunkers at the start of the pandemic. Nationwide online shopping for high-end homes was up more than 7% year-over-year in May, according to Realtor.com. But the Dallas area is lagging in this trend, with fewer eyes on posh properties.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the resilience of the housing market, and, unlike prior downturns, the luxury market is leading the recovery,” Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale said in the new report. “Stay-at-home orders and social distancing have put a new value on the extra space. We’re seeing this in the luxury market as well, which could mean there is renewed interest from high-end buyers to find a second home that is within driving distance from their primary residence.”
Luxury home prices around the country are rising in a quarter of the markets on Realtor.com. Overall high-end home prices were up 6% in May from a year ago.
Some of the biggest increases in luxury home shopping and price increases were in suburban New York markets, where affluent buyers are looking for second homes.
The Dallas-area’s high-end home sector is seeing a more sluggish recovery. The number of million-dollar property listings was down 24% in May. And asking prices for local luxury houses were down about 2%, according to Realtor.com.
Views of the most expensive Dallas-area properties on Realtor. com were down 2% year over year in May.
The Fort Worth area is seeing more interest in top properties. Views of million-dollar listings in Tarrant County were up 21% year over year in May. That’s an even stronger performance than in January, when high-end property perusals were 8% higher than a year ago. Asking prices for the most expensive homes for sale in the Fort Worth area are down almost 5% from May 2019.
“While the Dallas County luxury housing market is still recovering from the COVID-19 downturn, neighboring Tarrant County is seeing some stronger signs of renewed interest as views per property on Realtor.com are trending upward,” Hale said. “However, that increased demand hasn’t quite translated to increasing prices yet, as Tarrant County is still seeing prices decline year over year. One thing all markets share is a shortage of available inventory, as we’ve seen with the housing market overall in response to COVID-19.”
For all of North Texas, sales of million-dollar homes were down 16% through the first five months of 2020 compared with the same period last year. Overall home sales by real estate agents were 6% lower year over year...
