DFW Home Price Cuts Are a Sign of the Season

More home sellers are trimming list prices heading into the holidays.

The latest sign in the North Texas home market says “New Price.”

More Dallas-Fort Worth area home sellers are adjusting their prices as the market heads into the traditionally slower winter market.

About 27% of DFW homes listed for sale with real estate agents had price reductions as of October, according to Realtor.com. Nationwide, 18.9% of homes in October had price cuts.

Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale said she’s seeing nationwide price cuts are running “more than just about any other year on record — our data goes back to 2017.

“One thing we called out is the sharp increase in price reductions from September to October and, really, even going all the way back to April,” Hale said. “Some increase is usual in the late spring into summer, but sharp increases as late as September to October were only really seen in 2022, when prices then slowed dramatically.”

Dallas-Fort Worth home sales prices have drifted lower in recent months, with a decline of about 1% year over year in the third quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The median asking price for DFW home sales listings on Realtor.com was $449,000 — down a fraction from a year earlier. That’s higher than the nationwide listing price of $425,000 in October.

Home sales listings on the website were up 6.6% from October 2022 levels. And the median time to sell a DFW property was 46 days.

Local real estate agents aren’t surprised to see price reductions, with the marketing seeing a seasonal cool down heading into the holidays. Higher mortgage rates are also causing buyers to lower their price ceilings.

DFW home sales were down 7% in October from a year earlier.

“Price reductions are because the demand is lower due to interest rates,” said real estate agent Scott Schueler with Keller Williams Realty. “Sellers still pricing at the top of the price comps are starting to come to reality that the market has already peaked.”

Realtor David Bush said the pending holidays are definitely a factor in sellers’ thinking.

“I think many sellers have overprice their homes, but due to the upcoming holidays I’m seeing more owners pull their houses off the market and will more than likely reboot in January to try to get ahead of the spring market,” Bush said.

Source: Dallas Morning News