September Newsletter- Inventory Falling with the Leaves

Posted On September 30, 2020

Photo by Irina Iriser from Pexels

The weather is just slightly starting to cool here in North Texas. It is officially the season of fall and the leaves have started to change, ever so slightly. Soon we will be pulling out our sweaters and jackets! Even though I have lived in Texas my entire life, I have never been a fan of the heat. So understandably, I love it when the weather begins to cool down. For us, fall means football games, sweaters, pumpkins, sips of hot chocolates, cool crisp walks or bike rides, and a time to slow down and enjoy the cool crisp air. What does it mean for you?

As we know, this year has been unlike any other that any of us has experienced. The housing market, typically begins to cool off during the fall season, however, it took a pause during the pandemic and then took off the past month. Sale prices are up, year over year, in all counties and inventory has drastically fallen. The pandemic pause created high demand for housing, low inventory and low mortgage rates have all pushed prices upward. Housing starts have not been able to keep up with demand.  Confidence among single-family homebuilders increased to a record high in September. Builders, however, remained concerned about rising costs for materials and delivery delays, especially for lumber.

Our rural markets have also been showing price increases for some of the same reasons. There has been an increase in the demand to move out of the urban and suburban areas to more rural settings since the pandemic. We will share some stats from our more rural counties in this newsletter. Many are adjusting to this more country life. Think ” Home on the Range” like this gem from Gene Autry ( we are located only five miles from his birthplace)

Let’s first take a look at our main four counties:

Median Sales Price

Price Per Square Foot

Months of Inventory

Volume

Rural Markets

This month, we are adding some of the numbers for our more rural counties as we have seen significant increases in them as well. It is noted, however, that since the rural markets have fewer numbers of sales, the markets tend to fluctuate more erratically.

Median Sale Price

Months of Inventory

AUGUST 2020

Cooke County
2.9 | -50.0%
Grayson County
2.7 | -42.6%
Wise County
3.1 | -26.2%
Parker County
2.7 | -38.6%

 Volume

AUGUST 2020

Cooke County
74 | +29.8%
Grayson County
245 | +20.1%
Wise County
99 | -14.7%
Parker County
326 | +8.7%

So as you can see from the charts, our rural markets have seen a lot of activity and price appreciation, with the exception of Wise County which had a low number of sales for the past month. As stated previously, the rural markets fluctuate more frequently this could just be a mild fluctuation. Here are the price trend numbers, seasonally adjusted:

AUGUST 2020

Cooke County
$220,000 | +4.8%
Grayson County
$191,967 | +3.8%
Wise County
$250,000 | +2.5%
Parker County
$312,000 | +9.2%

All four counties are showing upward price trends when seasonally adjusted. 

Fall Recipe

Shannon’s Easy Pumpkin Bread Recipe:

1 box white or yellow cake mix 

1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon cinnamon (or 1.5 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice)

1-3 eggs (see cake mix directions for amount) Vegetable oil (see cake mix directions for amount)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a loaf pan. Consult your cake mix box to find the number of eggs and oil as directed on the box. Combine cake mix, eggs, and oil in a bowl and mix on medium speed until smooth and well-blended. Add pumpkin and cinnamon. Mix on low until incorporated. Pour mixture into prepared loaf pan. Bake at 375 for 50 minutes. Cool and serve with butter or frost with cream cheese frosting.

Please share with us some of your favorite recipes! We’d love to give them a try!

Great Cycle Challenge Completed!

We completed our Great Cycle Challenge. Thanks to all that sponsored us! We reached our goal of $1,000 towards cancer research and 200 miles in September. You can read about our journey here:

In case you missed it, we had a guest blog this month –5 Things You Should Research Before Downsizing During the Pandemic

We will continue to cover the North Texas housing market for you in our monthly newsletter! Please let us know if you have any questions or need appraisal services.