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.

Today is the official first day of summer. Can you believe it? Spring just really meshed into summer since all of the stay home orders. Nothing this year is normal as we are still in the midst of this pandemic. We hope that you are able to find a safe place to stay cool and enjoy your summer time.

We recently took our kids to visit Turner Falls in Oklahoma which is the cover picture. It is a waterfall from a natural spring in the Arbuckle Mountains. We love the area and were able to spread out , social distance, hike, swim and enjoy the beautiful geologic formations.

The housing markets have so far not seen big declines in prices during the pandemic but the supply and volume show drastic decline during the pandemic. Both the supply and inventory have double-digit declines YoY but prices have remained relatively flat. So why haven’t prices declined? As we discussed last month, the supply and demand both decreased in tandem. Typically if the demand decreased but supply remained the same, a lowering in price would occur. During this pandemic, the supply has also decreased, keeping the supply/demand ratio similar to prior to the pandemic.

Predictions during this time are difficult. Texas is currently experiencing a “double whammy” as low oil price and a pandemic are impacting the economy. Texas has been reopening but as we have, covid19 cases have been climbing. This threatens a strong economic recovery, which would then impact the housing market.

Mortgage rates remain at record lows.

Let’s dive in to the numbers:

Median Sales Price

Months Supply of Inventory

Volume

Median Days on Market

New Listings

As we move forward, we will continue to watch the housing market and economy for North Texas. As we are still in the middle of this pandemic, we do wish you all safety and health. As always, please let us know if you have questions or comments about real estate appraising or need appraisal services.

Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads and those who are like fathers to us. You will never know how important you are. We celebrate you!

Interesting Reads or Listens

Don’t hold your breath for a Covid discount– Sacramento Appraisal Blog

Unintended Consequences of the Coronavirus Pandemic– Birmingham Appraisal Blog

The economy is tanking. So why aren’t home prices dropping?-Curbed

Appraisal Terms That Are Out of This World-Cleveland Appraisal Blog

Hundreds of new homes coming in Royse City northeast of Dallas– Dallas Morning News

Equestrian apparel company Ariat could bring hundreds of jobs to Fort Worth– Dallas Morning News

The Lockdown Has Relegated Housing To Background Noise– Housing Notes

Does My Neighborhood Really Need to be Analyzed? -The Appraiser’s Advocate

Normally, I would have a lovely picture of spring full of discussions of the spring market activity but, as we all know, there is nothing normal going on in our lives right now. We now use the new term “social distancing”, kids are distant learners from home, churches are learning to stream their services online, families are using Zoom or Google Hangouts to connect and many have been laid off as their employers have been forced to close.

When Italy began to have major struggles all of the world leaders began to realize the seriousness of this particular virus. The COVID-19 virus as it is now identified as. The long incubation time of this virus has made it much harder to manage because many are spreading it unknowingly. We are all now trying to do our part to “flatten the curve” to lessen the strain on our medical resources as we limit our distance from others.

This world pandemic has been unprecedented. Many who study real estate markets have been trying to compare the impacts of this pandemic to previous events but there is nothing to compare to this sudden cessation of the economy.

False Start

Our real estate markets had taken off in January and they were continuing that pace through February. The charts provided in this market update are from February as we don’t have all of the numbers in for March. Everything was going great until everything came to an abrupt halt with the sudden need to try to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Have you ever been to a track meet and a running event had a false start? If you recall our newsletter last month, it showed runners bounding out of the starting blocks. With a false start, runners burst out of the blocks at the sound of the starting gun only to come to a quick stop once the gun sounds again signaling a false start. Someone started too early so the race has to restart. This is how I visualize the housing markets in North Texas. The markets were off to a great running start, only to be halted with all momentum ended.

So as we take a look at this market update, we know that all of this was before any impact of the global pandemic was evident.

We will be watching the direct impacts of the Covid19 crisis on our markets so look for that in next month’s newsletter. Let’s now look back to “Pre-Covid19” markets in February for Denton, Collin, Dallas and Tarrant counties. Out of the starting blocks and going strong, we saw prices up, supplies down and volume up.

Median Sales Price Trends

The median sale price trends in all 4 counties are up YoY. See the percentages below. The stats from last month – Denton is down 0.95%; Collin is up 1.66%; Dallas is up 2.5% and Tarrant is up 0.83% from January.

Volume

The number of sales is up in all four counties with the exception of Tarrrant County which is down a slight 2.2%

Months Supply of Inventory

All four counties have a decrease in supply as the demand for housing at the first of the year has been strong.  All three counties have less than 3 months of supply. 

Days on the Market

The number of days on the market decreased in both the northern suburb counties of Denton and Collin.  The number of days on the market increased for the more urban counties of Dallas and Tarrant YoY, however the number of days on the market is less than Denton and Collin counties. 

Appraising During the COVID-19 Outbreak

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the FDIC have provided guidelines and some temporary exceptions to appraisal requirements. In some instances, an exterior inspection can be made rather than a full inspection and in some cases, a desktop appraisal may be suitable. This is a decision that can be made by the lending institution and perhaps with a discussion with the appraiser. Here are links to the recently published guidelines:

Fannie Mae’s Temporary Guidelines

Freddie Mac’s Temporary Guidelines

FDIC FAQs During COVID-19 (Answer #12 & #13 relate to Appraisals)

In most states and counties real estate appraisals for financial institutions fall into the category of “Essential Businesses”. There is some discrepancy in Dallas County vs the city of Dallas as to whether appraisers are considered an Essential Business. We are searching for further clarification on this but in the meantime, we continue to provide services to our clients in a safe manner while following regulations in the counties and cities we service.

Please know that we have been taking precautions during this time to keep ourselves and others safe. If someone in your house is sick please inform the appraiser prior to the inspection. Please turn on all lights, open all doors and gates. Secure your pets. This eliminates the need for us to touch anything. Here is a link to a helpful article on helping an appraiser during an inspection as it relates to COVID-19.

What Homeowners Can Do to Assist The Appraiser During the Coronavirus Pandemic– Birmingham Appraisal Blog

We can all work together during this time to stay safe. We will continue to stay abreast of appraisal guidelines and local, county and state guidelines. As we watch the markets, we will be paying particular interest to listings and pendings as they can give us a little bit of a peek into the future.

As my grandmother often tells me, “this too shall pass”. I believe her. She lived through World War II and the Great Depression. She has been a steady rock in the lives of our family. Now she is in a nursing facility in quarantine, as she is at risk at the age of 91. I miss being able to see her. We pray that this will pass sooner than later and that we all come out stronger on the other side of this. We pray for health and safety for each of you as well. With that, I will leave you with a spring picture- change is coming and we will weather this storm.