How to Navigate Today's Real Estate Market

What is going on in the real estate market today?

I have a wonderful young family splitting the seams on their 2015 built home in Canyon Falls. With the birth of their third boy, their carefully chosen 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home with a nice yard just wasn’t big enough anymore. So…they decided a little over a year ago to sell and buy out in the country. We listed their home and started looking at properties with some land and without an HOA. I was having good traffic and at least one serious prospect so we seriously searched on the buying end. We found the perfect home out in Ponder and placed a contingent offer.

The young family brought all their extended family out to see this great spot in the world where they’d make new memories and everyone approved. Then the slowdown of summer 2022 began and anything that was not updated to perfection was not selling unless large price reductions were taken. The contingency expired and their current home did not sell…

Why am I telling this story? This story is what is happening with our current real estate market: this family is now going to hold onto this great home as a rental, or income, property and buy new one day.

Well an astounding statistic in my opinion is: one out of every five closed listings is a new home. I believe there are two reasons for this number: 1)people are reluctant to give up their current home for anything less than what they think it is worth or what they saw it worth about a year ago (our most recent peak); 2)interest rates have risen several times since this time last year with talk of it happening again before the end of 2023.

Preowned home inventory is low. Affordability of preowned homes is also not great. Instead people are moving farther away from the DFW metroplex in favor of a brand new home in a hip-feeling subdivision. In addition to these hip new concept communities, there are shiny new modern schools, some opening their doors this fall for the very first time!

Buying a new home is fun-no doubt about it. Try to remember the pro’s and con’s when you are home shopping. Your negotiating power is far stronger on a preowned home than a new build. New Build’s often come without lots of the things preowned homes already have: window coverings, an established yard, etc. New Build’s often come with higher Homeowner Association Dues.

Is your payment worth what you will be getting? New HOA’s are surprisingly high priced.

So when choosing whether to stay put or move, take everything into account. And if you do choose to build new, use a real estate agent to represent you as another layer of safety and someone in your corner. If you hire me, I rebate 1% of my commission to your closing costs.