http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124636417721572777.html#project%3DCASE_SHILLER090428%26articleTabs%3Dinteractive

 08:06 AM CDT on Friday, July 17, 2009 By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
Close-in Dallas-area neighborhoods that had dodged the worst of the housing recession are now getting clobbered.

Park Cities home sales plunged 37 percent in the first half of 2009.

In North Dallas, sales were down 19 percent from the same period last year, and median prices are off 17 percent.

Housing market woes, which started in far suburban areas, have finally taken root in the heart of town, the latest statistics show.

Real-estate agents blame the in-town slowdown on a number of factors.

“It seems that the overall Dallas market was immune to the housing downturn for a while,” said Barry Hoffer, an agent with Ebby Halliday Realtors. “Now the softening market has finally caught up with us.”

Hoffer, who’s sold houses through 30 years of market ups and downs, said tougher lending restrictions are partly to blame.

A lack of buyer confidence is also taking its toll.

“Although the unemployment numbers for North Texas, for example, are much lower than the national average, it’s hard to not let the stories in the national press impact your psyche,” Hoffer said.

 Effect on wealthy 

Affluent buyers who previously fueled home sales in the Park Cities, North Dallas and parts of East Dallas are feeling a pinch from tougher times, analysts say.

“Many of the people in this price range own their own companies or are senior executives in large companies, and they are directly affected by general economic decline,” said Dr. James Gaines, an economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.

“Small and medium energy companies, for example, have been down as oil and gas prices have fallen and rig counts have dropped substantially.

“Even service companies are no longer as active, as the bigger companies cut back on all sorts of services and as individuals cut back on spending.”

Home sales in some Dallas neighborhoods inside LBJ Freeway are also being hurt by mortgage hurdles that make it harder and more expensive to get “jumbo” loans over $417,000.

“The jumbo market has a definite impact on the high-end market,” said Jim Fite, president of Dallas-based Century 21 Judge Fite Co. Realtors.

 Appraisal concerns 

Fite said the more stringent appraisal standards required by the federal government are also quashing some sales and delaying others.

“Many appraisals are coming in low – this adds transaction closing time fighting appraisals,” Fite said.

Veteran Dallas appraiser D.W. Skelton said “there is no doubt in my mind that it is having a negative impact on residential values and may be contributing to the sluggish market.”

But the sagging economy and consumer confidence are the top obstacles, Skelton said.

“It’s buyers sitting on the fence that is the biggest problem,” he said. “No one is going to start buying new homes when the job numbers continue to drop.

“When the job numbers improve, I think the real estate market will follow.”

Skelton thinks the bottom of the market is still at least a year away.

“I’m still telling my clients to sell now and not risk further loss in value.”

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10:17 PM CDT on Tuesday, April 28, 2009

By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
stevebrown@dallasnews.com
Dallas-area home prices are down 4.5 percent from a year ago, according to the latest measure by Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller.

Dallas’ decline compares with an 18.6 percent drop nationwide for prices in February compared with a year earlier, according to the closely watched index, which was released Tuesday.

Map: Home prices around the country

Map: Dallas-area pre-owned home sales and prices

Foreclosures map:
Dallas had the smallest price decrease among the 20 cities surveyed.

February’s local numbers also showed a slight improvement from January, when the Dallas index was down about 4.9 percent.

“While the declines in residential real estate continued into February, we witnessed some deceleration in the rate of decline in some of the markets,” S&P’s David M. Blitzer said in the report. “We will certainly need a few more months of data before we can determine if home prices are finally turning around.”

The annual rate of home price decline slowed in almost half the 20 metropolitan areas the Case-Shiller index tracks each month. It was the first time since late 2007 that the nationwide index did not show a record decline.

But many cities still suffered huge price declines, including Phoenix (down 35.2 percent), Las Vegas (down 31.7 percent) and San Francisco (down 31 percent).

S&P analysts said Dallas-area home prices are down 11.1 percent from their peak in mid-2007 – the lowest such drop in their survey. In Phoenix, the hardest-hit market, home prices have fallen more than 50 percent since 2006.

The Case-Shiller survey tracks the prices of typical single-family homes in each metropolitan area. The index survey does not include condominiums and townhouses. It only covers pre-owned properties – no new construction. The researchers compare sales of specific single-family homes over time.

The most recent local home market estimates show that prices were down 8 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period of 2008. Those figures are based on sales of pre-owned homes through the real estate industry’s Multiple Listing Service.

Housing analysts point to the Case-Shiller numbers as an indication that home price declines will moderate in the months ahead.

But don’t expect a quick bottoming, IHS Global Insight economist Patrick Newport wrote in response to the latest report.

“Housing prices will continue to drop, however, because foreclosures are still rising and because the number of homes on the market is near record levels,” Newport said. “IHS Global Insight does not expect house prices to bottom until next year.

“We expect housing sales and home starts to pick up later this year,” he said. “It will probably be driven by Louisiana and Texas.”

Newport said the national housing market has been through a “terrible depression.”

“That seems to exclude Texas – you never had the run-up in prices.”

Dallas is the only Texas market Case-Shiller includes in its monthly price index.

S&P/CASE-SHILLER HOME PRICE INDEX
Metropolitan area Feburary 1-year change
Atlanta -15.3%
Boston -7.2%
Charlotte -9.4%
Chicago -17.6%
Cleveland -8.5%
Dallas -4.5%
Denver -5.7%
Detroit -23.6%
Las Vegas -31.7%
Los Angeles -24.1%
Miami -29.5%
Minneapolis -20.3%
New York -10.2%
Phoenix -35.2%
Portland -14.4%
San Diego -22.9%
San Francisco -31.0%
Seattle -15.4%
Tampa -23.0%
Washington -19.2%
Composite-20 -18.6%
SOURCE: Standard & Poor’s and Fiserv

Going forward, posts will be made to update our readers about interesting market developments, as well as our perspective on the local markets in Texas, as well as our observations on the national market as a whole.

Posts will be updated weekly, and we look forward to the comments from our readers.