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Are home prices in Dallas-Fort Worth going up or coming down? It’s the question we’re getting daily from neighbors, friends, and clients, and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on where you’re looking. Prices across North Texas are changing dramatically by city, by price point, and by zip code, so a single headline number for the whole metro won’t tell you much about your own street.
The snapshot varies by area. Here’s a quick picture of who’s up and who’s down. In North Dallas, the 75252 zip code is up 6% and 75248 is up 2%, while East Dallas is up 2% and Richardson is up 3%. On the other side, Preston Hollow is down nearly 12% year over year, Celina is down 11%, Plano is down close to 6%, and Southlake is down 5%. Fort Worth, Frisco, Denton, McKinney, Prosper, Carrollton, and Lewisville are all sitting in the low single digits. These are changes in the median sales price, not the value of every single home, but they show just how local this market really is.
Buyers have more choices now. A few forces are pulling prices down, and the first is choice. Buyers have more options than they’ve ever had here, and we’ve tracked this weekly since 2015. DFW closed the second quarter with more than 35,000 active homes on the MLS, up roughly 15% from a year ago. Sellers are competing for buyers again, and the homes that are dated, poorly presented, or overpriced are simply sitting. You can’t put a sign in the yard and hope anymore, because a sitting home is not a sold home.
Positioning is what moves homes. Preparation is what separates the homes that move from the ones that sit. We’re getting our sellers ready earlier and positioning their homes differently than we ever have before. Because of that, our sellers are averaging 4.9% more on their sale price than the North Texas MLS average, and they’re selling about two weeks faster. Our correctly positioned homes are pulling multiple offers, and two of our sellers had exactly that happen in a single day. It really matters who’s representing you, because an agent closing multiple deals a month knows what’s actually getting negotiated and accepted right now.
Affordability drives the differences. A couple of bigger factors explain why prices vary so much, and affordability is the major one. In Texas, we pay property taxes but no state income tax, so when home prices climb, monthly payments and tax bills climb right along with them. Paired with that, mortgage rates are holding in the 6% range, which is keeping buyers payment-conscious and far more careful about their budgets, and that is a healthy thing for any buyer to be doing.
Our job market is our saving grace. One of our favorite advantages is something North Texas has had for decades: a strong and growing job market. It’s what carried us from 2007 to 2013, and we believe it’s what keeps our region steadier than much of the country. Job growth has slowed from the last couple of years, but it’s still positive, with 24,700 jobs added over the past year. Unemployment ticked up from 3.7% to 4%, which is nowhere near a collapse, and people are still moving to North Texas.
Luxury buyers are creating openings. Our luxury market shows this most clearly. High-end buyers are savvy and have real flexibility, so they’ll wait when the condition, location, or price don’t line up. That patience is opening up opportunities in Preston Hollow, Highland Park, Southlake, and Celina, along with the higher price ranges in Frisco, Dallas, and Plano. For sellers of homes that have been sitting, need cosmetic updates, and have already reduced, the move is to get ahead of the competition now rather than wait.
Buyers have room to negotiate. While we get aggressive for our sellers, we also get to have fun on the buy side. Right now, we’re looking well beyond the asking price. We’re negotiating possession so a client can get into a new home without selling the old one first and avoid double payments. We’re securing repair concessions, appraisal protection, roof replacements, and home warranties, plus builder incentives and rate buydowns we haven’t been able to use in years. We shoot straight with our clients, and twice last month we told buyers a home was overpriced so they could make the right call for their family.
This is not a collapsing market. It’s a selective one, and the best homes priced competitively are still selling quickly. If you’re trying to make sense of all this and figure out the right plan for you and your family, we’d love to help. These are the exact conversations we’re having every day, looking at each person’s situation and building a strategy that actually works for them.
Call or text us at (214) 267-9222, email us at Seychellesells@vanpoole.com, or visit dallasarealiving.com. We’d love to help you put together a plan that fits where you want to go.
