Summer Heat Cools Down Hectic Housing Market
As Mother Nature turns up the Texas heat this summer, the local housing market has started to cool down.
But that doesn’t necessarily reflect a negative trend for buyers or sellers in the Park Cities and Preston Hollow. It’s more of a product of the desire of homeowners to escape for the summer.
“The more affluent areas of town have more people that go out of town for the summer, so they’re not as apt to be searching for property,” said Brady Moore, an agent with Dave Perry-Miller and Associates. “I feel like it’s finally starting to settle down a little bit lately.”
Moore said the more relaxed pace to the market follows a feeding frenzy that marked the first few months of the year in which demand was generally high, and prices escalated to match.
Ned Cammack, a sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residental Brokerage, said high-end homes were selling over list price in the area more this spring that at any time since 2007.
“It has slacked off some, but I think that’s more seasonal than anything,” Cammack said. “We’re still seeing extremely high prices, and the demand is still there.”
According to statistics compiled by the North Texas Real Estate Information System, the number of closed sales in the Park Cities spiked in June compared to the year-to-date average, and the number of active listings has increased considerably while median price has dropped. In Preston Hollow, the number of active listings has gone up along with the median price for sales.
“I feel like we’re starting to get more inventory in a lot of areas,” Moore said. “They’re hearing about people getting top-dollar prices and they’re wanting to get in on that before it possibly changes. There’s still plenty of competition out there.”
Moore and Cammack agreed that despite the summer lull, it’s still a seller’s market, as long as the sellers remain reasonable with their price expectations.
“The upper end has kind of slowed down,” Cammack said. “Hopefully we’ll still have the buyers out there this summer.”
In particular, Moore said activity has been high among lower price points in both the Park Cities and Preston Hollow this summer. Meanwhile, inventory is growing among top-end properties.
“Buyers are willing to pay top dollar, but they’re not willing to make a lousy financial investment just to get something,” Moore said.
Cammack said the housing market overall is showing signs of sustained growth consistent with economic progress.
“With so many people moving to the area, I think it will remain like that for a while,” he said.
This story appears in the August edition of Park Cities People, on stands now.
