North Texas residential real estate professionals have pivoted to virtual showings, social distancing, masks, gloves, and fully digital closings faster than you can say “COVID-19 pandemic” or “shelter in place.” But with coronavirus-related restrictions on house showings, soaring unemployment, an oil price collapse, and an uncertain economy ahead, this is far from your typical spring home-selling season.
The number of homes under contract for sale in Dallas-Fort Worth was down roughly 26 percent year-over-year through April 20, according to real estate database company Zillow Group Inc.
The median price of homes listed for sale in North Texas was 4.4 percent lower than at the same time last year, Zillow reported, although many DFW real estate agents say they haven’t noticed prices softening — yet.
Opinions vary widely on where the residential real estate market is now and where it’s headed.
JP Piccinini, founder and owner of Frisco-based JP & Associates Realtors, is in the rose-colored-glasses crowd.
“DFW and Texas real estate will fare incredibly well in the post COVID-19 world,” he says. “With historically low inventory, low-interest rates (and) pent-up demand from a lukewarm spring, we will not only increase sales but keep prices stable in 2020 all across DFW.”
Rogers Healy, founder of Rogers Healy and Associates Real Estate and owner and CEO of Rogers Healy Cos., offers a different view.
“We’re in for some relative hell for at least a couple of quarters,” Healy says.
When asked if he believed it was a buyer’s market or a seller’s, Robbie Briggs, president and CEO of Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty, said it wasn’t a seller’s market, but it also wasn’t a bottom-feeder market either.
“This market will bring out people who are looking for an opportunity,” said Briggs. “They’ll be the opportunity buyers because of the combination of low-interest rates and the potential of finding situations where the sellers need to sell. In a market like Dallas that has a strong market, really good houses, really unique houses maintain their values.”
North Texas real estate experts weighed in further on the housing market and what they think will happen after the pandemic in this story.
