Dallas Home Appraisals News and Information

Dallas home prices least likely to fall, says study of metro areas

11:00 PM CST on Wednesday, January 14, 2009

By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News

Despite some small dips in the last year, homeowners shouldn't expect large and long-lasting declines in home values in North Texas, a new study predicts.

The Dallas area is the U.S. metropolitan market least likely to have lower home prices two years from now, according to the latest report from PMI Group.

The risk of lower prices was evident in many other areas of the country in the U.S. Market Risk Index released Wednesday.

The mortgage insurance company found that half the country's biggest housing markets face a high probability of having lower home prices in two years.

That's due in large part to the "continued high level of foreclosures and rising unemployment," said David Berson, PMI's chief economist. "These factors will put additional upward pressure on risk, with increases in affordability and lower mortgage rates providing some offset."

As for Dallas, Berson said: "The basic story hasn't changed, although risk has risen a bit given the economic downturn.

"Still, I'd feel a lot more comfortable with a house in Dallas than one in the Oakland area."

In 2008, North Texas had a 3 percent decline in overall median home sales prices compared with 2007, according to statistics from area real estate agents.

For more than a year, PMI Group has rated the Dallas area as having a low or minimal risk of home price declines.

Other Texas home markets, including Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, are also at the bottom of the price decline risk index.

The markets with the greatest likelihood of home-price declines are Riverside, Calif. (99.9 percent), Miami (99.9 percent) and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (99.8 percent).

Texas home markets – including Dallas – have fared better in the nationwide home market recession because they didn't experience earlier run-ups in prices.

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