DFW Home Prices Are 9.2% Below Their 2022 Peak. Austin Is Down 27.2%.

Home prices across Dallas-Fort Worth are 9.2 percent below the peak they reached in 2022, and 2.2 percent lower than a year ago, according to the Lance Lambert House Price Tracker.

They are also 36.9 percent higher than they were in March 2020.

Both of those things are true at once, and which one gets quoted usually depends on what the person quoting it wants you to conclude.

The four Texas metros

• Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington. Down 9.2 percent from its 2022 peak, down 2.2 percent over the year, up 36.9 percent since March 2020.
• Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land. Down 4.9 percent from peak, down 1.9 percent over the year, up 33.0 percent since March 2020.
• San Antonio-New Braunfels. Down 10.5 percent from peak, down 1.9 percent over the year, up 27.1 percent since March 2020.
• Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown. Down 27.2 percent from peak, down 4.5 percent over the year, up 25.5 percent since March 2020.

Month-to-month, all four were within a tenth of a percentage point of flat. Those readings cover June to July, which the tracker notes falls inside the seasonally stronger part of the housing year. Flat in the strong season is a softer signal than flat sounds.

The comparison that matters

Nine percent off a peak reads badly on its own. Set beside Austin, it reads differently.

Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown is down 27.2 percent from its own 2022 high. That is not the same kind of event as what happened here. Austin ran further during the pandemic years and has given back most of the distance.

Dallas-Fort Worth has given back some of it and retains the largest gain since March 2020 of the four big Texas metros. San Antonio has fallen slightly further from peak than DFW, at 10.5 percent, but rose less to begin with.

What it means for an owner

If you bought in 2021 or early 2022, you may be close to level or slightly under, depending where and what you bought.

If you bought before 2020, you are still well ahead on paper.

Neither figure is money until a house sells, and a metro-wide index describes the whole of Dallas-Fort Worth rather than any particular street. Individual submarkets inside it have moved in both directions.

Sources

https://www.resiclubanalytics.com/