Dallas Housing Market Healing Slowly

Texas is huge but the most severely affected real estate and foreclosure market is North Texas including Dallas County, Tarrant County, Collin County, and Denton County. It seems like the tidal wave of foreclosures is concentrating only on the Dallas-Fort Worth area and the worst part is that the value of properties in foreclosure auctions have also hit rock bottom.



In such chaotic times, the Wall Street Journal's quarterly housing survey has stated that there is some more new evidence available, which indicates the possibility of a slowdown of the housing market in Dallas. According to the journal, the Dallas real estate and foreclosure market after going through a four-year slump is beginning to heal. The only point of concern at this moment is the danger of possible price drops combined with a consistent job-market crisis, which can cause the market to turtle over or become extremely unstable.



As of today, the statistics in Dallas confirm that there are around 7,432 homes up for sale in various neighborhoods and this includes 217 open homes and approximately 1,600 foreclosures. The number of homes in Dallas that were recently sold including foreclosed properties is 1,492. Some of the most popular neighborhoods in terms of sales or auctions of homes include Preston Hollow ($916,388), North Dallas ($730,670), Oak Lawn ($539,926), Far North Dallas ($343,200), and Lake Highlands ($253,570). The average listing price of homes did not witness too deep a drop or too high a jump except for Urbandale, which reported a drop of 7.8% with an average listing price of $117,803. Five Mile Creek saw a jump in the average listing price by 6.5% and is at $64,943.



Some neighborhoods and areas in the Dallas-Fort Worth area saw an increase in foreclosure homes while some other areas witnessed a leveling of the foreclosure trend. According to RealtyTrac CEO James J. Saccacio, "This leveling of the foreclosure trend is not necessarily evidence that fewer homeowners are in distress and at risk for foreclosure, but rather that foreclosure prevention programs, legislation and other processing delays are in effect capping monthly foreclosure activity - albeit at a historically high level that will likely continue for an extended period. In addition, severe winter weather appears to have temporarily slowed the processing of foreclosure records in some Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states. "



George Roddy, the President of Addison based Foreclosure Listing Service believes that amidst so much chaos and continuing market problems, the foreclosures seem to be moving downwards although he believes that this could be just a smoke screen and hence homeowners should be prepared for the worst. Of course, the housing market is healing but the process is very slow and more downs can be expected in the second quarter of 2010 as well.



Scott Norman, president-elect of the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association said in an interview that," It's possible that the numbers of foreclosures will rise, but I don't think they will spike. Lenders are trying to exhaust every option they have before foreclosing on a house."



This article was developed with informational input from Eureka Realty Network. You can view some of their other articles at Dallas Short Sale Experts.