The Fort Worth real estate outlook is one of hope and concern for the upcoming year. It appears as if the Dallas-Fort Worth real estate market has finally bottomed out, thereby leaving room for improvement in the upcoming months. However, it is the rising foreclosure rates that still have some economists wondering about Fort Worth and its economy for 2010.
Foreclosures still a Concern
According to the Foreclosure Listing Services of Fort Worth, there were small increases in the number of home auctions for Collin County, making it the county with the largest increase in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
However, to dispute the bad news is the fact that Collin County still has the second lowest number of foreclosures with 763 properties.
Dallas County, in contrast, reported 2,377 homes in foreclosure. Tarrant County has 1,814 homes in foreclosure and Denton County has 600 homes in foreclosure. Both counties therefore showed an increase of 35 percent in the number of foreclosures.
Overall, the number of foreclosures in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has climbed above 5,000, representing a new high for this area. To put the numbers into perspective, it is expected that nearly 25,000 homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area will have been seized by the end of the year due to mortgage delinquencies.
Home Sales Creep up
Homes sales throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area continue to see increases, thereby showing economists signs that the new home buyer tax credit is working on this economy. Although year-to-date sales figures are down overall for the North Texas region, a recovery seems to be taking place.
This area has not seen a significant population surge, so it is likely that the home buyer tax credit, in conjunction with low interest rates, has helped the market begin to rebound. Median sales prices also continue to hold their own. The year-to-date median sales price is $145,000, which has gone unchanged since the same period in 2008.
