Home sales down for 8th consecutive month

Home sales are down for the eighth month in a row, compared with the same month last year, according to figures released by the North Texas Real Estate Information System.

Sales of existing homes are suffering as the market contends with an oversupply of housing stock, said Ted Wilson, principal at housing analysts Residential Strategies in Dallas. Those homes were built when the housing market was roaring with record home sales.

Now, builders are pulling back on the number of homes they are starting, which should be good news for homeowners who are looking to put homes on the market as the weather warms up.

"The inventories haven't been outrageous, it's just that there's so much inventory that it's hard to get attention," Wilson said.

There were 4,859 homes sold in the NTREIS' 29-county area, which stretches from north of Waco to the Red River. That's down 4 percent from January 2006. Homes are sitting 4 percent longer on the market than they were the previous January, too. The average house now sits on the market 81 days, the figures show.

"There has been no pressure on housing, because there has been so much inventory out there," Wilson said.

Buyers are looking for homes that are well-maintained and are up to date, said Catherine Taylor, vice president at Helen Painter Group Realtors. Those homes don't last long, she said.

"People pay high dollars for homes they can move into right away," Taylor said. Her office sells Fort Worth homes that are within a 20-minute drive of downtown.

Homeowners shouldn't expect the fall in prices that they might be hearing about on the East and West coasts, Wilson said. Because North Texas did not have the big run-up in appreciation in recent years, it's very unlikely that they will come down significantly now.

What North Texas is seeing now is a plateau as the market catches up with demand.

The median home price in North Texas is $139,950, according to NTREIS. That's 1 percent less than what the prices were like in January 2006. Overall, the drivers that stoke home sales, such as job growth and consumer confidence, are still strong in North Texas.

"Our problems are stemming from too much capacity and too much inventory," Wilson said.