Dallas Home Prices Rope Up

Sales of existing single-family homes in North Texas slid 11 percent in January, or so everyone is reporting. But median Dallas home prices rose 8 percent over value a year ago, this data from the Texas A&M Real Estate Center.

Almost every expert in town is pointing the finger of blame for the fall in home sales to the first time home buyer's credit. How can you compare a windstorm to a tornado?

And no, Super Bowl XLV didn't have much to do with it. Or maybe it did? The median home price in North Texas was $140,010 in January, up 8 percent from January 2010. The increase is likely because more higher-priced homes were sold, say experts. In Tarrant County, six submarkets posted sales increases: far north Fort Worth/Park Glen, northeast Arlington, far southwest Arlington, the TCU area in Fort Worth, River Oaks/Azle and Bedford.

Real estate reporter & blogger Candy Evans is an award-winning, Dallas-based real estate reporter, blogger, and consultant. She's the gal who brought House Porn to the Bible Belt! Read more at SecondShelters.com. Send story ideas and tips to CandyEvans@secondshelters.com.

The sales news is dismal -- in January 2011, only 3,073 homes were sold in the 29-county region,

down from 3,330 in January 2010, when you had all those first-time home buyers prowling the streets.

This being the eighth straight month that home sales were down from a year earlier, I wonder, again, why are the banks not loaning out money? Perhaps in lieu of another first-time homebuyer's program, we need a "first-time home borrower program"? I hear story after story of wealthy people with great credit who cannot get loans simply because they do not have a W-2. We bailed out the banks, but here we are, two plus years into this recession, still no loosening of the loan strings.

The median home price in north Texas was up 8 percet in January to $140,010 from January 2010. This uptick in Dallas home values may have come from a flurry of year end, high net worth home sales that had to happen by December 31. Example: The married Jonas Brother, Kevin or "K2," sold his $2 million Vaquero mansion.

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