Shrugging off both national and local reports of puny homes sales, homeowners who are selling their northwest Dallas suburban homes have pretty much held the line when it came to negotiating sale prices. Compared to same month sales a year ago, prices of homes sold in this area during March decreased, on average, by .4 percent. Additionally, February's previously reported price decrease of .5 percent was revised upward to a .3 percent loss. These results, when combined with the .5 percent price increase in January, resulted in a mere .2 percent drop in sale prices for the past quarter.

With only 409 previously owned, single family homes reported sold in the northwest Dallas suburbs during March, same month, year-to-year sales were down 20.1 percent. Belatedly reported additional sales reduced February's previously reported 6.0 percent drop in home sales to a 4.3 percent decrease. Nevertheless, when combined with January's 28.7 percent plunge, existing home sales for the quarter still were down 17.9 percent.

Home prices were additionally still bucking a higher inventory of homes for sale headwind. According to data compiled by North Texas Real Estate Information Systems Inc., about 2,310 existing homes were listed for sale at the end of March in the northwest Dallas suburbs covered in this newsletter. This is 11.0 percent more than the approximately 2,080 homes listed for sale at the end of March a year ago and 28.8 percent higher than the 1,795 homes available for sale at the same point in time two years ago.

Relative to the number of homes sold in March, this represents 5.4 months supply of homes available for sale. This is a 14.3 percent decrease from the revised 6.3 months supply of homes available for sale during February, but a 40.8 percent jump from the 3.9 months supply of homes available during March last year.

Prices for homes in the middle of the price range continue to show the most resilience. The $94.71 per square foot price of a typical $250,000 home sold during the three months ending in March was essentially the same as a year ago. The square foot price of a typical $350,000 home sold was up .8 percent, to $105.21 and the price per square foot of the typical $450,000 home increased by .7 percent, to $121.13. The average square foot price of homes selling for less than $200,000 was down .6 percent and the square foot price of homes selling for more than $500,000 decreased by 2.0 percent.

The average length of time required to sell a pre-owned, single family northwest Dallas suburban home during March was 70 days. This is 4.1 percent less than the average 73 days required to sell a home during February, but 13.7 percent higher from the 61 average days required during March a year ago.

The median price of previously owned northwest Dallas suburban homes sold during March was $300,000, up 3.4 percent from the $290,000 median price of a year ago.

Market Highs And Lows

Three northwest Dallas suburbs saw identical annual increases in their three month average home prices. Flower Mound, Southlake and Trophy Club each posted a 3.0 percent average price increase.

The northwest Dallas suburbs covered in this newsletter that experienced the largest decreases in their same quarter, year-to-year average home prices were southwest Frisco and the Argyle, Bartonville, Copper Canyon and Double Oak area. The average price of homes sold in southwest Frisco was down 5.9 percent. The average home price in the Argyle, Bartonville, Copper Canyon and Double Oak area fell 4.5 percent.

Flower Mound, with 3.6 months supply of homes listed for sale, again had the lowest inventory of pre-owned homes among the northwest Dallas suburbs. Coppell had the next lowest inventory with 4.1 months supply of homes available for sale.

As might be expected, southwest Frisco and the Argyle, Bartonville, Copper Canyon and Double Oak area also had the largest inventory of homes available for sale. The Argyle, Bartonville, Copper Canyon and Double Oak area had the largest inventory of homes available for sale with 11.8 months supply. Southwest Frisco had the second highest inventory with 8.7 months supply.