The condition of the northwest Dallas suburbs pre-owned home market during March remained pretty similar to what it was in February. While all key market indicators continue to trend upward, this is a market that now seems basically to be in a two-and-a-half steps forward and two steps backward condition.

Indicators that showed the most strength were the number of pre-owned single family homes sold and inventory of homes available for sale. The average number of days it took to sell a home also was down in March, but only slightly. Increases in average sales price and average price per square foot being lower in March than in February show how easy it would be for this market to reverse course.

March home sales volume of 481 homes was 19.1 percent higher than same month sales a year ago, as compared to revised February sales growth of 6.9 percent. For the past 12 months, sales volume through March is up 7.6 percent over the previous year. Inventory of pre-owned single family homes decreased to a 5 months supply in March, a 23 percent drop from February's revised 6.5 months supply and 42 percent lower than January's 8.6 month's supply.

The average length of time it is taking to sell existing MLS-listed homes in the northwest Dallas suburbs stubbornly remains exceedingly high at 107 days. Though average days on market has fallen slightly each of the last two months, it still is 62 percent higher than the 66 average days it took to sell homes during March a year ago and 87 higher percent than the 57 average days home sales required two years ago.

The unusually long periods of time that homeowners who want to sell their homes have been forced to keep them on the market is a principal reason that home prices have increased only slightly during the past few years. Though the $300,100 average price that pre-owned northwest Dallas suburban homes sold for during the past three months was 7.2 percent higher than it was in the same period last year and 10.4 percent more than two years ago, over half of this increase was due to increases in the size of the houses sold. Increases in the average price per square foot were up somewhat less, 3.2 percent over the past year and 4.0 percent over the past two years.

It also is important to note that most, if not all, of this average price per foot increase is due to the more higher-priced homes being sold. During the past quarter, the percentage of homes selling for more than $500,000 was up a whopping 54 percent over the same period the previous year, and the percentage of homes selling for $400,000 to $499,999 was up 8 percent. The percentage of homes selling for $300,000 to $399,999 was down 4 percent, the percentage of homes selling for $200,000 to $299,999 was up 5 percent and the percentage of homes selling for less than $200,000 was down 14 percent.

How little northwest Dallas suburban home prices actually are changing is most evident when per square foot prices within different price ranges are examined. During the quarter ending in March, the price per square foot of the typical $150,000 home sold in the geographical area covered by this newsletter was $79.75, up .1 percent over the same period a year ago. The typical $250,000 home sold for $87.40 per square foot, up .2 percent, and the typical $350,000 home sold for $100.40 per square foot, up .7 percent. The price per square foot of the typical $450,000 home was up 2.4 percent to $113.75.

Grapevine Added To Market Watch Coverage Area

Beginning with this edition, the City of Grapevine will be included various analyses of residential real estate market conditions discussed in the Northwest Dallas suburbs residential real estate market conditions | Market Watch Newsletter. It joins Southlake, Colleyville, Flower Mound, Coppell, southwest Frisco, west Plano, Keller, Highland Village, Westlake and Trophy Club, Argyle, Double Oak, Bartonville and Copper Canyon as communities covered by this newsletter.