The local real estate market has been a puzzle for the past 18 months or so. Would what has happened on the West Coast and in the Northeast happen here? Or were we immune, since our values never appreciated as much as they did elsewhere?
The answers, apparently, are no and no. Which is a contradiction, of course, but we are talking about real estate. The facts and figures compiled here indicate that the bottom two-thirds of the market is sagging, though not as much as elsewhere in the country. The top third — what The Morning News story defines as higher-priced homes, but isn’t more specific — is propping up the Dallas market.
This is a completely confusing market, and it’s likely to get even more confusing thanks to the on-going rout on Wall Street — fueled in part by bad home loans, sinking home values, and declining home construction numbers. Consider that my right-hand neighbor took almost a year to sell her house, while my left-hand neighbor took a more or less reasonable 10 weeks — until the buyer’s financing apparently vanished. Currently, the house is for lease.
