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Home sales listings are still lagging as property shoppers return

Dallas-Fort Worth home asking prices are down 2.8%.

More buyers are testing the water in the housing market. But shoppers will still find less to pick from, thanks to the pandemic.

Nationwide, there are 22% fewer homes for sale than a year ago. And in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, property listings with real estate agents are down more than 18% from this time in 2019, according to a new report from Realtor.com based on data as of May 23.

There have been slight increases in homes coming on the market. Last week new home sales listings nationwide were down 20% year-over-year. A month ago, new listings were down more than 40% from a year earlier as COVID-19 caused sellers to pull back.

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“Weekly data shows we have taken the first step in the process of returning to healthy housing conditions: getting buyers and sellers off the sidelines,” Javier Vivas, Realtor.com’s director of economic research, said in the report. “The improvement in new listings this week is a sign the market is on its way to recovery, but the deficit in total inventory will be a drag on sales.

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“Many buyers are ready and itching to get back on the market, so the faster we see sellers return, the faster home sales will recover.”

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D-FW area median home sales list prices were down 2.8% last week from where they were at the same time in 2019.

And more than 29% of homes sold by real estate agents had price reductions, according to Realtor.com.

Nationwide median home asking prices were 3% higher the week of May 23 compared with a year earlier.

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Looking at other major metro areas, home asking prices are also down in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Miami and Seattle.

Among the major Texas markets, Austin had the only listing price increase — up 3.3% from a year ago.

D-FW and San Antonio have seen some of the largest declines in home asking prices.
D-FW and San Antonio have seen some of the largest declines in home asking prices.(Realtor.com)