DFW Real Estate Market Trends: Will 2025 Be a Buyer’s Market?

Now, according to Elon Musk, AKA the Captain of Doge, if government spending and debt shrink over the next 12 months, the 10 year treasury yields should drop and that could help bring mortgage rates down.

But with all the political battles ahead, any real impact could take some time.

So where are mortgage rates headed?

What's up guys?

Welcome to the Texas Real Estate and Finance Podcast Market Update for the week of February 12th.

So I'm still going to be bringing this to you each and every week, but I am going to start shifting my focus a little bit more to Texas specifically, and we're going to add some insights to the market update from agents all over Texas.

They're going to give us buyer tips, seller tips, and agent tips that you guys can use in your business to help you grow.

So I'm trying to bring a little more value to you guys in a shorter, tighter format.

Hope you enjoy it and I'd love to hear what you think.

Drop me a note, send me a comment, give me your feedback, because I'm open to suggestion.

You like the new format, you don't like it, let me know.

All right, we're going to start with rates, as always.

Where are they, where are they going to go and why?

After that, we're going to go through some housing numbers.

2024 is wrapped up and we're going to go over some of that data and compare it to some historical numbers to help put 2024 into greater perspective.

This will hopefully help you plan 2025.

And then for our main topic today, we're going to discuss the possibility of shutting down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or the cfpb and what that could mean for the real estate industry.

And like I mentioned before, along the way I'm going to have a local Realtor named Conrad Jackson with ReMax Pinnacle in Arlington giving us some buyer, seller and agent tips to help you along your real estate journey.

So let's get started.

But just a reminder, if you like what's happening here, drop me a comment, share it with a friend, or give us a Like any engagement you have with this podcast goes a long way in spreading the little show that could to the masses.

So I appreciate anything you can do.

All right, time for the same damn question we answer every single week.

Hey Mike, what are the rates?

Well, according to Mortgage News daily, as of February 12, 2025, the average 30 year conventional mortgage rate is 7.13%.

The average 15 year conventional rate is 6.5%.

The average 30 year FHA rate is 6.52%, the average 30 year VA rate 6.54% and the average jumbo rate right now is around 7.45%.

Now to be clear, these are average market rates provided by Mortgage News Daily and may not reflect the specific rates that you qualify for.

Mortgage rates can vary widely depending on factors like your credit score, loan type and down payment, among others.

For accurate information about your personal mortgage options, it's important to speak with a licensed mortgage professional like me or your own lender.

Here we go.

Compliance for the win Covered my butt all right.

Inflation is creeping back up again.

After a few weeks of positive movement in mortgage backed securities, today's CPI report came in at 3% and that is bad news for mortgage bond demand, which is again moving downward.

And when mortgage bond demand drops, mortgage rates go up.

To be clear, inflation is not a friend of low mortgage rates.

And right now, with the uncertainty around possible tariffs from the Trump administration, a slowing economy, and waves of corporate and government layoffs, the idea of significantly lower mortgage rates anytime soon isn't looking too promising.

Now according to Elon Musk, AKA the Captain of Doge, if government spending and debt shrink over the next 12 months, the 10 year treasury yields should drop and that could help bring mortgage rates down.

But with all the political battles ahead, any real impact could take some time.

So where are mortgage rates headed?

Well, for now, expect them to stay about where they've been with no major drops anywhere in sight.

But there is some good news.

News especially if you're in the market to buy.

Right here in North Texas, inventory is building and buyers have more negotiating power.

Now, prices aren't crashing, but we're seeing price reductions, we're seeing seller paid concessions and more homes for sale.

So more options.

And this is helping 2025 look more and more like a buyer's market.

So while you shouldn't count on lower mortgage rates anytime soon, if you're in the market to buy, there are deals to be had.

So happy house hunting.

Now as I've said in the past, when it comes to mortgage rates, a recession is something that will drive them down.

However, getting to that quote acknowledged, recession is going to be a whole other thing.

See, in order for the Fed to move their rates, either unemployment has to rise significantly or inflation has to fall significant.

And as of December, unemployment is down, inflation is up.

Now there is another way for mortgage rates to come down and that is if the 10 year treasury yield begins to come down.

However, the only way that that happens is if people buy more US debt or US Debt declines, reducing the supply of treasuries on the market in the hole.

And right now Elon is trying to do that.

But he is also enemy number one of the blue team.

So there's going to be a lot of challenges in getting that accomplished.

And unfortunately, even with the headway that he has made so far, it really isn't that much in the scope of things because the biggest line items to the US Budget and that caused the biggest deficits are defense spending and entitlements, things like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Now I do think if they really do let him dig into those budgets, there's probably quite a significant amount of waste, fraud and abuse that can be eliminated.

But it remains to be seen how much the current federal bureaucracy is going to let him into those books and really make any kind of significant change.

So right now, rates for 2025 just aren't going to move very much unless we start to feel some pretty significant economic pain.

And look, whether you like Trump or not, his state goal is that we're going to have the best economy anyone's ever seen.

No economy anywhere like it.

That's a terrible Trump impression, but that's all you're going to get for today.

But my point is, is that he's going to do everything in his power and maybe even some things that are outside his purview of power a little bit to make sure that the economy does not suffer under his four year watch.

So unless inflation drops significantly or the US Debt is significantly reduced, we're going to be in this higher rates for longer for the foreseeable future.

But there is some good news.

If you have some buyers out there that have been sitting on the fence waiting for rates to come down, you can let them know it's probably not happening anytime soon.

So there's no time like the present to get off the fence and start looking for deals because they are deals to be had and those low rates aren't flying in to save the day anytime soon.

All right, first up, our Buyer Tip of the Week.

Now, are you a buyer or do you have a buyer that's looking at new builds?

If so, be sure to take heed of this week's Buyer Tip of the Week brought to us by Conrad Jackson of ReMax Pinnacle groups in Arlington.

Know that these days new construction is a very attractive route to go when you're purchasing your your new home.

One thing I'll recommend is that if you are going to go with a particular volume builder or even a small mom and Pop builder, make sure you get a third party inspection.

When you get that third party inspection done, typically you're going to have to schedule that inspection with the builder.

So it puts the builder on high alert that somebody is coming to check their and then I would absolutely be present as a buyer for that inspection because the builder will typically tell you that everything is covered or a lot of the things that you're going to have concerns with are covered through the builder's warranty.

But there are some items that a builder's warranty are just not going to cover.

So you want to know what those are up front and you want to have another set of eyes that is not tied to that build at all in any way on your property when it's being constructed from start to finish.

That way you are comfortable when you get to the finish line that that property has been looked over by a professional that doesn't have an invested interest in it.

Okay?

So keep that in mind getting a new build.

Get a third party inspector and be present so he can explain to you what he finds along the way.

And call me, because of course my name is Conrad Jackson and I'm always available for your real estate needs.

All right, let's dive into a little housing data.

Now, like I mentioned before on these market updates going forward, I want to focus a little bit more on the Texas market.

So today we're zeroing in on the Dallas Fort Worth area, because that's where I live.

But in the coming weeks, we'll be looking at Houston, San Antonio and Austin as well.

So tune in for those in the coming weeks.

All right, let's start off by looking at the total number of sales in the market for the Dallas Fort Worth area in 2024.

Now, again, this is kind of the Metroplex area itself.

It even extends up to McKinney as far south as Midlothian.

So this is covering kind of a broad range in this area.

But I want to kind of give a little perspective on what we did for 2024 and see what previous years look like so you get an idea of where the market actually stands.

So in 2024, total sales for the DFW area was about 91,536.

In 2023, we had 89,321.

So a little bit less than 2023 as compared to 2024.

But if you go back to 2020, we had a total sales of about 110,000.

Now, as an apples to apples comparison, if you look at what we did in 2015.

It's very similar to 2024's numbers.

We did about 91,700 total sales in DFW in 2015.

And if you want to make yourself really feel good and you look at 2011, total sales were only 61,000.

So better than 2023, about the same as 2015 and way better than 2011.

So although it wasn't the best year, it wasn't terrible for DFW in 2024.

Now, what about the average price and the median price when you look at 2024 compared to those same years?

An average price, by the way, is the total volume of units and the total volume of sales divided by each other to give you like kind of the average price.

Whereas the median price is the price that was in the middle.

It's not the highest, it's not the lowest, but it was in you.

If you take the total number of sales, what's the middle price?

That kind of fits in between.

So in 2024, the average home price sale in DFW was about $500,000, but the median price was only $398,000.

And if you compare that to 2023, the average price was about $488,000 and the median was 395.

So not a significant difference between 2023 and 2024, but still going up.

And if you go back to 2020, the average sale price was about 354,000 and the average median price was about 294,000.

Notice in the trend here, big jumps now, 2015 and 2011 is where you're going to kind of start to get sick to your stomach when you look at what the prices were back then.

So just 10 years ago, the average home price was 268,000 and the median was 213.

Back to the good old days of homes in the price range of that $200,000 mark.

Back in 2011, the average price was $202,000 and the median was only a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

So in a little under 15 years in the Dallas Fort Worth area, the average home price has increased $300,000 and the median price has gone up about $250,000 dollars.

And things aren't going up at the same pace, but they're still going up.

And that crash ain't coming anytime soon.

Now why did that happen?

Well, inventory numbers tell the story.

Good news is, is in 2024, the average months of inventory at the end of the year was 3.26 months of inventory, as you all know, means if no other homes came available for sale in this period of time, how long would it take us to sell out of our current inventory?

Well, currently that stands at three months, about three and a quarter months.

Now, at the end of 2020, three months of inventory was only two and a half months.

And at the end of 2020, we had barely one month of inventory on the market.

And oh, by the way, that inventory number had been low for quite a while because if you go back to 2015, the months of inventory was just under two months.

So there hadn't been a big improvement or a big decline during that period.

So we had a good 10 years of pretty low inventory, which continued to tick prices up, which is why you see the average home price in the median home price go as high as they did.

But we're not back to the days of 2011 when at the end of that year, the months of inventory was about 5.1.

So the takeaway from all this is that 2024 wasn't quite as bad a year as maybe we thought it was, at least historically speaking.

But home prices have significantly increased for that year as well.

And because of that, inventory is the highest that we've seen in almost 15 years.

So what does that spell for the housing market, DFW going forward?

Well, these high prices have impacted people's ability to buy a house.

In fact, if you go all the way back to 1991, the median age of a first time home buyer was 28 years old.

But in 2024, the median age of the first time homebuyer is 38.

And that means the idea of having your house paid off in retirement and having your bills minimized, going into retirement is kind of going the way of the dodo bird.

Because most Americans, if they can't buy a house until they're 38 years old, they're probably not going to have it paid off by the time they're in their 60s.

And right now you can't live off Social Security.

So it looks like you might be working for a while to maintain that mortgage.

But current homeowners are feeling the pain too, because the median age of repeat home buyers in 1991 was 42 years old, but in 2024 it was 61 years old.

And if you think renting is the answer, I got news for you on that one also, because here in Dallas Fort Worth, for the first time in 20 years, the price to rent has increased beyond the price to rent in Austin, which is one of the highest in the country.

So the cost in Dallas Fort Worth to live is even more than it is in most places in the country.

So if you're going to rent, you're still going to have high costs without the equity that you would have from buying at least.

So what's the takeaway from all this?

Home prices are going to keep going up, probably not as much as they were.

And there might even be a slight dip over the next 12 to 24 months, but nothing significant.

But with these dips in prices and higher inventory, that's good news, especially if you're a buyer, because in order to keep the housing market healthy and moving forward, we need people to be able to afford to buy a home.

And you know what?

If rates happen to stay elevated longer, it might be a good thing because less demand will help drive prices down and allow more and more people to get into the market to buy.

But I don't think your home sellers want to hear that.

Except of course, when it comes time for them to move and they don't want to have to pay double what they paid for their house originally just to take a small step up.

So, as always, the best time to buy still yesterday.

And speaking of buying, let's move on to our agent.

Tip of the week.

As a realtor, are you trying to figure out what your buyer's price range is and what they're looking for, but they always kind of seem to give you a lower number and then end up at a much higher purchase price later on?

Well, here's Conrad Jackson again with ReMax Pinnacle to give you a little tip on how to get that actual number.

That you're looking really prospect really hard to get a new client.

And then you got that new client and you're asking those qualifying questions.

You want to know what price that they are willing to purchase, but they seem kind of be secretive about how high they'll go on their price.

One tip that I always use is in the delivery of my message when I'm trying to figure out what's the max price point that that buyer is comfortable spending on their home.

How I say it is very important.

This is What I say, Mr.

Or Mrs.

Buyer, what price point are you looking to stay below with your new home?

When I say that the brain as a buyer, as a consumer typically goes to the highest price point max, that they're thinking in their mind that they'd be willing to spend.

And then they tell you that number and say, I don't want to go any higher than this.

Well, if you do that, typically it comes off better than you ask them.

The highest you're willing to go, you say what price point or wanting to be below.

And if you do that, then they'll go to their max price nine times out of ten.

And then you know what kind of range you have to work with from there.

So try using that in your delivery going forward when you're trying to qualify a buyer or potential new client and you're trying to figure out what their price point is.

All right, let's move on to our final story.

Story for today.

So Trump and Elon are trying to bid farewell to the cfpb.

Does that mean we're going to get back to the wild west of mortgages, or are we losing that much needed protection from those slimy big banks?

Well, we're going to talk about it.

All right, let's start by going back to the 2008 financial crisis and our good buddies Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank, congressman from Connecticut and Massachusetts, who authored the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection act of 2010.

Now, this legislation was in response to the great financial crisis of 2008.

And inside the Dodd Frank act, we got the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB.

It officially launched on July 11th of 2011.

All right, so why did we need this CFPB and what did it actually do?

Well, first off, it established a central authority for all things finance and consumer protection that had previously been scattered and disjointed throughout several other agencies.

And at that time, most of these regulators were concerned about the health of the financial institutions and not necessarily the consumer and our protection.

And what the 2008 crisis revealed was that consumers were taking on complicated mortgages and other financial products that they really didn't fully understand and were not fully informed about because at the end of the day, the bank wanted to give you the loan, not necessarily give you all the details and responsibilities that you were taking on and getting that loan or what might change after you did get that loan.

So at that time, there was a need for stronger protections and enforcement of laws that were already in place but not being utilized for the average Joe.

Hence, the CFPB was formed and their charter was to consolidate consumer protection authority, write and enforce rules and educate, empower consumers.

Sounds pretty good so far, right?

And guess what, they did do a lot of good things along the way.

As of today, the CFPB has recovered over 19 billion in refunds, Principal reductions and canceled debts for consumers through its enforcement and supervisory work.

And this money goes directly back into the pockets of those who are wronged by the financial institutions.

The CFPB has taken numerous enforcement actions against companies engaging in unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices.

And this includes actions against payday lenders, debt collectors, mortgage servicers, and credit reporting agencies, leading to significant changes in how these industries operate.

The CFPB provides a wealth of resources to help consumers make more informed financial decisions.

And this includes tools like Ask cfpb, which provides answers to common financial questions in educational materials on topics like mortgages, credit cards, and student loans.

And the CFPB has prioritized protecting vulnerable groups such as military members, seniors, and students from predatory financial practices.

And this includes enforcing laws like the Military Lending act and taking actions against companies that discriminate against these groups.

The CFPB's work has led to a lot of significant improvements in the financial marketplace.

This includes changes to mortgage lending practices, credit card disclosures, and debt collection practices, making it easier for consumers to understand and navigate the complex world of finance.

So that is all of the good stuff.

And with that, why do opponents of the CFPB want to get rid of it?

What's the other side of the argument?

Well, critics argue that the CFPB's regulations are too broad and burdensome, stifling innovation and limiting access to credit.

They claim that the agency interferes excessively in the free market and imposes unnecessary compliance costs on financial institutions, ultimately harming consumers by reducing competition and choice.

Opponents also express concern that the CFPB structure, particularly its single director and funding mechanism, outside the traditional congressional appropriations process, which they argue, gives the agency too much power with insufficient checks and balances, making it less accountable to the people and to Congress.

And some people have argued that the CFPB has become too politicized with its enforcement action and regulatory priorities, influenced by the political leanings of its leadership.

This, they claim, undermines the agency's objectivity and can lead to inconsistent and ideologically driven regulation.

A lot of people think that their functions also overlap with these other existing regulatory agencies, leading to redundancy and inefficiency.

And they argued that the consumer protection could be adequately handled by these other agencies, making the CFPB relatively unnecessary.

And also, when you look at the formation of the cfpb Back in 2011, the idea of it being taking a little bit less power from the banks and giving consumers more options, the net result has actually been the other direction.

We've actually seen no new banks formed, and many banks fall away or get consolidated into bigger banks.

So the idea of banks being too big to fail has kind of gone away because they are huge now.

They're bigger than they were before all this stuff went down and there's no real competition coming into the market to compete with them, aside from maybe crypto and blockchain, which they're all terrified of too.

And all this has kind of come to a head recently because it was a point of contention taking center stage on the Joe Rogan podcast with Marc Andreessen, who's a Silicon Valley investor in Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Airbnb, several other things as well.

And he raised concerns on the podcast about debanking and economic stifling regulation put forward by the cfp, a sentiment that was further echoed a few weeks later on the same podcast with Joe featuring Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.

So those are the two sides of the argument.

And as always, I would say make up your own mind.

However, for me, I don't see getting rid of this agency as a great thing.

And this is coming from a mortgage banker who's affected by these guys on a daily basis.

Now, do I wish there were less regulations and procedures to follow when doing a loan?

Absolutely.

Do I think this agency has added to the overall cost of doing a mortgage for the consumer?

It absolutely has.

Today, every mortgage company on the planet now has to employ a significant number of staff members just to be sure that we're in compliance with these CFPB rules.

So those guys drive a sales minded person like myself bananas.

All that being said, I do believe in having guardrails because as we can see in the recent uncovering of government waste, fraud and abuse, to think that companies whose sole purpose is to make money for their shareholders are going to make decisions that are best for the consumer and not for their bottom line is just being naive.

Now, could the agency be streamlined and focus more on specific areas of finance and be less punitive in their enforcement?

Absolutely.

But I do think we need them, as much as it pains me to say it, because they can make life very difficult for a lender like myself.

But today people are less educated about finances more than any other time in history, in my opinion.

And maybe that's because financial products have gotten so incredibly complicated and there's so many options to choose from these days.

Or maybe it's because that we don't spend enough time and focus as a society on teaching people and children how to make it a priority.

But either way, people need help sifting through all the noise and figuring out what financial products are good for them and their families and The Jamie Dimons and Larry Finks of the world ain't there to help you out.

They are there to put money in their pocket.

Now, the good news is, is that as of today, nothing is definitive yet.

In fact, this week, the Trump administration announced a new Director of the CFPB, Jonathan McKiernan, who was previously on the board of directors for the fdic.

And this is good news in the sense that it seems as of today that the Trump administration and Elon are leaning more towards the reform of the agency instead of abolishing it altogether.

And if that's the case, sign me up.

But capitalism left unmonitored can have disastrous results.

Just see 2008.

So whether I like it or not, just like we need the police making sure that we aren't driving like maniacs on our way home from the club, we need something or someone like the CFPB watching our backs to make sure that the big boys with the expensive lawyers and team of Harvard bankers aren't looking to fleece you for that 25 in overdraft fees because they cleared your payment before they cleared your deposit, because that was the thing they were doing.

So the CFPB may not be an agency that we want, but it is probably an agency that we need.

All right, last tip of the day.

Is your listing not getting enough views, showing numbers running a little slow?

Well, take a little tip from Netflix and Conrad Jackson of REMAX Pinnacle in Arlington to get more eyeballs on that listing.

Has your home been sitting on the market for a little while and you just haven't gotten a lot of activity and you're trying to get your agent to make sure that you can do the most innovative thing in the world that can get more action in your home in the form of showings.

If you're sitting on the market and your listing's a little stagnant, one quick tip that you can do is to change the initial picture of your home in mls.

What does that do?

It's not like changing the price where they'll get a notification of a price reduction.

But it is something that when people typically scroll through a price point several times, they typically stop at your home if they see something different about your home.

Or maybe they're just missing it all together because they don't like the first picture that is pops up with your address.

So what we'd like to do is have your agent change that first picture to a different picture.

Make sure it's a professionally shot picture, but change it to a different picture because that buyer may have scrolled through your home three times, but that fourth time, they see something different that does catch their eye and it triggers them to go ahead and look at your home in person.

Just something quick, easy, free that you and your agent can do together to try to get some more interest on your home or get some more eyes and looks at your home.

If you have more questions about this, you can contact me.

My name is Conrad Jackson.

My Website's Conrad Sells DFW.com I'm always here for your real estate tips and tricks.

All right, guys, that is all for today.

I'm still playing with this format a little bit to try to keep things interesting for you and try to mix it up a little bit.

So let me know what you think, what you like, what you don't like, or anything at all that you want to hear or see.

After all, I wouldn't be here if you weren't also.

So until next time, be great.

Humans, just keep grinding.

Life is what you make it, so make it great.

See you later.