September 2022 - Republic Title

October Class Calendar

Republic Title is pleased to offer a variety of continuing education classes for our customers. Join us in October for classes including:

The Real Deal – Bring It All Together: Title & Resources
In this class, you’ll discover the tools and resources that will make you a valuable resource to your clients. Learn about some of the best marketing resources available to real estate agents for marketing your personal brand and your business.
October 4th
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Zoom

Title Commitment 101
This class focuses on understanding the groundwork done in creating the Title Commitment, what agents should look for and what questions to ask. We will provide licensees with a basic understanding of crucial documents and the role they play enabling them to detect potential problems.
October 5th
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Zoom

**SOLD OUT** Tax Planning Program Specifically For Real Estate Agents
Join us for a Lunch and Learn with special guests from Greenlight Tax Group. They’ve designed a tax planning program specifically for REALTORS. They will share strategies to help you minimize your tax liability and keep more of what you make year after year. Please register in advance, as seats are limited.
October 5th
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Republic Title Park Cities

Up and Away with Cloud CMA
Join us for a condensed view of the products within Cloud CMA in the NTREIS Matrix MLS System including generating personalized buyer/seller reports.
October 6th
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Zoom

TREC Legal Update
Material mandated by TREC
Legal Update I covers various topics related to changes in regulations, forms, and standards of practice in the real estate industry including: TREC statute and rule updates, an overview of changes to and best practices for promulgated contract and addenda forms, and updated information on fair housing and property management laws and regulations.
October 11th
10:00 am – 2:00 pm
Republic Title Uptown

Escape Hatches for Buyers
APPROVED TREC CONTRACT COURSE
In this class licensees will become familiar with specific conditions & contingencies within the contract and related addenda that, if not adhered to, could result in a Buyer’s valid termination of the contract.
October 12th
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Zoom

Matrix MLS-Advanced
Agents will be shown advanced features available in the NTREIS Matrix MLS System including reverse prospecting, custom displays, market reports, speed bar, mapping/layers, statistics, exports, etc.
October 18th
10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Zoom

Boost Your Business With Remine
Join us for an overview of Remine; a powerful map-based search tool accessible through the NTREIS portal. This class will demonstrate Remine’s intuitive platform that reimagines the MLS and helps to solve and analyze some of the biggest challenges real estate agents face today.
October 19th
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Republic Title Park Cities

Capture More Clients
Agents will be shown the various tools and landing pages available in the NTREIS MLS system that could be used to attract more business and help generate leads from buyers and sellers.
October 20th
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Republic Title Prosper

**SOLD OUT** Tax Planning Program Specifically For Real Estate Agents
Join us for a Lunch and Learn with special guests from Greenlight Tax Group. They’ve designed a tax planning program specifically for REALTORS. They will share strategies to help you minimize your tax liability and keep more of what you make year after year. Please register in advance, as seats are limited.
October 21st
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Republic Title Park Cities

Virtual Listing Presentations Using Cloud CMA
Cloud CMA LIVE is designed to give REALTORS® a digital edge during their listing presentation, whether in person or virtually. Present and explain your knowledge of the real estate market clearly with a truly interactive experience and WIN your next listing.
October 27th
11:00 am – 11:00 am
Republic Title Southlake

To see a current list of available classes and to register, please visit www.republictitle.com/residential-education.

North Texas Giving Day

Today is North Texas Giving Day and we are excited to raise awareness for 5 local non-profits that we are proud to support.

For more information on North Texas Giving Day, visit https://www.northtexasgivingday.org/

For more information on these organizations, please read below.

Bonton Farms

Bonton Farms is an agricultural intervention driven by the mission to restore lives, create jobs and ignite hope in a once forgotten and neglected neighborhood with some of the most marginalized people.

Visit bontonfarms.org

Carry the Load

Carry the Load provides active ways to honor and remember our nation’s heroes by connecting Americans to the sacrifices made by our military, veterans, first responders and their families.

Visit carrytheload.org

Elevate Dallas

Elevate Dallas’ mission is to build long-term, life-changing relationships with urban youth, equipping them to thrive and contribute to their community.

Visit elevatedallas.org

Genesis Women’s Shelter

At Genesis Women’s Shelter it is their mission to provide safety, shelter and support for women who have experienced domestic violence, and to raise awareness regarding its cause, prevalence and impact.

Visit genesisshelter.org

Presbyterian Night Shelter

Presbyterian Night Shelter is Tarrant County, Texas’ largest provider of services to residents who are experiencing homelessness, with a “housing first” approach designed to address root causes from a place of strength and stability.

Visit journeyhome.org

Promise House

Promise House moves youth in crisis toward safety and success through crisis intervention, emergency shelter and long-term housing, case management and counseling services, education services, advocacy and outreach.

Visit promisehouse.org

August 2022 DFW Area Real Estate Stats

August 2022 Stats are IN! Here are the highlights! In Collin County New listings are slightly down, while Active listings are up quite a bit from last year. The days on market, average sales price and price per square foot are also up as we are all aware, with the actual number of sales down about 21% from 2021. In Dallas County, the new listings are also down slightly with Active listings up with similar percentages to Collin County. The days on market, average sales price and price per square foot are also up in Dallas with the number of sales down about 15% from last year. The statistics are about the same in Denton and Rockwall counites as you can see. In summary, while the market is definitely slower than 2021, we are still experiencing a shortage of homes for sale in the entire metroplex which makes it a great time be in the business in North Texas! Happy sharing and selling!

Our stats infographics include a year over year comparison and area highlights for single family homes broken down by county. We encourage you to share these infographics and video with your sphere.

For more stats information, pdfs and graphics of our stats including detailed information by county, visit the Resources section on our website at DFW Area Real Estate Statistics | Republic Title of Texas.

For the full report from the Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center, click here. For NTREIS County reports click here.

Texas Housing Insight July 2022 Summary

Aggressive central bank policy continues to drag down the housing market, stalling the previously hot streak of housing sales. The housing sector continues to show signs of easing as housing inventories recover and home prices depreciate. Amid a statewide retreat in construction permits, the elevated demand for construction suggests many prospective homebuyers might be putting off their big-item purchases. Sales of homes below $300,000, an attractive market for first-time buyers and younger households, diminished more than sales of higher-priced homes.

Supply¹

Texas’ single-family construction permits marked the largest monthly decrease since April 2020, sliding 16.1 percent month over month (MOM). Permits for building construction and renovation fell in all four major metros, but contractions were most significant in Houston and San Antonio, falling at 19.9 percent and 12.7 percent MOM, respectively. Amid the drop, DFW (3,626 permits) surpassed Houston (3,471 permits) as the metropolitan area with the most construction permits. The last time DFW surpassed Houston on the national permit list was one-and-a-half years ago. On the other hand, permits between Austin (1,626) and San Antonio (781) continued the 1:2 ratio. While the single-family sector shrank to 11,900 permits, Texas’ multifamily sector rose to an historic high with 12,500. The growth was heavily concentrated on permits for apartment buildings, doubling the year-ago level.

Lumber producer price index (PPI) balanced at the year-ago value, and the July value was four-fifths of March’s record-high metric. Despite the recent lumber price deduction, material prices are still soaring compared with historical prices. Additionally, rampant mortgage rate increases suppressed the South’s total housing starts to a rate of 710,000 units. Single-family housing starts, which account for the biggest share of homebuilding, plunged to 511,000 units. Correspondingly, single-family private construction values tumbled to a two-year low, withdrawing 13.2 percent MOM. All major metros reported double-digit negative year-to-date (YTD) growths.

While homebuilding is expected to continue decelerating, the state’s current supply is starting to accumulate. Active listings rose more than 17,000 units since May. This loosening up of housing availability indicates a break-through after the abnormally low inventories of the past two years. As a result, Texas’ housing supply, which has been below two months of inventory (MOI), recovered to 2.2 MOI. The Texas Real Estate Research Center considers six to 6.5 months of inventory a balanced market. San Antonio led the pack with 2.5 MOI, and Dallas remained the tightest with 1.9 MOI (Table 1).

Demand

Record home prices and rapidly rising mortgage rates continued to discourage buyers. While summer is normally peak season, July’s total housing sales sank according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center’s Data Relevance Program. The state’s sales volume lost over 3,000 deals, falling to a seasonally adjusted rate of 28,121 closed sales. Sales in all major metros declined under falling demand. Austin and Houston’s closed sales took the biggest hits, each dipping almost 16 percent MOM, while DFW and San Antonio each shrank close to 8 percent. While every prospective homebuyer has to confront financial challenges, affordability most adversely impacted first-time buyers, resulting in a significant shrinkage in sales of homes below $300,000.

Texas’ average days on market (DOM) remained low at 34 days, suggesting a persistent imbalance between sellers and buyers’ bargaining power. Homes sold quickest in Austin and Dallas, leaving the market in 22 days, while Houston and San Antonio’s DOM hovered around 30 days. When DOM is differentiated based on the home market, the DOM for existing homes is conspicuously lower than that of new homes. Existing homes are still in a tight housing market.

Categorized by price cohorts, homes priced in the $300K and $400K cohorts sold fastest, typically in 28 days. Meanwhile, homes priced at more than $750K had interestingly shorter listing periods than those priced at less than $300K.

Prices

In July, the Texas’ median home price fell $5,000 to $344,000. Prices dropped in all metros (Table 2). Austin ($510,000) and DFW ($406,000) fell $7,000 and $8,000 in a month, respectively. Meanwhile, Houston ($338,000) dropped $3,000, and San Antonio ($328,000) dropped $4,000. Amid the statewide downturn, Austin prices had the steepest decline, falling $33,000 in three months. Housing prices are under correction, but they remain much elevated from a year ago, accelerating 13.2 percent year over year (YOY).

The Federal Reserve is expected to impose more forceful monetary policies in the second half of the year to combat inflation. The ten-year U.S. Treasury bond yield retreated to 2.9 percent², while the two-year counterpart continued to march upward. The spread between the ten-year and the two-year bond yields entered the negative territory for the first time since 2008, indicating the market’s economic uncertainties about the near future. The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation’s 30-year fixed-rate, which for years hovered around 3 percent, elevated to 5.52 percent. The last time the mortgage rate was this high was 2008. For more information on the effect of mortgage interest rates on purchase affordability, see “How Higher Interest Rates Affect Homebuying.”

The Texas Repeat Sales Home Price Index, which accounts for compositional price effects, corroborated the trend of slowing price growth, as the index shrank from increasing 20.4 percent YOY in January to increasing 14.9 percent YOY. Falling prices pulled the state YOY growth down by 55 basis points in the last seven months. Austin fell from the fastest appreciating metro to second, behind San Antonio’s yearly growths.

Household Pulse Survey

Homeowners who just closed a deal were likely to start off in good financial standing. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, in spite of rising mortgage rates, the share of Texas homeowners caught up on mortgage payments improved 60 basis points YOY in July, and the share of people who were behind shrank to 4 percent (Table 3). Houston owners’ bolstered ability to pay their mortgage increased the owned free/clear homes ratio to the state average. On the other hand, when asked about the future payments, fewer Texas homeowners were confident they would not face foreclosure. The proportion of delinquent individuals at risk of foreclosure shot up 80 basis points to 8 percent (Table 4).

_________________

¹ All measurements are calculated using seasonally adjusted data, and percentage changes are calculated month over month, unless stated otherwise.

² Bond and mortgage interest rates are nonseasonally adjusted. Loan-to-value ratios, debt-to-income ratios, and the credit score component are also nonseasonally adjusted.

Source – Joshua Roberson and Weiling Yan (September 14, 2022)

https://www.recenter.tamu.edu/articles/technical-report/Texas-Housing-Insight

Avoid Common Closing Delays

Remember – Prior planning prevents inconvenience. Awareness of the following items will help to ensure a smooth closing.

LOAN REQUIREMENTS
Be sure that you return all lender requested documents and complete lender required tasks so they are able process your loan and get you through underwriting as soon as possible, in order to keep your closing date as scheduled. Failing to turn in documents in a timely manner can slow down the closing process.

TAX INFORMATION
If any delinquent taxes are found in your name during the title process, you will need to pay them prior to closing, and you must furnish an original tax receipt, otherwise you will not be able to close until payment of these taxes can be confirmed.

POWER OF ATTORNEYS
If either party intends to use a Power of Attorney at closing; i.e., will not be there to sign:

The title company must approve the Power of Attorney prior to closing.
The original Power of Attorney must be delivered to the title company prior to closing, as the original must be recorded with the County Clerk ahead of all other closing documents.
The title company must be able to contact you via telephone on the day of closing to be certain you are alive and well and have not revoked the Power of Attorney.

COMMON NAMES
If you have a common surname, please complete a Confidential Information Statement and return it to the title company prior to closing.

MARITAL STATUS
A. Texas is a community property state. If you purchased your property when you were single and you have married, the title company will require that your spouse join in signing the deed at closing, due to Texas Homestead Laws.

B. If you are divorced and your divorce proceeding was handled in a county other than the county you are in, please have a certified copy of the Divorce Decree delivered to the title company prior to closing.

OUT OF TOWN MAIL-OUTS
If any documents must be mailed out of town:

All documents must be signed exactly as requested.
All documents must have proper notarization. Any documents mailed out of the country must be notarized in English.

REVIEW IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS
There a few important documents that the Buyer and their REALTOR® will need to review prior to closing. They include the Survey, Title Commitment, HOA documents (if applicable) and the Closing Disclosure. When the title company sends these documents, review them in a timely manner and alert your REALTOR® and/or the title company to any errors or discrepancies.

Print Version

Republic Title Mobile

If you haven’t downloaded our app, Republic Title Mobile, now is the time! Join other real estate agents using Republic Title Mobile and see why we have a 5 star rating in the Apple Store!

Republic Title Mobile is a mobile app that provides easy access for real estate professionals, buyers, and sellers to closing cost calculators, educational videos and articles on title insurance and the real estate industry, and more information on our services to serve your real estate needs.

Our convenient calculator allows users to quickly calculate closing fees associated with your transaction. Calculators include:

Title Quote
Closing Disclosure Quote
Loan Estimate Quote
Seller Net Sheet
Sell To Net
Seller’s Multiple Offers
Buyer Estimate
Monthly Affordability
Rent vs Buy

Other Helpful Real Estate Resources Include:

Contact Information for Republic Title’s 13 North Texas Locations
Insightful News on the Title Insurance and Real Estate Industries
Educational Videos and Monthly Real Estate Stats

Republic Title Mobile can be found in the Apple App Store or in the Google Play Store.

If you have any questions, please reach out to one of our Business Development Representatives.

Attorney Helplines

Republic Title works diligently to offer consistent, responsive, knowledgeable service when closing your transactions. In addition to our experienced Branch Managers and Escrow Officers, we have a dynamic team of Attorneys and Underwriters available to answer your questions and be a resource for you in working towards a smooth closing.

Steve Holley

Senior Vice President /
Senior Residential Counsel

(214) 890-2129
Email

Matt Visinsky

Senior Vice President /
Senior Residential Counsel

(972) 578-8611
Email

Jay Turner

Senior Vice President /
Residential Counsel

(214) 556-0407
Email

Sarah Mann

Senior Vice President /
Residential Counsel

(817) 873-7904
Email

Wade Bogdon

Assistant Vice President / Residential Counsel

(214) 556-0330
Email

Peter Graf

Executive Vice President
and General Counsel

(214) 855-8836
Email

Jon Hooper

Senior Vice President /
Senior Underwriting Counsel

(214) 855-8884
Email

Mark Roden

Senior Vice President /
Assistant General Counsel

(214) 855-8840
Email

For more information like this and other helpful resources, please visit out Resource Section Residential Resources | Republic Title of Texas

Print Version

September Landscape & Gardening Tips & To-Do’s

Need help planting a successful garden or landscape? Here are some September planting tips from the Dallas Arboretum horticulture staff and the Dallas County Master Gardeners that can help keep your home garden looking beautiful this Fall. Seasonal color should be your focus in September.

Plant annual color, such as mums, marigolds, and ornamental peppers, to add seasonal interest to the autumn garden.
Deadhead spent rose flowers to keep shrubs blooming throughout the season. Now is the time to plant new rose shrubs.
In the vegetable garden, plant cool season veggies, such as carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, and mustards, to be harvested through the fall and winter months.
Start planting trees, shrubs, and perennials as cooler autumn temperatures will help plants establish roots before winter.

Is This The Year You Switch From Renting To Buying?

With rents on the rise this could be the perfect time for you to buy; but here’s what you need to consider first:

ADVANTAGES OF BUYING…

By maintaining regular mortgage payments, your credit score will increase over time.
If you itemize deductions, you could lower your federal tax liability by taking the mortgage interest deduction.
When you buy a house, you will know that the mortgage rate for the 5 to 30 years is going to be the same every month. Rent may continue to increase each year.
With each payment, you will build equity and increase the amount of total home ownership.
There may be down payment programs available in your area that can help you purchase your first home.

YOU SHOULD CONSIDER BUYING IF…

You want to build wealth. Investing into real estate is the fastest way to add zeros to the end of your net worth.
You want to settle down, build community and know you will be in the same city or town for at least 2 years.
You want to invest your income into property that will hopefully provide you with a payoff should you decide to sell in the future.

YOU SHOULD KEEP RENTING IF…

You need flexibility and don’t want to commit to staying in the same location for the foreseeable future.
You have limited income or are unsure about your current job. Renting allows you the flexibility to downsize

If you are thinking about buying a home, reach out to your local Realtor to get started.

*Print version

Supply1

Demand

Prices

Household Pulse Survey

Steve Holley

Senior Vice President / Senior Residential Counsel

Matt Visinsky

Senior Vice President / Senior Residential Counsel

Jay Turner

Senior Vice President / Residential Counsel

Sarah Mann

Senior Vice President / Residential Counsel

Wade Bogdon

Assistant Vice President / Residential Counsel

Peter Graf

Executive Vice President and General Counsel

Jon Hooper

Senior Vice President / Senior Underwriting Counsel

Mark Roden

Senior Vice President / Assistant General Counsel

Supply¹

Senior Vice President /
Senior Residential Counsel

Senior Vice President /
Senior Residential Counsel

Senior Vice President /
Residential Counsel

Senior Vice President /
Residential Counsel

Executive Vice President
and General Counsel

Senior Vice President /
Senior Underwriting Counsel

Senior Vice President /
Assistant General Counsel