October 2022 - Republic Title

November Class Calendar

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

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.
November 2nd
11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Republic Title Park Cities

Market Yourself Like A Pro Using RPR®
Join us to learn how to use RPR®’s (Realtors Property Resource®) marketing resources to streamline your outreach and share regular market updates on social media channels, as well as, create mailings without missing a beat.
November 3rd
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Republic Title Park Cities

TREC Legal Update
Material mandated by TREC
Legal Update II covers a host of topics that TREC has deemed critical for all licensees to be familiar with, including fiduciary and ethical duties of the agent, guidance on dealing with water and mineral rights, and important updates to tax laws and rules.
November 8th
10:00 am – 2:00 pm
Republic Title Uptown

Instagram Reels for Real Estate Agents
If you’re looking to connect with more buyers and sellers while growing your brand, then Instagram Reels could be for you. Reels is a powerful way to cast a larger net to grow your followers and to showcase your listings to a wider audience. In this course you will learn the quick and easy steps to create a reel and given examples of content ideas so you can get started today.
November 15th
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Zoom

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.
November 15th
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Republic Title Uptown

Traps and Pitfalls for Licensees
This class draws attention to the issues most likely to cause problems for licensees in a real estate transaction including real estate fraud, missing effective date in the contract, ‘practicing law’ and more.
November 17th
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Zoom

Top Ten Contract Addenda
Join us to review 10 of the most commonly utilized TREC contract addenda including Third Party Financing Addendum, Addendum for Backup Contract and more. APPROVED TREC CONTRACT COURSE
November 30th
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Zoom

September 2022 DFW Area Real Estate Stats

September 2022 Stats are IN!

In Collin County, all arrows point up with regard to new and active listings, average sales price, average price per square foot and days on market. The number of sales is down about 26% from 2021. In Dallas County, new listings are down 5.5% from this time last year, along with the number of sales down almost 23% from 2021. The number of active listings is up 22.5% from last year, along with increases in days on market (up 27%), averages sales price (up 9%) from the prior year and prices per square foot (up 16%). Denton County sees the biggest increase in active listings up over 100% from last year, along with increases in new listings, average sales price, average price per square foot and days on market. Not surprisingly, we see much of the same statistics in Rockwall and Tarrant Counties.

The good news is that buyers have more options than they did in 2021. However, even with the increased inventory, there is still only an average of 2.5 month supply in all counties (according to NTREIS TRENDS report) which still makes it very much a sellers’ market in North Texas (with people still moving here)! Happy 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.

REPUBLIC TITLE NAMED ONE OF THE DALLAS BUSINESS JOURNAL’S BEST PLACES TO WORK FOR 2022.

Republic Title was named the #1 Best Place to Work in North Texas in the Large Company category by the Dallas Business Journal on October 20th as part of their Best Places to Work program.

The Dallas Business Journal is pleased to announce the 20th annual Best Places to Work Awards. The list of winners was whittled down from well over 300 nominated firms. These businesses had the highest employee survey scores among their peer companies in their size category.

Selected companies were divided into five size categories based on employee count. On October 20th, the Dallas Business Journal will honor its 2022 Best Places to Work class at a luncheon at the Renaissance Dallas at Plano Legacy West Hotel.

For more information on this year’s Best Places to Work honorees, visit: https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2022/09/01/best-places-to-work-large-extra-large-2022.html

Republic Title Frisco Named a 2022 Faces of Frisco Business

We are excited to announce that the Republic Title Frisco office was recently named a 2022 Faces of Frisco business!

Republic Title is proud to be the leading title insurance company in Frisco and is committed to providing customers with exceptional service when handling the transfer of title and protecting their financial investment in a property. Buying or selling a home is the largest transaction most of us will make in our lives and Republic Title is the smart option for protecting your property rights.

Founded in 1991, Republic Title is proud to have our corporate headquarters in Collin County. With over 230 collective years of title insurance experience in the Frisco office, we have been named a “Best Place to Work” by the Dallas Business Journal and a “Top Workplace” by the Dallas Morning News for eight years in a row. Republic Title was also named “Best Title Company” in Frisco/Plano by Living Magazine.

At Republic Title, the mission is to add value to every customer we serve trough Proven Experience, Dedicated Service, and Lasting Relationships. Count on the experienced team at Republic Title to be your trusted partner when buying or selling a home, refinancing an existing mortgage, or obtaining a construction loan.

To view the October issue of Frisco Style and see all 2022 Faces of Frisco business, click here.

Spirit Of RTT Winners

Each year Republic Title recognizes three employees with the Spirit of Republic award. This award is presented to employees who go above and beyond for the company and their co-workers. Each of these winners truly lives out Republic Title’s mission of adding value to every customer we serve through Proven Experienced, Dedicated Service and Lasting Relationships.

Our 2022 winners are:

⭐Commercial Division Winner: Alan Henderson (pictured with Republic Title President Bo Feagin)
⭐Residential Division Winner: Blair Meador
⭐Support Division Winner: Rico Walker

Thank you to these three amazing employees who have gone above and beyond and truly exemplify the spirit of Republic Title!

Texas Housing Insight August 2022 Summary

The pandemic-induced housing frenzy is easing as the Fed’s aggressive monetary policies directly affect the housing market. Mortgage interest rates rose from 2.84 to 5.22 percent in the past year. Amid these robust rate increases, Texas’ housing market quickly dialed back sales while supplies have gradually accumulated. Despite the slowdown, inventory levels remain below historical levels, and prices are still high. While prices have dipped some in recent months, they still remain considerably high compared with before the pandemic. As of August, Texas’ median price remains 11.4 percent elevated from a year earlier.

Supply¹

Interest rates continued to increase following more aggressive Federal Reserve intervention. Despite mounting interest rate pressure, Texas’ single-family construction permits recovered 12,500 permits in August, rising 9.3 percent month over month (MOM). Permits rebounded in three of the state’s four largest metros (San Antonio being the exception). Houston (3,700) and Dallas (3,693) had the most permits, while Austin (1,609) and San Antonio (681) followed third and fourth in the state. Meanwhile, Texas’ single-family construction values continued to fall by double digits, tumbling to a two-year low. All major metros reported double-digit negative year-to-date (YTD) growth.

Permits for Texas’ multifamily sector corrected. After July’s abnormally high request of 12,500 construction permits, 9,000 permits were issued in August.

Total overall housing starts in the Southern Census Bureau Region also recovered some in August with 885,000 new starts. However, single-family housing starts, which account for the biggest share of the overall count, remained 100,000 units short of the year-ago average with 530,000. August’s boost could be partially explained by declining input costs such as lumber. The lumber producer price index (PPI) decreased for the third time in a row in August.

In the existing-home market, the state’s current supply has accumulated throughout the summer. Active listings rose more than 30,000 units since May. This loosening up of housing availability indicates a break-through considering the distinctly low inventories of the past two years. Texas’ housing supply, which had been below two months of inventory (MOI) from November 2020 to June 2022, ticked up to 2.4 months. San Antonio led with 2.7 months, and Dallas remained the tightest with two months (Table 1). The Texas Real Estate Research Center considers six to 6.5 months of inventory a balanced market.

Demand

As a result of higher mortgage rates, housing demand has fallen, and homes are sitting on the market longer. Sales improved slightly in August (5 percent MOM) from July’s steep decline, reaching a seasonally adjusted rate of 29,300 sales. Overall home sales have been in freefall since around April. At the current rate, 2022 sales will likely fall short of 2021. According to the Center’s Data Relevance Program, the sales level was down 16.3 percent from a year earlier.

Sales in all major metros remained low as mortgage pressures rattled buyers. Austin and Houston’s closed listings were most affected with a 20 percent year-over-year (YOY) reduction, while DFW and San Antonio pulled back more than 10 percent. Existing-home sales, which make up 80 percent of Texas’ housing market, inched down for the seventh straight month. Texas’ marginal recovery in August was concentrated in the remaining 20 percent of the housing market, where Dallas’ new-construction market had double-digit growth.

Texas’ average days on market (DOM) was 38 days, up from 29 days in March. However, compared with the five-year average of 57 days between 2014 and the early 2020s, the relatively short time suggests a persistent imbalance between sellers’ and buyers’ bargaining-power. Amid slowing sales, Austin’s market reacted most aggressively, doubling the listing time in the past five months, while DFW reacted most moderately.

When days on market are differentiated based on the home market, the existing homes’ DOMs are conspicuously lower than new homes’. This could possibly be due to differing price points as new homes tend to be more expensive than the average existing-home listing. Categorized by price cohorts, homes priced between $300K and $500K had the shortest listing time, taken off list in 34 days.

Prices

The downward trend for Texas’ median home price continued in August. The state’s seasonally adjusted median price was $342,000, falling more than $10,000 in three months. Prices dropped in all metros except San Antonio, which advanced $2,000 this month (Table 2). Dallas and Houston, Texas’ two largest MSA areas, reported modest declines of $2,000, while Austin took the biggest hit of $11,000. Although housing prices are recently under correction, they remain much elevated from year-ago prices, accelerating 11.4 percent YOY. Even for Austin, the price in this much-affected market was up 5.5 percent YOY.

The Federal Reserve is expected to impose more forceful monetary policies throughout the latter half of this year and likely into the upcoming year to combat inflation. While the ten-year U.S. Treasury bond yield persisted at 2.9 percent², the two-year counterpart continued to march upward. The spread between the ten-year and the two-year bond yields dipped further in the negative territory, indicating the market’s economic uncertainties about the near future. The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation’s 30-year fixed-rate refrained from June’s high of 5.52 percent and slipped 30 basis points in the past two months. The last time the mortgage rate was over 5 percent was 2009. 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 depreciation. The index’s monthly decline was the second in a row. Annual appreciation slowed to 12.1 percent YOY in August compared with 20.4 percent YOY growth in January. While Dallas’ home price index remained above the state average, Austin’s YOY rate fell to a single digit, behind Houston’s yearly growth and down to the slowest appreciating metro.

Household Pulse Survey

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, in spite of rising mortgage rates, the share of Texas homeowners current on their mortgage payments improved 60 basis points in August, and the percentage of people who were behind shrunk to 4 percent (Table 3). This implies that while the overall economy continues to decline, homeowner financial health has so far remained robust. Houston owners’ bolstered ability to pay their mortgage resulted in an increase in the state’s average owned free/clear homes ratio. On the other hand, when asked about future payments, fewer Texas homeowners were confident that 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.

Source – Joshua Roberson, Weiling Yan, and John Shaunfield (September 29, 2022)

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

October Landscape & Gardening Tips & To-Do’s

Need help planting a successful garden or landscape? Here are some October 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. Cool seasonal planting should be your focus in October.

Start planning your purchase of pre-chilled, spring-blooming bulbs, like tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths.
Start planting cool season annuals, such as pansies, ornamental kale, and snapdragons.
Plant herbs like cilantro and parsley now for harvesting through the fall and winter months.
Keep newly planted trees, shrubs, perennials, and seasonal color watered to help them establish.

Supply1

Demand

Prices

Household Pulse Survey

Supply¹