North Texas has a massive housing shortage

Home builders in North Texas are having a difficult time keeping up with the area's massive housing demand, according to a report from Zillow.

• Fewer homes are selling above list price and homes are staying on the market a few days longer than they did during the summer.

Why it matters: Home values are still increasing, but the rate of price growth is slowing slightly after two years of skyrocketing prices.

Driving the news: Local home builder StoryBuilt just announced a $1 billion joint venture with a Swiss-based investment firm, with the hopes of completing more than a dozen residential communities in the next four to seven years.

What they're saying: “A lack of new homes being built relative to population growth is having serious implications in Dallas and across the country as home prices have taken off over the course of the pandemic,” Zillow spokesperson Mark Stayton told Axios.

• “Surging demand, driven in part by historically low mortgage rates, has coupled with limited supply to push appreciation to extremes.”

Context: D-FW builders erected approximately 59,000 houses this year, per Zillow. But the area is still close to 170,000 houses short of consumer demand.

• Nationwide, there's a shortage of 1.35 million homes built since 2020.

What's happening: Labor shortages, supply chain problems and the rising cost of construction have made building more difficult.

• As home values continue to climb, some owners hoping to maximize profits are less inclined to sell.

• Local realtors told Axios that local demand is still high, but with such a low inventory of houses for sale, many hopeful buyers are putting off purchasing.

By the numbers: Home prices in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro are up 25.1% since Feb. 2020 and 49% since the housing crash in 2007, according to the Zillow report.

• Real estate forecasters expect local home prices to climb 4% in 2022, per realtor.com.
• This year the median listing price is $400,000, an 11% increase over 2020.
• The average time a house spends on the market is 39 days, a 21% decrease from the previous year.

The bottom line: The market is still great for sellers, and a whirling dervish for buyers.