Each Friday, Russ Anderson, the president and CEO of Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty and the president of Pacific Sotheby's International Realty writes about luxury, trends, business and more in the advertising pages of the Mansion section of The Wall Street Journal. Below is his letter of January 17, 2025.
FROM THE PRESIDENT'S P.O.V.
Some very good news, right up front: 2024 was a year of steadily increasing activity in our North Texas real estate market.
All year long, we observed growth in closed dollar volume for sales of single-family homes across the Dallas-Fort Worth region. And, in the third quarter, single-family unit closings — the actual number of homes sold — began to catch up as well, improving in some areas versus the same quarter in 2023. By the final quarter of 2024, almost every market we serve experienced increased unit sales compared to the prior year. These gains were not quite high enough for annual unit sales to pull ahead of the full calendar year of 2023, but the quarterly growth tells us that a shift is underway.
This is the first time we have seen consistent unit growth nearly across the board in more than three years, since the pandemic sales surge finally began to slow during the second half of 2021.
The positive trend in our part of the country is mirroring the national picture. Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of REALTORS, says, “The worst of the downturn in home sales could be over, with increasing inventory leading to more transactions.” Yun is forecasting a 9.3-percent year-over-year increase in existing home sales of all types, based on declining mortgage rates, employment gains and improving inventory levels.
For a much closer look at the local metrics, market by market, explore our unique and interactive Market Updates on briggsfreeman.com. You’ll find valuable county, city and neighborhood sales information. And you’ll find some insight, I bet, that could save you — or make you — a notable amount of money in 2025.
Now, that would make it a happy new year, wouldn’t it?
Russ Anderson
President and CEO, Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty
President, Pacific Sotheby’s International Realty
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