People are making more money in DFW, but wages aren't keeping up with rising home prices, according to a new report this week.
Researchers from the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University found median family income rose 9.4% to roughly $97,400, but median home prices rose 21.8% year-over-year for the first quarter of 2022.
Higher mortgage rates should lower demand, but researchers say buyers are still feeling the squeeze because many are rushing to find a home before the next rate increase.
Researchers say higher interest rates are also preventing current homeowners from selling and adding to the inventory of available homes.
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Clare Losey, an assistant research economist at Texas A&M and one of the researchers behind the report, says she hopes the research encourages people to look closely at the impact mortgage rates are having on different groups in our community.
"The effect that even a one percentage point increase in the mortgage interest rate can have on folks, particularly our first-time homebuyers, who tend to be of lower-income, lower wealth, you know, tend to experience greater difficulty in purchasing a home, it's just going to be increasingly more challenging for them to enter the homeownership market. Particularly in large metros like DFW, unfortunately. Just given again, very strong demand-side fundamentals and supply side constraints." Losey said.
"Really hoping that people are paying attention to the effects of rising mortgage interest rates on the market for homeownership, and also hopefully trying to find ways creative ways to combat the effects of those increases on our most vulnerable potential homebuyers."
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Losey suggests nonprofits, cities and banks that offer down payment assistance search for potential solutions to help lower-income buyers in this market. You can read the full report here
