New home starts plunge in Frisco, other DFW suburbs

Housing permits in some town to north down by more than 40 percent

(Illustration by The Real Deal with Getty Images)
(Illustration by The Real Deal with Getty Images)

In many of the once-booming suburbs north of Dallas-Fort Worth, housing permits are down by double-digit percentages.

In the first half of 2022, the number of single-family building permits in Frisco plunged 40 percent compared to the same period last year. Specifically, 853 single-family home permits have been issued so far this year in Frisco, compared to 1,412 permits at the halfway mark of 2021, according to the Dallas Business Journal.

The same goes for Celina, which was calling itself “the next Frisco” this time last year. The suburb, which lies 15 miles north of Frisco, had permits plunge 41 percent in the first half of 2022, dropping to 983 from 1,672 in the first half of 2021.

In Prosper, located halfway between Frisco and Celina, permits have fallen to 556 in the first half of this year, compared to 696 in the first half of 2021 — a 20 percent decline.

In Frisco, it may be prudent to tap the breaks on new home starts. Though June figures from Fair Texas Title, the largest title firm in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, show the market remains tight, with less than two months of inventory, data from a national moving company found a 46.5 percent drop in interest in moving there in the first have of the year versus the same period on 2021.

In Celina, available inventory across all price brackets averaged just two months in June, but for homes priced $900,000 to $1 million, Fair found seven months worth of inventory piling up. More than six months is considered a buyer’s market.

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Though Prosper’s decline in permits was less dramatic than its neighbors’, it may soon feel the pinch of the reduced housing starts. Inventory stood at 2.8 months in June, but the report on prospective mover interest found the city of 30,000 to be the most popular destination for people migrating to Texas.

On the flip side, permits in some other northern suburbs of DFW are way up over last year. In Denton, where June inventory stood at only 1.34 months, permits are up 25 percent. Permits in Anna are up 15 percent, but its housing market has more slack than many other North Texas towns. Anna’s overall home inventory was 2.29 in June, but for homes priced from $600,000 to 699,999, it’s already a very buyer-friendly 11 months.

In the “juiced up” boomtown of Sherman, permits are up a whopping 105 percent — more than doubling the 154 permits the city issued last year. The suburb is 60 north of the Dallas city limits and has a population of less than 44,000, but it has 34 planned developments already in the pipeline. Sherman’s overall inventory in June was 1.38 months.

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— Maddy Sperling