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Dallas

DFW buyers need to make $87K a year for comfort

The area’s median household income is almost $76,000

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

Looking for a home in Dallas-Fort Worth? You’ll probably need to make at least $87,000 a year to comfortably afford it.

To finance the typical Dallas-Fort Worth house with a 20 percent down payment, a buyer needed an income of about $87,000 to qualify last quarter, the Dallas Morning News reports. Meanwhile, the median household income in the metroplex is just under $76,000.

The median price of a single-family home in North Texas was about $390,000 last quarter, a 13 percent jump from the same period in 2021. Across all metro areas tracked by the National Association of Realtors, only 46 percent of the markets saw double-digit year-over-year price percentage increases, Dallas-Fort Worth included. In the second quarter, 80 percent of them did.

Nationally, the median income needed to qualify to buy a $398,500 home with a 20 percent down payment is about $88,000 — almost $40,000 more than what buyers needed to make before the pandemic amplified the housing market. The monthly mortgage payment for that home price, with a 20 percent down payment, was $1,840 last quarter — up 50 percent year over year.

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First-time buyers spent about 38 percent of their income on mortgage payments in the third quarter, according to NAR, which considers more than 25 percent unaffordable.

“Much lower buying capacity has slowed home price growth, and the trend will continue until mortgage rates stop rising,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist.

Diminished demand in Dallas-Fort Worth has been well established by industry leaders. In October, Dallas and Collin counties saw closed home sales drop 37 percent compared to the same time last year. This year-over-year exceeded what the region saw at the lowest point of the great recession, however the country’s particularly strong job market makes for unmotivated sellers that don’t feel pressured into slashing the price of their homes.

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— Maddy Sperling

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Dallas-Fort WorthDFWMortgage Rates