Why house hunting in DFW is so difficult (Dallas, Irving: low income, apartments)

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by BayTexan

I have many friends in Kansas City, and have been there many times. While it is a great city, I don' think you can compare the job market and amenities that Dallas offers with it (they are not same tier cities). With the slow demise/bleeding of Sprint, and the telecom bust, opportunities are not as plentiful in Tech (of course, I don't know what your field is). Dallas, on the other hand, is booming, and has many cultural amenities, 4 professional sports teams etc.

High Tech is starting to go bust. Apple's earnings are down, for example. PC sales have slumped, necessitating Intel to layoff employees in that department. Couple that with declining retail sales and Dallas will feel the recession the most. Who is buying tablets? They are starting to go the way of the netbook with all these big screen phones.

Retail/Restaurants and High Tech/Telecom are the dominant industries out of the minutia of companies headquartered in DFW.

[ZestyCharles]

Originally Posted by KerrTown

High Tech is starting to go bust. Apple's earnings are down, for example. PC sales have slumped, necessitating Intel to layoff employees in that department. Couple that with declining retail sales and Dallas will feel the recession the most. Who is buying tablets? They are starting to go the way of the netbook with all these big screen phones.

Retail/Restaurants and High Tech/Telecom are the dominant industries out of the minutia of companies headquartered in DFW.

This is a bit shortsighted. So what if Apple's earnings are down this quarter, or tablet sales are down?

Tech in general is the future of the world. Tech is to the economy of the 21st century what oil was to the economy of the 20th century. Software and electrical components are increasingly automating almost everything, to the point that the only occupations safe from being outsourced to software and robotics are those in tech.

[loves2read]

I think there are plenty of "tech" people who could say they have been outsourced---
Even if it was only to an H1b visa foreigner--
It's still outsourced and at lower salary point--and it is the economics that KerrTown was referencing...

I think some of you have not been in DFW long enough to know this sort of upheaval has happened before===maybe not to the extent it is happening now because Dallas is growing at a record pace over past few years...
But because of the lower (nationally) salary averages and types of jobs that predominated there have always been people priced out of the housing market...

Dallas for years was fairly stable without lot of gyrations that other areas went through but that didn't mean that every young couple being married was going to be able to afford the type of house they wanted...or that people who had lived in house for 5-7 yrs were going to have enough appreciation or market competition to sell their house for nice profit and move upward...

Real estate is so much about location...some areas because there was new construction along with older that was still desireable saw appreciation and other areas that were already built out and not that "hot" were stagnant...but people didn't automatically enlarge their shopping circle to include lower PPF neighborhoods just because the price was lower...

Dallas is lucky to have a more diverse economy--but gaining a more diverse economy comes from relocation even more than home-grown growth...and the fact that it is happening so strongly in past 3 yrs means that there is little time to adjust to all the complexities quick growth throws into the system...
You can't built a highway in 12 months---for example...

The real question to ask is how long will this influx last----another 2 yrs--another 5 yrs???
I don't know there is any way to predict that...
It used to be that having large relocations were outliers--American Airlines, Exxon--Fidelity--
And while people saw the boost in the economy, they also decried the negatives--
Like having people from out of state with better salaries (American employees for example) come in to buy up all the houses and crowd the street with their cars and bad driving habits and complain about local food (Tex-Mex) and lack of good pizza...

So some things are new but not new...which is the nature of change...
This is just another version of the quote "those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it"...

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by KerrTown

High Tech is starting to go bust. Apple's earnings are down, for example. PC sales have slumped, necessitating Intel to layoff employees in that department. Couple that with declining retail sales and Dallas will feel the recession the most. Who is buying tablets? They are starting to go the way of the netbook with all these big screen phones.

Retail/Restaurants and High Tech/Telecom are the dominant industries out of the minutia of companies headquartered in DFW.

Just one correction--> retail sales are NOT declining in total. When you see all the earnings reports this month from Macy's, Kohl's, Gap, Nordstrom, etc, you have to consider their sales losses in the context of the total retail industry, including EComm pure play. Amazon's Q1 North American retail sales increase by $3.5B (+27% to Q1 15); those sales have to come from somewhere when total retail sales are in the flat to +1% range.

Yes, there will be carnage at individual retailers as Amazon is doing to the national retail landscape what Wal-Mart did to the small-town "mom & pop" stores in the late 1900's. But consumer spending is not contracting. The analysts are having really hard time connecting the dots this week between Amazon and other pure play EComm companies' gains and the brick & mortar based retailers' losses.

[lepoisson]

My annual salary is around $45,000 before taxes. I just moved to the area, but have already given up on being able to afford a house here. A decent 1br apartment is already close to $1000 per month.

Salaries are low for the cost of living in DFW. My friend in Kansas City makes the same salary I make, but his money goes quite a bit further. His 1br is comparable to mine and is only around $800.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by lepoisson

My annual salary is around $45,000 before taxes. I just moved to the area, but have already given up on being able to afford a house here. A decent 1br apartment is already close to $1000 per month.

Salaries are low for the cost of living in DFW. My friend in Kansas City makes the same salary I make, but his money goes quite a bit further. His 1br is comparable to mine and is only around $800.

I agree; housing costs have gone up substantially over the last several years without an equally large bump in pay...which equates to an effective pay cut for many renters.

[Johnhw2]

Excellent thoughtful thread. In my west Plano neighborhood I see higher end owners testing the market by listing. By that I mean listing at a price unlikely to sale. So this skews listing prices relative to closing prices i.e. Even median prices of each. In Plano I think this trend is driven by legacy west job transfers viewed as a one off of typical demand. Also the mix of home closing in a given period reflects the market a few months earlier than the current listings reflect. I believe the higher end bones are more likely to be pulled off market and nor sold. The $100k difference in median prices is significant and I doubt the factors cited account for this size difference.

On the price of affordable homes point I saw a headline on fox business in the last few days claiming fed gov regs have driver up home costs by $80k vs some undefined period long ago.sounds high to me but a direction point I can agree what's drive up prices if new construction which impacts sales orices.

The 'hgtv' effect has driven expect ions of first home buyers higher as granite and SS seem to be mi I mum requirements but not driven. by the government.

[loves2read]

I can't believe anything the gov't did made an 80K impact on home prices specifically--
There can't be a flat 80K difference per house--makes no statistical sense...

Maybe it was referring to the effect of the ACA on businesses' insurance costs
But when the source is Fox Business that seems prejudicial--
Bloomberg's or PBS or CNN I might view as less biased...

Re the pay aspect---
Texas as a right-to-work state has never had high over-all salary ranges---
Blue collar workers w/o unions behind them get short-shift and white collar workers usually are paid less than other cities on E/W coasts of similar sizes...
The advent of Fidelity with so many lower eschilon white collar workers didn't help since many of their top earners get bonus/commission--not salary increases--so they don't lift the avg paycheck

Toyota seems to be one that might make a difference though--
Waiting to see how many of those "avg 100K" salaries actually wind up sitting at the desks in new building...

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by loves2read

I can't believe anything the gov't did made an 80K impact on home prices specifically--
There can't be a flat 80K difference per house--makes no statistical sense...

Maybe it was referring to the effect of the ACA on businesses' insurance costs
But when the source is Fox Business that seems prejudicial--
Bloomberg's or PBS or CNN I might view as less biased...

Re the pay aspect---
Texas as a right-to-work state has never had high over-all salary ranges---
Blue collar workers w/o unions behind them get short-shift and white collar workers usually are paid less than other cities on E/W coasts of similar sizes...
The advent of Fidelity with so many lower eschilon white collar workers didn't help since many of their top earners get bonus/commission--not salary increases--so they don't lift the avg paycheck

Toyota seems to be one that might make a difference though--
Waiting to see how many of those "avg 100K" salaries actually wind up sitting at the desks in new building...

In real/COL adjusted terms Dallas area pay is excellent (statewide pay as well). I understand this runs counter to much political think and regional bias. A new data set will be out in a few weeks.

Take a look at SF, LA, NYC, Boston and Dallas and Houston...................

Cost-of-Living Adjusted Wage Data for U.S. Metro Areas

[L.A.2Orlando2Dallas]

I waited out a bubble in Florida and bought a home for 60% less than peak pricing,now we're on the other side of that as homeowners I think it's time to cash out and rent for a couple years while the bubble pops here in Dallas.

While jobs are moving here the price boom isn't normal and will have to re-adjust ,it always does.