Or not, depending on your point of view. And note that all these stories were based on the same survey, the latest Case-Shiller index, released on Tuesday:
• "Dallas is arguably the weakest market of our big markets in Texas," said Dallas' Only Daily Newspaper, quoting a Texas A&M expert. Later in the story, proving that The News never met a story it couldn't surround, it reported that: "The Dallas-Fort Worth area's housing market is the least likely of any in the country to see price decreases over the next two years."
• A Reuters' columnist wrote: "Shiller, the originator of the Case-Shiller index of U.S. house prices, said house prices could fall by as much or more than they did in the 1930s, when an extended fall took them down by 25 percent in nominal terms."
• The news was equally as bad in the Toronto Globe & Mail: "As Fed meets, housing hits 'grim milestone' "
• And finally, this from the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth: "Nov. home prices fall, but remain costly"
I didn't do this to be cute (well, maybe a little bit). Rather, I wanted to show why this subject is so confusing, especially if you're trying to narrow the focus of a national survey down to smaller areas.
When I wrote about this in the January magazine, the most important thing I learned was that East Dallas and Lakewood didn't suffer from the overbuilding that happened in other neighborhoods in Dallas and in other cities across the country, because there are no cornfields here to turn into subdivisions. This kept supply down, held demand steady, and insulated us from the price shocks others are feeling.
It doesn't mean we won't start seeing home values drop here, especially if the economy continues to slow. But even if home prices drop five percent in this area this year, we'll probably still be better off than if we had that money in the stock market, which has already lost more than 6 1/2 percent in 2008.
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