Dallas County's two housing marketsSix years of single-family sales and leases, zip by zip, and what the data shows this fall

A median sale price moves when the mix of homes changes. A repeat-sales index avoids that by following the same house from one sale to the next. We matched 3,970 pairs of sales of the same property, leaving out new construction, renovated homes, flips and bank sales, and split them into thirds by the first sale's price within its quarter.

All three tiers rose together until mid-2022: the county index reached 136 in Q2 2022, with the low tier at 136 and the high tier at 137. When mortgage rates moved from about 3% to above 6% that year, the tiers separated. The high tier dipped for two quarters and resumed rising; averaged over the last two quarters it stands at 148. The mid tier has held between about 124 and 134. The low tier has drifted down since its peak and averages 123 over the last two quarters, 9% below Q2 2022.

The county line, 135 now against a peak of 138 in Q2 2024, reads as a flat market. For a house in the bottom third of prices it has been a falling market for about three years, and for a house in the top third a rising one.

Expired and cancelled listings only appear in these records from late 2021, so the supply series start in January 2022. Active listings are rebuilt month by month from listing, contract and closing dates. Months of supply divides those listings by the average monthly closings over the prior year.

Months of supply was under one in early 2022 and has held between about 3.5 and 4.7 since mid-2024. It read 4.2 in September 2026 against 4.7 a year earlier. The failure rate climbed every year from 2022 through 2025: among listings that ended in September, 28% failed in 2023, 42% in 2025 and 45% in 2026.

Sellers kept listing while buyers did not keep pace. New listings rose from 23,351 in 2023 to 28,788 in 2025. Contracts were 17,497 and 17,679.

Supply is thinnest at the bottom of the price range (3.4 months under $250,000) and deepest at the top (6.6 months at $2 million and up). The entry-level segment has the county's thinnest inventory and its weakest prices, which points to what its buyers can pay at current rates and to the concessions that close the gap.

The median closed single-family lease rose from $1,795 a month in Q4 2020 to $2,350 in Q3 2022. It has stayed between $2,200 and $2,400 every quarter since, and was $2,400 in Q3 2026. A fixed segment, three-bedroom homes of 1,200 to 2,000 square feet, shows the same shape at a lower level.

The lease market loosened the way the sale market did. Closed leases rose from about 1,273 a quarter in 2021 to about 1,931. The median lease took 9 days to fill in Q2 2021 and 26 in Q3 2026, with peaks near 37 in the slower winter quarters. The share of leases signed after a rent cut went from 11% to 35%, and above 50% in late 2025.

Some of the new rental supply comes from owners who could not sell. In each quarter of 2025 and 2026, about one in eight failed sale listings was listed for lease within four months, 419 homes in Q3 2025 alone. That adds rental supply in the same months that buyers step back, which helps explain flat rents.

Flat rents and softer low-tier prices have pushed gross yields up. For a three-bedroom home of 1,200 to 2,000 square feet, a year of median rent equals about 9.1% of the median price, against 8.0% in early 2022. By zip, the yield ranges from about 6% in 75214 and 75209 to about 9% to 10% across southern Dallas; the Rent yield layer on the map shows each zip. Investors who buy in the bottom tier earn more rent per dollar and take on the price path shown in chapter one.

Through the third quarter, several measures stopped getting worse. From July to September 2026 the failure rate matched 2025, the median sale closed at a slightly higher share of list price, and days on market were a little shorter. Then the 30-year rate in Freddie Mac's weekly survey went from 6.71% on Sept. 3 to 7.40% on Oct. 8 and 15, and 7.32% on Oct. 22.2 Contracts signed in the first nine days of October fell to 363, from 458 in 2025 and 439 in 2024. September contracts, 1,266, were the fewest for that month in the six years of data.

At 7.32%, the monthly principal and interest on the median resale with 10% down is about $2,240, close to the 2024 high. Buyers in the bottom tier, where FHA financing and concessions are most common, are the most sensitive to that payment.

The readings to watch through spring 2027 are October and November contracts against prior years, the failure rate on listings that end this winter, concession share in the first quarter, and bank-owned listings in the southern zips. If rates stay above 7%, the most likely result is a longer stretch of soft prices in the low tier and continued strength at the top, with the county average showing little of either.