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Coldwell Banker has been producing its annual home price comparison index since the 1980s. It specifically tracks the comparative price of a 2200 square-foot, single family home with 4 beds, 2 ½ baths, a family room and a 2-car garage in a neighborhood suitable for corporate middle management. At $332,375, such homes in Dallas are the highest in Texas, and are up $6000 on last year’s figures.

Coldwell Banker found the nationwide average price for this type of home would be $363,401, considerably higher than the Dallas average price. In the same survey, by comparison this same type of house would cost $248,960 in San Antonio, $226,500 in Austin, $159,847 in Houston and just $153,450 in Fort Worth.

Other surveys fail to show this huge disparity between Dallas and other Texas cities because Coldwell Banker only uses a narrow range of home listings in specific neighborhoods which would appeal to corporate executives. No-one disputes the fact that you can get a very nice home in the present market for less than $300,000.

Surprising news on the new-home front is that over the last three years Dallas-Fort Worth builders have sold more homes than they have constructed and inventory of brand new homes is at all all-time low. During the last two years builders in North Texas have sold 13,000 more houses than they have started building. Current inventory is below 5,000 new homes, an estimated three-month supply. Unlike other states, Dallas never had a real over-supply of new homes, an economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University reported.

Award-winning homebuilder, Bill Darling, reports it is difficult for his company Darling Homes to start building due to the tight credit restraints and Tim Jackson, President of the Home Builders Association in Greater Dallas, predicts that new house prices will rise next year unless more homes are started. Builder D.R.Horton Inc has started 844 houses in the third quarter of 2009 but building is not likely to pick up until a couple of quarters after the official bottom in the annual start rate. Builders hope that will be in early 2010.