It's often difficult, here in Dallas, to be a REALTOR® and also be happy about the local Real Estate news reporting.  We suffer, along with many other cities, from a media that is all too anxious to report the doom and gloom of the real estate market.  Ironically, when you compare the Dallas real estate market to the national market (and most other similar sized cities) we compare quite favorably... in fact, our market is quite healthy....

...but I don't believe you would get that impression from reading the newspaper.  And the problem that causes is that as a REALTOR® when I tell my clients that it's a healthy market they refuse to believe me.  They don't come right out and call me liar, but they say things like "Well that's not what I read in the newspaper!" or "My family in Florida said I should be able to buy a foreclosure or short sale here for 50 cents on the dollar."

So imagine my glee to open the Dallas Morning News this morning to find an article on the front of the business section titled "New study finds higher home prices".  The article goes on to point out that while prices nationally declined an average of 3.1% for the 1^st quarter of 2008 (compared with the 1^st quarter of 2007), Dallas home price comparing the same periods ROSE by 3.76%!  And inventory is down slightly too!  Other noteworthy statistics in the article included that Fort Worth home prices rose 2.59% and prices across The Lone Star State were up 4.7%

I have been wearing a smile all day that you could not get off of my face if you tried!  Hmmm... I think I may feel a few "I told you so" phone calls coming on.  Nah... I wouldn't do that!  ;)