From Boomers to Zoomers, Buying a Home in Dallas Is Pretty Much Impossible for Most People

No matter their age, aspiring homebuyers in Dallas County have some tough numbers to face.

Prices in the Dallas-Fort Worth housing market are among the fastest growing in the country: Home prices in the area swelled by more than 25% last year alone, the biggest jump of any market in the country. The average DFW-area home cost a bit over $275,000 at the start of 2021; by the end of the year, that same house cost about $345,000.

A new study from Point2, a prominent real estate research company, bears more grim news for people of almost any age looking to buy a house.

According to the study, the vast majority of baby boomer, millennial and Gen Z buyers can’t afford a home listed at the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area’s median price point of $372,535.

Though ballooning home prices are especially bad in North Texas, homeownership prospects for each of these groups don’t look much better outside of Dallas County either. Point2's study said these groups can’t afford an average-priced house in most of the country’s 100 largest counties (of which Dallas ranks ninth) either.

Gen Z’s prospects look the worst of any generation: Point2 researchers found that the typical zoomer (anyone born after 1996) can’t afford the average-priced home in any of the country’s 100 largest counties. The most this youngest generation can spend on a house on average in Dallas County is about $168,000 - about $200,000 short of the average area home price.

The study qualifies zoomers' grim prospects, however, noting that they've had relatively little time to make and save money compared to older generations.

Things don’t look much better for DFW area baby boomers either. For the typical boomer, or anyone born between 1946 and 1964, the average home is out of their price range in 88 out of the U.S.’s 100 largest counties, including here in Dallas County.

Only Gen Xers, or those born between the mid-1960s and early 1980s, appear to be in a relatively good position in today’s housing market: folks in this cohort can make the average home price point in 70 out of the country’s 100 largest counties. With the growth of home prices in the area however, Dallas County isn’t amongst them.

Experts say ballooning prices in Dallas-Fort Worth area’s housing prices are abnormal.

“This is a level of annual price appreciation we just never expected to see on a broad scale in the country or major metro area,” Jeff Tucker, a Zillow housing economist, recently told KERA news. “That is a staggering amount of price growth.”