What’s the biggest threat to the Dallas economy in 2011? What’s 2011′s biggest market advantage?

The answer to both, in fact, is that the Dallas-Ft. Worth area is currently witnessing a buyer’s market of historically prolonged proportions.

Prices are still historically low. Interest rates have barely begun to inch upwards again. Mortgages are (despite what many people think) widely available. And here at Texas Lending, we believe these conditions create a uniquely favorable environment for potential home buyers—especially first-time home buyers, or home-buyers who don’t need to sell a house first in order to buy. And we’re telling everyone who will listen that a Dallas home purchase loan is the way to go.

But, naturally, this begs the question—where then are the buyers? Marketwatch poses the question another way:

It’s the best time in decades to buy a house, and yet, buyers for the most part are nowhere to be found. Interest rates on home mortgages are the lowest they have been in more than 50 years. What is more, the Federal Reserve is committed to keeping rates down.     Home prices have fallen sharply. Nationwide they are down more than 25% from their 2007 peaks — in some really overbuilt markets like South Florida you can double this percentage.

These declines have made houses more affordable today than any time since the mid-1980s. Median home prices today amount to only 2.78 times median household incomes; they were four times incomes back in 2005. Buyers can probably drive these prices even lower, since sellers are anxious, to say the least. [...]

All that said buyers remain scarce. Even the arrival of spring has not convinced prospective buyers to venture outdoors and at least look at the merchandise.

There’s plenty of blame to go around.

Continued uncertainty about unemployment makes buyers hesitant to make huge, long-term investments like housing. The sheer once-in-a-lifetime size of the economic crash has created a renewed sense of caution among consumers. And, of course, for those who have to sell their house before buying a new house, the opposite of a great buyer’s market is a disheartening seller’s market.

Furthermore, the housing market won’t recover until employment and other general economic factors recover. But many of those factors are so inextricably tied to how quickly houses sell, that the broader economy won’t recover until housing does.

Regardless, here at Texas Lending, we’re waiting and ready with home mortgages for whenever Dallas home buyers are ready to return. If you’d like to take advantage of this buyer’s market while it lasts, give our Dallas mortgage specialists a call — we’ll help you get the ball rolling.