Dallas-Fort Worth Housing Market: The Tax Bill Resets When You Buy

Data as of July 2026

Most Dallas-Fort Worth coverage stops at the median, and the median is the least surprising number in the metro. The interesting numbers are the ones you cannot see on a listing: the property tax that resets to full market value the day you buy, the same-priced house that carries a very different bill depending on which county it sits in, and a homeowners premium driven by hail. In Dallas-Fort Worth the carrying costs, not the sticker price, are the hidden decision variable.

This page reads the Dallas-Fort Worth data the way a numbers-literate friend would. It answers the questions the price tag cannot: what the tax reset does to your first bill, how much the county line changes it, why the price trend depends on which measure you use, who sets the price in a metro where builders compete head-to-head with resale, and whether it is cheaper to rent while the apartment glut lasts.

Two scope notes before the numbers. First, “Dallas-Fort Worth” here means the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA unless a figure says otherwise: 11 counties under the 2023 federal delineation, which dropped Hood and Somervell. That MSA blends two separate metropolitan divisions, Dallas-Plano-Irving and Fort Worth-Arlington-Grapevine, that carry materially different tax and price levels, and the FHFA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics report those divisions separately rather than as one MSA number. City figures (the City of Dallas median runs near $500,000 against the MSA $390,000), county figures for property taxes, and Texas statewide figures for insurance and tax law are different scopes, and each figure states which one it is. Second, the latest full official local period is the TRERC April 2026 spotlight, so no invented May or June MSA table appears here.

The market scorecard

Dallas-Fort Worth market scorecard, TRERC DFW-Arlington MSA April 2026 data, with Q1 2026 rental data; mortgage rate as of the week of July 23, 2026

Median closed price

● down over the stated period: $390,000

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA (11 counties), April 2026 , down 2.27% year over year

Down 2.27% year over year to $390,000 on the TRERC median (11-county MSA, April 2026), but the measures conflict: Case-Shiller reads -1.52% and FHFA reads slightly POSITIVE for both divisions. Flat to modestly lower, not a single clean trend.

Months of supply

▲ up over the stated period, favors buyers: 4.3 months

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA (11 counties), April 2026

4.3 months, roughly balanced and up from the 2-to-3-month pre-pandemic norm, so buyers have more choice and time. Homes take longer to sell (93 days to close).

New-vs-resale price gap

▼ down over the stated period, favors buyers: $15,500 (all-time low)

Texas, March 2026 , narrowed from $19,900 in 2025

The new-vs-resale price gap narrowed to a record-low $15,500 as builders (led by Arlington-HQ D.R. Horton) compete on price with rate buydowns, a major downward pressure on resale.

Average apartment asking rent

▼ down over the stated period, favors buyers: $1,482 a month

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA (11 counties), Q1 2026 , down 3.0% year over year

Apartment asking rent down 3.0% year over year to $1,482 with 12.2% vacancy and concessions on 58% of listings, a historic supply glut. A would-be buyer's walk-away option is getting cheaper.

New-buyer effective property tax

▲ up over the stated period, favors sellers: 1.4% to 1.9% effective

Collin to Dallas County, 2025/2026 new buyer , resets to full market value on sale

The 10% homestead cap RESETS to full market value on sale, so a new buyer's first bill (about 1.4% Collin to 1.9% Dallas effective) exceeds the seller's long-capped bill. The hidden cost you cannot see on a listing.

Homeowners insurance (statewide proxy)

▲ up over the stated period, favors sellers: $3,291 a year

Texas (statewide proxy), 2024 , up 4.3% in 2025

Among the nation's highest at about $3,291 statewide (a labeled proxy; DFW runs elevated), up 85% since 2015 and up 4.3% in 2025, with percentage-based wind/hail deductibles. Hail country is expensive to insure.

A colored triangle shows whether the change favors buyers: green favors buyers, red favors sellers. A gray dot marks a metric that is neutral for buyers (its direction is in the subtitle). Direction and color are descriptive of each metric's own stated period, not a forecast. Sources are listed in the source registry at the end of the page.

The scorecard is the market in six tiles. Three cards point toward buyers and are green: months of supply is rising toward balance, the new-versus-resale price gap has collapsed as builders compete on price, and apartment rents are falling in a supply glut. Two cards point the other way and are red, and they are the whole thesis: the property tax resets to full market value when you buy, and hail-country insurance is among the nation’s highest. The blended price is neutral, because the measures genuinely disagree about direction. Green favors buyers, red favors the cost side of the ledger.

Is Dallas-Fort Worth a buyer’s or seller’s market right now?

Balanced, leaning slightly toward the buyer-friendly edge. Months of supply reached 4.3 in April 2026, roughly double the 2-to-3-month pre-pandemic norm, and homes take longer to sell, so buyers have more choice and real room to negotiate concessions, especially on aged listings and against builders buying down rates. But this is not a decisive buyer’s market: homes still close near 95% of their original list price, and well-priced houses in desirable school districts still move.

FinExplained Market Balance Score (beta)

Balanced market balanced, leaning slightly toward the buyer-friendly edge

Direction basis: The measurable inputs (4.3 months of supply, 61 days on market list-to-contract, a 95.26% close-to-original-list ratio, a 24% price-cut share, and inventory up 0.6%) land in the balanced band (40 to 60) at about 48.9. The honest read is a market that has normalized to roughly balanced with real buyer negotiating leverage, especially against national builders buying down rates and on aged listings, without becoming a decisive buyer's market: sale-to-list near 95% shows only modest price give, and well-priced homes in desirable school districts still move. Separate the strong leverage to negotiate concessions from the modest movement in prices.

Beta: this score has not yet been backtested against historical market data, and the bands may be recalibrated. Read it alongside the metrics below, not instead of them.

Input	Reading	Normalized (0-100)	Weight applied
Months of supply	4.3 months	52	30%
Days on market	61 days	49	20%
Sale-to-list ratio	95.26%	35	20%
Share of listings with a price cut	24%	60	15%
Year-over-year inventory change	0.6%	49	15%

Months of supply: TRERC DFW-Arlington MSA, April 2026, 4.3 months (pre-pandemic was 2 to 3).

Days on market: 61 days, the LIST-TO-CONTRACT definition (a brokerage list-to-contract series). DFW's DOM definition is load-bearing: TRERC's list-to-CLOSE 'days to sell' is 93, and substituting it would move the score materially, from about 48.9 (balanced, leaning buyer) to about 43.6 (balanced, near the buyer edge). We use the list-to-contract 61 consistently and disclose the alternative rather than mixing definitions.

Sale-to-list ratio: TRERC close-to-original-list, 95.26%, April 2026.

Price-cut share: 24% (Realtor.com metro, May 2026). A metro (not MSA-exact) figure; Redfin cites about 26% for Dallas, so this is a labeled near-proxy.

Year-over-year inventory change: TRERC DFW-Arlington MSA, April 2026, +0.6%. Rising inventory correctly scores below 50 on the seller-favorable normalizer. Other sources cite +9% to +20% on different footprints; at +10% this input falls from about 49.3 to 37.5 and the score drops to about 47.1, still balanced. The sensitivity is disclosed rather than the higher figure silently substituted.

THE CAVEAT THAT MATTERS: the score is a beta summary to read alongside the metrics, never on its own. The DOM definition and the inventory-change source are the two inputs that move it most; both are disclosed. New construction (longer DOM, heavier incentives) is blended in at the MSA level.

How this score works

Each input is normalized onto a 0-100 scale where higher means more seller-favorable: months of supply maps 0 months to 100 and 9 or more to 0; days on market maps 0 days to 100 and 120 or more to 0; sale-to-list maps 90 percent to 0 and 105 percent to 100; price-cut share maps 0 percent to 100 and 60 percent or more to 0; year-over-year inventory change maps a 40 percent rise to 0 and a 40 percent fall to 100. The design weights are months of supply 30 percent, days on market 20 percent, sale-to-list 20 percent, price-cut share 15 percent, and inventory change 15 percent; when an input is unavailable its weight is redistributed proportionally. Bands: below 40 reads as a buyer's market, 40 to 60 balanced, above 60 a seller's market. We show the band rather than a decimal because the inputs do not support decimal precision. The score is in beta and has not yet been backtested against historical market conditions; read it alongside the underlying metrics, never instead of them.

Read the score with the two caveats it discloses on the card. The days-on-market input uses the list-to-contract definition (61 days), not the TRERC list-to-close “days to sell” (93 days); those two definitions measure different things, and swapping to the 93-day figure would move the score from about 48.9 to about 43.6, so we use one definition consistently and disclose the other rather than mixing them. And the inventory input uses the TRERC MSA figure (up 0.6%), where other sources cite 9% to 20% on different footprints; at 10% the score would slip to about 47.1, still balanced. The score is a beta summary to read alongside the metrics, never on its own.

What changed

Updated July 26, 2026. One number moved: the mortgage rate. No local market figure changed, because none could. TRERC publishes DFW-Arlington MSA data about 20 days after month-end, so April 2026 is still the newest official dataset in existence, not merely the newest one loaded here. The May spotlight is expected in early August. Everything below the rate is unchanged from the July 15 baseline, and the Market Balance Score stays at 48.9, balanced.

• The 30-year fixed rose to 6.58% for the week of July 23, 2026, up from 6.49% at the last edition and the fourth consecutive weekly rise from the 6.43% seven-week low of July 2. On the $390,000 example that lifts principal and interest from $1,970 to $1,988.50 a month and the income needed to buy from about $124,464 to about $125,257. Nothing else in the affordability math moved.
• The MSA median closed price eased to about $390,000 in April 2026, down about 2% year over year.
• Months of supply reached 4.3, up from the 2-to-3-month pre-pandemic norm, and days to sell rose to 93.
• The new-versus-resale price gap collapsed to a record-low $15,500 as builders shrank homes and bought down rates.
• Apartment rents fell about 3.0% year over year with 12.2% vacancy and concessions on about 58% of listings, a historic supply glut.
• The school homestead exemption rose to $140,000 for the 2026 tax year under Proposition 13.

Future editions will track each of these against this baseline, starting with the TRERC May spotlight in early August and the June spotlight in late August.

Why does the same house cost different tax across the county line?

Because Dallas-Fort Worth is one metro running four tax codes at once, and the same-priced home carries a very different bill depending on which county it sits in. This is the single most decision-useful number in the metro, and it is invisible in a listing.

Texas works like this. County appraisal districts appraise real property at 100% of market value each January 1, and jurisdictions tax that value at a combined rate per $100. Dallas County carries one of the highest combined rates among populous U.S. counties, near 2.22% nominal, while Collin County has held its county rate flat for 33 straight years and has no hospital district, so it runs far cheaper on the same home. The table below applies each county’s new-buyer effective rate, after the $140,000 school homestead exemption, to a $450,000 home.

The school homestead exemption matters here. Proposition 13, approved November 4, 2025, raised it to $140,000 for the 2026 tax year, with an extra $60,000 for owners 65 and older or disabled, and it applies only to the school-district portion of the bill. File Form 50-114 with your appraisal district right after closing, because the exemption is not automatic. Run a specific address through the property tax calculator to see what a different county rate does to a monthly payment.

Does buying reset my property tax in Dallas-Fort Worth?

Yes, and this is the mechanic that catches buyers. Texas has a 10% homestead appraisal cap under Tax Code 23.23 that limits how fast a current owner’s taxable value can rise, so a long-tenured owner is often taxed on a value well below what the home is now worth. But the cap resets to full market value when the home sells. The buyer inherits the reset value, not the seller’s capped one, so the buyer’s first bill is typically much higher than the tax history the seller or a listing site advertises.

Texas is also a non-disclosure state, which means sale prices are not public. Appraisal districts estimate market value rather than reading it off a deed, but a purchase typically triggers a reset toward the purchase-price level. The practical result is the same: do not trust the seller’s advertised tax history or a listing site’s tax estimate, because both usually reflect the seller’s capped bill, not what you will pay. This is the opposite of North Carolina, where the assessed value does not reset on a sale, and it is the same direction as Georgia and Florida, where a sale resets the value up. Model your bill at full market value from year one, and file for the homestead exemption immediately.

Are Dallas-Fort Worth prices actually falling?

Flat to modestly lower, and the honest answer is that it depends on which measure you use. This is a case where picking the most dramatic figure would mislead, so here are all four.

The measures disagree because they measure different things. The TRERC median is the middle of a transaction mix, so it moves with what sold, and new-construction weighting pulls it around. Case-Shiller and FHFA are repeat-sales indexes that track the same homes over time, which smooths the mix but reads more slowly. They do not even agree on sign right now: the median and Case-Shiller are negative, while both FHFA divisions are slightly positive. The honest read is flat to modestly lower, roughly minus 1% to minus 2.5% at the metro level, well above 2019 levels but below the 2022 peak, and not a crash. Direction varies by county, with the northern exurbs softer than the close-in core. Do not present any one figure as the trend.

Why do builders set the price in Dallas-Fort Worth?

Because national builders compete head-to-head with resale sellers here, and they are winning on price. Dallas-Fort Worth is one of the top new-home markets in the country, led by Arlington-headquartered D.R. Horton, the nation’s largest builder for 24 straight years.

D.R. Horton closed 84,863 homes in the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2025, at an average price of $370,400, and management expects incentives near 10% of price to stay elevated all year. Builders are building smaller and cheaper, which is why the new-home median has slipped below the resale median, and they use rate buydowns and closing-cost credits that a resale seller cannot match. That competition is heaviest in the fast-growth northern counties, Collin and Denton, and the exurbs like Celina, Prosper, and Princeton, which is exactly where the most new supply is landing. If you are buying new, compare the builder’s total 30-year cost with the buydown against an independent lender before you sign, because the buydown is often financed into the price. On any purchase, the mortgage calculator shows what a lower rate actually saves.

What does the monthly payment actually look like?

For the worked example we use the $390,000 MSA median at 20% down and the 6.58% Freddie Mac average, with Dallas County as the representative county, the research’s conservative choice. Principal and interest run about $1,988.50 a month. The Texas-specific weight shows up in the next two lines: property tax at the 1.9% Dallas new-buyer rate adds about $618, and hail-country insurance adds about $317, so taxes and insurance together are roughly a third of the payment.

Every figure here is computed by our tested calculator engine from the stated assumptions, and the carrying cost is the point. In a lower-tax state the same $390,000 home would carry a much smaller tax line, and away from the hail corridor a smaller insurance line, so the Dallas-Fort Worth payment is higher than the price alone suggests. Cash to close is the other gate, and the research states buyer closing costs of about 2% to 4% of price, which is the band used below.

Below 20% down, add PMI on top of these payments. The sources for this page do not publish a Dallas-Fort Worth PMI average, so we leave it unquantified rather than guess. Itemize your own line items in the buyer closing cost calculator.

What income do you need to buy in Dallas-Fort Worth?

More than the typical household earns, which is the real affordability signal once carrying costs are in the math. The DFW-Arlington MSA median household income is about $92,733 (Census ACS 2024). Buying the $390,000 median home takes about $125,000 a year by our engine’s math, at 20% down and the gross income at which the roughly $2,923 monthly PITI equals 28% of income, the front-end half of the 28/36 rule.

That gap of roughly $33,000 a year is the affordability story. Texas’s high property tax adds about $618 a month at this price that a lower-tax state would not, which raises the income required at the same price. Dallas-Fort Worth is no longer clearly affordable once carrying costs are counted, though it remains more affordable than the large coastal metros. Lender qualification is not the same as comfortable affordability, so test your own income, debts, and down payment in the home affordability calculator and the how much can I borrow calculator, and check your ratios with the DTI calculator.

Is it cheaper to rent or buy in Dallas-Fort Worth right now?

On the monthly number, renting wins today, and the rental market is in a supply-driven correction that widens the gap, so we have to be precise about what we compare.

Here is the honest reading. We compare a comparable single-family rent of about $2,195, which is what single-family rentals actually cost in Dallas-Fort Worth and which rose 4.6% while apartments fell, against owning the $390,000 median home at about $3,248 a month with upkeep. That is a gap of about $1,053 a month toward owning, or about $728 if you compare principal, interest, taxes, and insurance only. It is single-family renting versus single-family ownership, closer to like-for-like than pairing a house payment with the $1,482 apartment average. Owning also builds equity that renting does not.

What makes renting timely is a historic apartment glut. Dallas-Fort Worth led the nation in apartment construction for years and is now absorbing the wave.

The apartment picture is renter-friendly: asking rent fell about 3.0% year over year, vacancy sits at 12.2%, one of the highest of any major metro, and about 58% of listings offered a concession in the first quarter of 2026, concentrated in newer luxury lease-ups, so effective rent there sits below the advertised figure. Keep the rent categories separate, though: apartment asking rents are falling while single-family rents rose 4.6% and larger three-bedroom units rose 3.8%, and the two are not one number. The window may narrow by late 2026 into 2027 as the delivery wave, now about 43% below its 2023 peak, recedes. Run your own inputs in the rent vs buy calculator, and for the wider picture, read the ten-city rent vs buy comparison.

What about insurance in Dallas-Fort Worth?

Expensive, and rising, because North Texas sits in one of the most active hail corridors in the country.

The Texas Department of Insurance reports a statewide average premium of about $3,291 in 2024, up 85% from $1,782 in 2015, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas finds the median Texas homeowner paid 60% more for insurance in 2024 than in 2019, against 30% nationally, with Dallas-Fort Worth among the highest-burden Texas metros. There is no credible Dallas-Fort Worth-specific regulator figure isolated from the statewide number, so we use the statewide average as a clearly labeled proxy and note that DFW runs above it on hail. Aggregator estimates that run well above regulator filings, for example roughly $4,915, are not used here. The key hidden cost is a percentage-based wind and hail deductible, typically 1% to 5% of dwelling value rather than a flat dollar figure, plus roof-age and roof-type underwriting. Rate increases have decelerated, from about 21% in 2023 and 19% in 2024 to 4.3% in 2025, but premiums remain elevated, so shop insurance and check roof age before you make an offer.

Who is buying Dallas-Fort Worth’s homes?

Not Wall Street, at least not the way the headlines suggest. The large institutional single-family-rental landlords have been net sellers for six-plus consecutive quarters, and when they do buy, they now buy new construction through builder relationships rather than bidding on resale. Dallas-headquartered Invitation Homes owned 86,192 homes across 16 core markets at the end of 2025, with Dallas-Fort Worth a core market, but almost all of its 2025 acquisitions came from homebuilders. Nationally, all investors combined bought 33% of homes sold in the second quarter of 2025, the highest in five years, but small investors holding one to five properties owned 87% of investor-owned homes. That national figure is not a Dallas-Fort Worth ownership share, and the research provides no clean DFW-specific number, so we do not claim one. The honest framing is that institutional landlords are receding as buyers and pivoting to build-to-rent, which adds some resale inventory rather than removing it.

Which Dallas-Fort Worth submarkets fit your budget?

The metro median hides a sharp split between the fast-growth, tax-cheaper northern counties and the close-in core.

How healthy is the Dallas-Fort Worth economy behind this market?

Strong on population, cooling on jobs. The metro reached about 7.99 million residents by July 2025 and added 123,557 people in a single year, the second-largest numeric gain of any U.S. metro behind Houston. Growth is concentrating in the suburbs: Collin County added 42,966, the second-highest of any U.S. county, while Dallas County actually declined slightly, so the fastest-growing corridors are the same ones absorbing the most new supply, which is why the nation’s number-two metro for growth can still have soft prices and 12.2% apartment vacancy. Employment reached about 4.33 million in April 2026, up 21,900 year over year, but job growth decelerated through 2025, from about 56,100 early in the year to about 18,500 by November, and net international migration fell by more than half. Corporate relocations support long-run demand, but treat announcements as pipeline, because realized job growth has slowed.

What should buyers do with this market?

A framework, not marching orders: this is an educational read of the data, not personalized advice.

• Recompute the property-tax bill at full market value, because the cap resets on sale. Do not trust the seller’s or a listing site’s tax history, and file for the homestead exemption immediately after closing.
• Verify the exact county and school district for the address, because Collin County runs far cheaper than Dallas or Tarrant on the same price.
• Budget for hail-country insurance with a percentage wind and hail deductible, and check the roof age before you make an offer.
• On new construction, compare the builder’s rate-buydown total 30-year cost against an independent lender, and negotiate concessions on aged and spec listings.

What should sellers do?

• Price to the current market. Homes close near 95% of original list, roughly 24% of listings take a price cut, and the median cut runs $12,500 to $15,000.
• Expect a longer time on market, and stage and condition the home, because well-priced move-in-ready homes still sell while others sit.
• You compete with builders offering rate buydowns, especially in Collin and Denton, so run your net in the seller net proceeds calculator.

What should renters do?

• The math favors renting on the monthly number today, by roughly $700 to $1,000 against owning the median, and rents are flat to falling, so the advantage is not dated the way it is in a tightening market.
• Negotiate concessions where they exist. About 58% of apartment listings offered one in the first quarter of 2026, concentrated in newer buildings, so effective rent there sits below the advertised figure.
• If you are weighing a purchase, run the honest version of the math in the rent vs buy calculator rather than comparing an apartment rent to a house payment.

What should current homeowners do?

• The 10% appraisal cap benefits you while you hold, so protest your appraisal each spring, because the Dallas, Tarrant, and Collin protest windows close around May 15.
• Confirm your homestead exemption is on file, and note the school exemption rose to $140,000 for 2026.
• Watch insurance renewals and roof and hail exposure, and find your refinance break-even in the refinance calculator, which is marginal near 6.58% unless you bought at the rate peak.

What should investors consider?

• Underwrite the property tax at the reset market value, not the seller’s capped bill, and insurance at hail-elevated rates, because both pressure cap rates. Stress the numbers in the rental property ROI calculator.
• New-supply risk is highest in the northern suburbs, and single-family rents (up 4.6%) outperform apartments (flat to down), so do not blend them.
• Institutional competition is receding, since the large landlords are net sellers, with concentration heaviest in the entry-level southern and eastern submarkets.

Three scenarios for the next 12 months

No single price forecast here. Instead, three scenarios with the signals that would confirm or break each.

Balance holds (the base tilt). Inventory keeps building, months of supply drifts toward 5, and prices stay roughly flat. Confirmation: the TRERC May and June spotlights show supply near or above the April level with closed sales near year-ago levels. This is the continuation of today’s market.

The rent floor firms. The apartment delivery wave finishes, vacancy falls from 12.2%, and asking rents stop declining. Confirmation: two consecutive quarters of falling vacancy and rising effective rent. This would remove a fence-sitting renter’s cost advantage and nudge some toward buying.

Rates break below 6%. Move-up demand unfreezes, owners holding sub-4% mortgages finally list, and the inventory build accelerates. Confirmation: a sustained sub-6% 30-year fixed. This adds both buyers and sellers, so its net effect on price is genuinely two-sided.

The risk case, framed as pending rather than fact: a sharper slowdown in job growth, which has already decelerated, would soften the demand that anchors this market even as the population keeps rising.

What to watch next month

• The TRERC May 2026 DFW spotlight and the June data, which will confirm whether the April supply and price readings held.
• The MSA median against the $390,000 April baseline, read as trend rather than a single month, alongside the repeat-sales measures.
• New-home incentives and the new-versus-resale gap, the clearest read on builder pressure.
• Apartment vacancy against 12.2% and asking rent against the current decline, the leading indicators for whether the renter’s window is closing.
• Any confirmation of the exact 2025 combined per-$100 county rates and the FWISD school rate, and the arrival of 2026 tax bills in October.

Run your own numbers

Every dollar figure on this page came from our tested calculator engine at stated assumptions, and each of these tools lets you swap in your own: rent vs buy, mortgage, home affordability, how much can I borrow, buyer closing costs, seller net proceeds, refinance, DTI, property tax, and rental property ROI. Compare Dallas-Fort Worth with our Austin housing market study, Tampa housing market study, Phoenix housing market study, Chicago housing market study, Denver housing market study, Nashville housing market study, Atlanta housing market study, and Charlotte housing market study, and for how metro costs shape long-term plans, the FIRE number by metro study.

Frequently asked questions

Is Dallas-Fort Worth a buyer’s or seller’s market in 2026?

Roughly balanced, leaning slightly buyer-friendly. Months of supply was 4.3 in April 2026 (TRERC MSA), up from 2 to 3 pre-pandemic, and homes take longer to sell, so buyers have more selection and negotiating room, especially against builders. But homes still close near 95% of original list, so it is not a decisive buyer’s market.

What is the median home price in Dallas-Fort Worth?

The DFW-Arlington MSA median closed price was about $390,000 in April 2026 (TRERC), down 2.27% year over year. It varies sharply by scope: the City of Dallas ran about $505,900 and Fort Worth about $338,000. The measures also disagree, so read the MSA median alongside the repeat-sales indexes.

Are Dallas-Fort Worth home prices falling?

Modestly, and it depends on the measure. The TRERC median is down 2.27% and Case-Shiller is down 1.52%, among the steepest of the 20 Case-Shiller metros, but the FHFA repeat-sales index is slightly positive for both divisions. The honest read is flat to modestly lower, about minus 1% to minus 2.5%, not a crash.

Does buying reset my property tax in Texas?

Yes. The 10% homestead appraisal cap under Tax Code 23.23 limits a current owner’s taxable-value increases, but it resets to full market value when the home sells. So the buyer’s first bill is typically much higher than the seller’s long-capped bill, and Texas is a non-disclosure state, so the appraisal district estimates market value.

How much is property tax for a new buyer, Dallas versus Collin?

On a $450,000 home, homesteaded with the $140,000 school exemption, a new buyer pays about $8,600 a year in Dallas County (about 1.91% effective) versus about $6,200 in Collin County (about 1.38%). That is roughly $2,400 a year, or about $200 a month, on the identical home, decided entirely by the county line.

What is the school homestead exemption and how much is it now?

The Texas school-district homestead exemption is $140,000 for the 2026 tax year, raised from $100,000 under Proposition 13 in November 2025, with an extra $60,000 for owners 65 and older or disabled. It applies only to the school-district portion of the bill. File Form 50-114 with your appraisal district after closing.

Is homeowners insurance expensive in Dallas-Fort Worth, and why?

Yes. The Texas statewide average was about $3,291 in 2024 (TDI), up 85% since 2015, and North Texas sits in a top hail corridor, so DFW runs above the statewide average. The key hidden cost is a percentage-based wind and hail deductible, typically 1% to 5% of dwelling value rather than a flat amount.

Are rents falling in Dallas-Fort Worth?

Apartment asking rents are, down about 3.0% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, with 12.2% vacancy and concessions on about 58% of listings from a historic supply glut. Single-family rents are the exception, up about 4.6%, so the two are not one number.

Is Dallas-Fort Worth still affordable?

Less so once carrying costs are counted. The MSA median household income is about $92,733 (ACS 2024), while buying the $390,000 median takes about $125,000 by our engine, a gap of roughly $33,000. Texas’s high property tax and hail insurance erode the edge DFW has over coastal metros.

What are mortgage rates in Dallas-Fort Worth?

The 30-year fixed averaged 6.58% for the week of July 23, 2026 (Freddie Mac), up from 6.55% the prior week and below the 6.74% of a year earlier. That is the fourth consecutive weekly rise from the 6.43% seven-week low of July 2. It is a national weekly survey shown apart from the local housing data. The engine uses 6.58% for the worked example.

Methodology

Where the numbers come from. Every market figure on this page is transcribed from a named source with its geography, period, and confidence level in the source registry below, and is never presented without its period. Where sources differ, a TRERC median, a Case-Shiller index, an FHFA division index, we show them and label the scope rather than averaging them.

Why the DFW-Arlington MSA footprint, and where other scopes appear. The DFW-Arlington MSA is the most methodologically consistent monthly primary source and matches what most readers mean by Dallas-Fort Worth, so it is this page’s primary transaction scope. The two metropolitan divisions appear for FHFA and employment, which report them separately; individual counties appear where the property-tax mechanics live; the City of Dallas appears for the city median; and Texas statewide appears for insurance and tax law. The MSA blends 11 counties and two divisions with materially different tax and price levels, so MSA-wide figures average incompatible sub-markets, and each is labeled.

A freshness caveat, stated plainly. The latest full official local period is the TRERC April 2026 DFW spotlight, so no invented May or June MSA table appears here. TRERC republishes prior months as its data settles, so a figure for a given month can move after its first release; this edition carries the April 2026 values as originally transcribed. Secondary May and June reads from Redfin and Realtor.com reflect asking rather than closing prices and are labeled and never blended into the transaction series.

What we computed ourselves. Monthly payments, PITI, income needed, cash to close, the escrow split, and the rent-versus-own gap are computed by the FinExplained calculator engine (decimal-precise, tested) from the stated assumptions: a $390,000 MSA-median example home, a 6.58% 30-year fixed, the modeled 1.9% Dallas County new-buyer effective rate, a labeled $3,800 annual insurance estimate, and 1% annual upkeep. PMI below 20% down is disclosed and excluded. Golden tests pin each published figure, so a silent change would fail our build.

The property-tax rate is modeled at the reset value, because Texas resets on sale. Texas publishes no single effective rate, so we model the Dallas County new-buyer rate of about 1.9% on full market value with the $140,000 school exemption applied to the school-district portion only, the research’s conservative representative county (Collin runs about 1.4%). Because a sale resets the 10% appraisal cap to full market value, the modeled bill is the buyer’s actual first-year bill, unlike a no-reset state where it would overstate the first year. The cross-county divide and the seller-capped-versus-reset comparison are shown as bespoke charts on $450,000 illustration homes, separate from the affordability math.

The insurance figure is a labeled statewide proxy. We use the TDI statewide average rather than an inflated aggregator estimate, which runs well above regulator filings, and label it a statewide proxy because no credible DFW-specific regulator premium exists. The worked example uses a labeled $3,800 DFW estimate inside the defensible $3,600-to-$4,000 range, and we flag the percentage-based wind and hail deductible.

The own-versus-rent comparison, and what it is not. The scenario prices a $2,195 comparable single-family rent against the $390,000 median home, so it compares single-family renting with single-family ownership. The home is the MSA median rather than the exact house you would rent, so it is representative, not exact. The $1,482 apartment asking rent is kept for the rental-market reads, and we keep asking, effective, new-lease, and all-tenant rents separate throughout.

The Market Balance Score is in beta. Its formula, weights, normalization anchors, and this month’s inputs are fully disclosed on the card above. Dallas-Fort Worth carries all five inputs, so no weight renormalization applies, but two inputs are the ones that move it most and are disclosed: the days-on-market input uses the list-to-contract definition (61 days), not the list-to-close figure (93 days), and the inventory input uses the TRERC MSA figure. The score reproduces the research’s provisional reading of about 48.9 and lands in the balanced band.

Charts. Every chart states its geography and period and carries a text description. Dallas-Fort Worth deliberately stays out of our cross-city tax-compare chart family, because its tax story is the reset-on-sale mechanic and the within-metro cross-county divide, not a single metro rate level. That cross-county divide is itself a metro-local version of the cross-city chart.

Source registry

Every figure used on this page, with value, geography, period, source, and confidence:

Assumptions and limitations

• The worked examples assume a $390,000 MSA-median home, 20% down unless stated, a 30-year fixed at 6.58%, the modeled 1.9% Dallas County new-buyer effective rate, a labeled $3,800 annual insurance estimate, and 1% annual upkeep. Change any input and the outputs move; the linked calculators exist for exactly that.
• The 10% homestead appraisal cap resets to full market value on sale, so the modeled new-buyer bill is the buyer’s actual first-year bill. Texas is a non-disclosure state, so the appraisal district estimates market value. Confirm the exact 2025 combined per-$100 county rates and the FWISD school rate before relying on a specific dollar figure.
• The cross-county and reset comparisons use $450,000 illustration homes with the $140,000 school exemption applied to the school-district portion only, a simplification for comparability; local optional exemptions would reduce the Dallas and Fort Worth bills further.
• The insurance figure is a labeled TDI statewide proxy, because no credible DFW-specific regulator premium exists; DFW runs elevated on hail. No inflated aggregator average is used, and a percentage wind and hail deductible is flagged.
• The own-versus-rent scenario uses a $2,195 comparable single-family rent against the $390,000 median home, so it compares like with like. The $1,482 apartment asking rent is retained for the rental-market reads, and asking, effective, new-lease, and all-tenant rents are kept separate.
• The price measures conflict by design (TRERC median, Case-Shiller, and the two FHFA divisions), and are never averaged. New construction is separated from resale, since medians are affected by mix.
• Investor data is national, not DFW-specific, so no Dallas-Fort Worth ownership share is claimed. Submarket figures are mixed-source, single-period reads, labeled low confidence; treat them as direction, not precision.
• Everything here is educational analysis of market data, not financial, investment, tax, or legal advice, and not a recommendation to buy, sell, or rent any property.

Data freshness

This edition carries the TRERC DFW-Arlington MSA April 2026 data with Q1 2026 rental data and a July 23, 2026 mortgage rate. It was first published July 15, 2026 and was last refreshed July 26, 2026, when the rate was the only figure that could move: TRERC releases metro data about 20 days after month-end, so April remains the newest official DFW-Arlington dataset that exists, and this page structurally runs about two months behind the calendar rather than behind its sources. The next update is planned for early August 2026, when the May 2026 spotlight publishes, with the June spotlight expected in late August. A notable rate move below 6%, a Texas tax-law or exemption change, a major hail event affecting insurance, or a swing greater than 10% in inventory or price triggers an off-cycle update. Corrections follow our corrections policy and are logged in the changelog.