Taylor Morrison digs into the North TX housing market

Dive Brief:

Scottsdale, AZ-based homebuilder Taylor Morrison is growing its presence in Texas with two new communities in the northern portion of the state — its first there — according to the Dallas Business Journal.
Located north of Dallas, the Willowcreek and Waterford Point developments are priced from $330,000 to $550,000 with home sizes from 1,601 square feet to 4,091 square feet. Amenities include walking paths, swimming pools and outdoor grill areas with the latter also featuring a yoga room, catering kitchen, event space and an infinity pool.
Taylor Morrison told the Journal that it plans to continue to grow its footprint in Dallas–Fort Worth, with five communities open and selling in the coming year. The first two were developed in conjunction with Darling Homes, which the builder acquired in 2012 and builds move-up homes in Dallas and Houston.

Dive Insight:

In August, Taylor Morrison announced plans to expand its flagship homes brand into the Dallas–Fort Worth market, where it would offer properties priced from $300,000 to $500,000. The company is vying to increase its share of the strong Texas residential market as population and job growth fuels demand for homes there. It already has a presence in Austin, TX, and Houston.

A recent report from the Texas Association of Realtors underlined the robust, if tight, housing market activity in the state. Home sales and prices there hit record highs for the second-straight year in 2016, with the median sales price up 7.7% year-over-year to $210,000. Meanwhile, homes last year spent just 58 days on the market, on average, which in December had a 3.3-month supply of for-sale inventory.

In Dallas–Fort Worth, home sales increased 4.8% to 98,625 while prices rose 9.4% to $232,000, according to the TAR report.

High demand for housing is also behind a flurry of larger-scale community developments cropping up across the state. In its annual report on the state of master-planned communities in the U.S., real estate consultancy RCLCO noted that Texas took a 38% share of the MPC market in 2016, which was the most of all states and up considerably from its 10% stake in the 1990s.

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