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Home Sales Across the Country Up in October

U.S.: Existing single-family home sales were up slightly across the country in October in part to lower mortgage rates that benefited many buyers waiting for the right deals. The fall season is among the best times for the real estate market and sales of pre-owned homes in October were up 1.2% from September and up 1.7% from October 2024. The national median price for homes in October was $415,000, an uptick of 2.1% from October 2024 and more than two years of continued growth. The 30-year fixed mortgage at the start of the fall was hovering around 6.13% but has since increased to just under 6.4%. Along with those statistics, the National Association of Realtors says that the inventory of homes also has declined with a national average of about 4.4-month supply, adding to continued increases in home prices. Those prices are up an average of more than 50% from prices prior to the pandemic.

U.S.: American households will spend a little less on the traditional Thanksgiving dinner this year, according to the latest statistics. The classic meal for 10 people that includes the traditional turkey, stuffing, rolls, potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie ingredients, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, is just under $60. The price is down about 5% from last year and below the record high of $64.05 in 2022. Of course, that doesn’t include costs associated with travel for the 81 million Americans, a record number, who will hit the road or take to the skies, including more than 3 million who will pass through Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Those travel costs will average about $300 per person. And the Thanksgiving spending estimate certainly doesn’t include the extra items for the meal or the great lively family discussions, which, of course, are priceless.

DFW: Princeton, the fast-growing Dallas suburb that had stopped new construction permits for several months, soon will allow development to begin. City leaders in the bustling northern Collin County city had issued a building moratorium on new developments in September 2024 and extended it two more times. That was to allow city staff to reassess public services, including police, fire and ambulance service, and infrastructure, including roads and utilities, in order to meet the demands of the continued growth. The moratorium will expire at the end of November, based under a new Texas law. Princeton was ranked as the fastest-growing city in the country of at least 20,000 people in 2024 by the U.S. Census Bureau. With a population increase of 30.6% from 2023 to 2024, it now has an estimated current population of nearly 42,000.

DFW: Klyde Warren Park, the upper deck park connecting downtown Dallas to uptown, is getting ready for a makeover. Plans for the multimillion-dollar project call for adding another 2 acres to the deck. Work could begin sometime in 2026 and take about three years to complete. It will include a 24,000-square-foot event space along with an 8,000-square-foot rooftop space. The costs for the Klyde Warren Park 2.0 are expected to top more than $130 million. The deck park that opened in 2012 and is used by area residents, office workers and tourists started a trend that now includes Halperin Park, a five-acre park over Interstate 35E in southern Dallas that is expected to open next spring. 

U.S.: Francis Ford Coppola has made memorable and profitable movies over the past 50 years and has had a vast real estate portfolio, including wineries, California estates and island resorts. Now, the five-time Oscar winner and director of “The Godfather” series says he’s facing bankruptcy because of his latest movie project “Megalopolis,” about a utopian city of the future named New Rome. He borrowed and self-financed the project, with estimated costs as high as $100 million, but it only made $14 million. Earlier this month he had to sell a 2.5-acre island resort in Belize that he had owned for a decade and is now auctioning several luxury watches. If Coppola’s latest moves sound like a sequel, they are. He’s faced bankruptcy before and has come out of it, but he still has several properties in California.

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