Not As Many 'Fixer Uppers' Available In DFW Area These Days

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - A fixer upper home or a flip candidate is defined as a bargain-priced home that needs considerable repairs in order to make it livable.

Historically, those kinds of properties were plentiful in North Texas, but these days new research from porch.com suggest, not so much.

Fort Worth was ranked number 10 in the hardest places to find a fixer upper, according to the website.

Jaclyn Lambert, a spokesperson for the site, said Dallas also didn't fair too well according to their data.

"Out of all of the listings they had some of the fewest. There is less than one percent of homes that would be considered a fixer upper in the Dallas market at this time," said Lambert. "The investor market for real estate is simply maturing in the area. So, what that means is especially with inventory being limited, once the homes are fixed and sold way above asking where else do you go from there?"

The current inventory of homes in DFW is about one month's supply according to experts.

Hayden Lyon, owner of Cowtown Home Buyers, said, "It's a competition between everybody especially if you are just trying to get into the neighborhood and those that are flip candidates it can be competitive between everybody."

While there are challenges in landing flippable homes, Lyon says investors are just getting creative, and one of the more popular tactics they're using is buying homes off market.

"People aren't moving. They're just waiting. They're not necessarily leaving their houses so it's keeping things low," he said.

Real estate experts say the two main things that could ease the strain on the market is continuing improvement with the COVID-19 pandemic and interest rates going up again.