Real estate pros may be smart to carve out a new-home niche in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, region. The metro area saw the highest number of new-home construction in the first quarter, according to new data from Metrostudy Inc.

Home construction in the metroplex totaled more than 34,500 units on an annualized basis, topping Houston’s 30,206. Central Florida was third in construction, with about 28,000 homes last year.

Metrostudy says that housing starts were down in half of the top 10 building markets in the first quarter. Affordability issues may curtail growth in new-home construction this year, too, says Paige Shipp, regional director of Metrostudy’s Dallas region.

“Based on last year’s slowdown, there was concern that the market cooled,” Shipp says. “Many builders responded by shifting their product offering to more affordable homes and decreasing base prices.” In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, builders responded to affordability concerns by starting more homes between $250,000 and $350,000 in the first quarter.

The top 10 markets for new-home construction in the first quarter:

1. Dallas-Fort Worth: 34,523 (annual starts)
2. Houston: 30,206
3. Central Florida: 28,082
4. Atlanta: 24,423
5. Phoenix-Tucson: 24,145
6. Denver-Colorado Springs: 20,039
7. Southern California: 18,066
8. Austin, Texas: 16,674
9. Northern California: 15,793
10. Salt Lake City: 12,917

Blogs: Nine percent of members reported having a real estate blog. REALTORS® 49 years or younger are more likely to have a blog (between 10% to 11%), while only 7% of those over 60 had a real estate blog.

Social media: REALTORS® increasingly are using social media for professional use, with Facebook still their clear favorite. However, more than a quarter—or 27%–of REALTORS® surveyed say they do not use social media for their business at all.

For the REALTORS® who do, the breakdown of active usage among social and professional networking websites are:

• Facebook: 73%
• LinkedIn: 58%
• Instagram: 35%
• Twitter: 21%
• Pinterest: 11%
• Snapchat: 5%
• ActiveRain: 3%

Drones: A quarter of REALTORS® surveyed say they do not use drones themselves, but 14% say they plan to use them in the future to capture aerial photos and videos of their listings. Twenty-nine percent say they hire a professional to use drones in their business.

Homeowners continue to see home values increase, along with their equity. Metro home prices nationwide saw an increase of nearly 4% in the first quarter. The national median existing single-family home price was $254,800 in the first quarter, the National Association of REALTORS® reported Tuesday.

Single-family home prices rose in 86% of measured markets in the first quarter; 13 metro areas saw double-digit increases.

“Homeowners in the majority of markets are continuing to enjoy price gains, albeit at a slower rate of growth,” says NAR’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “A typical homeowner accumulated $9,500 in wealth over the past year.”

Higher home prices caused affordability to decrease from last year, even though family median incomes rose to $77,752 in the first quarter, NAR reports. A buyer making a 5% down payment would need an income of $60,143 to purchase a single-family home at the national median price; a buyer making a 10% down payment would require an income of $56,978; and a buyer making a 20% down payment would need $50,647.

“There are vast home price differences among metro markets,” Yun says. “The condition of extremely high home prices may not be sustainable in light of many alternative metro markets that are much more affordable. Therefore, a shift in job search and residential relocations into more affordable regions of the country is likely in the future.”

The 5 Priciest Metro Markets in the First Quarter

1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.: $1,220,000 (median existing single-family price)
2. San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, Calif.: $930,000
3. Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine, Calif.: $800,000
4. Urban Honolulu, Hawaii: $794,100
5. San Diego-Carlsbad, Calif.: $620,000

The 5 Lowest-Cost Metro Areas

1. Decatur, Ill.: $80,800
2. Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio: $89,200
3. Elmira, N.Y.: $90,400
4. Cumberland, Md.: $99,300
5. Binghamton, N.Y.: $107,200

Yun continues to call on the housing industry to add more affordable housing that would help combat price gains and buyer pullback.

“More supply is needed to provide better homeownership opportunities, taming home price growth, and widening the inventory choices for consumers,” Yun says. “Housing Opportunity Zones could provide the necessary financial benefits for homebuilders to construct moderately priced homes.”

Here are some additional key indicators from NAR’s latest housing report:

• Home sales: Total existing-home sales, which include single-family homes and condos, rose 1.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 5.21 million in the first quarter. That is 5.4% lower than a year prior.
• Inventories: The number of For Sale signs has been rising, offering buyers more choices than a year ago. At the end of the first quarter, 1.68 million existing homes were available for sale, up by 2.4% from the end of 2018’s first quarter. The average supply during the first quarter of 2019 was at a 3.8-month supply at the current pace.

Regional Breakdown

Here’s how existing-home sales fared in the first quarter across the country:

• Northeast: Existing-home sales dropped to an annual rate of 683,000, down by 1% from a year ago. The median existing single-family home price was $277,200, up 3.7% from a year ago.
• Midwest: Existing-home sales dropped 4% in the first quarter and are 5.5% below a year ago. The median existing single-family home price was $194,100, a 3.9% increase from a year ago.
• South: Existing-home sales rose 4.3% in the first quarter, but were 4% lower than a year ago. The median existing single-family home prices was $225,700, up 2.5% from a year ago.
• West: Existing-home sales increased 2.8% and are 10.7% below a year ago. The median existing single-family home price was $384,300, up 3.5% year over year.

Those wanting to spruce up a home may need to add more money to their budget. Builders and contractors are warning that new tariffs on Chinese goods will add $2.5 billion in added costs to the home remodeling industry, and those extra costs will be passed on to customers.

Tariff costs on Chinese imports jumped from 10% to 25% on May 10, which builders say will increase the cost of about 450 goods used by the home building industry, such as countertops, like granite, marble, and quartz, tile for bathrooms and backsplashes, light fixtures, cabinets, heating and cooling equipment, and flooring.

“I wish we would not just have to pass it along to customers, but at this point I don’t know how to engineer around that,” Bruce Case, CEO of Case Remodeling, told CNBC. “We can’t use different products that aren’t as effective.”

The White House has increased tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, including $10 billion of goods used by the homebuilding industry. U.S. and Chinese officials ended two days of trade talks without a deal on Friday. China was the United States’ biggest trading partner last year.

Last week, a survey from the National Association of Home Builders also showed that a labor shortage continues to impact housing projects by increasing prices and delaying timetables. Remodeling jobs that involve carpenters, framing crews, bricklayers, and electricians are seeing some of the largest shortages.

“The labor shortage continues to be one of the top concerns for remodelers across the country,” says Tim Ellis, the NAHB’s Remodelers chair. “An ongoing challenge for remodeling is keeping their prices competitive while dealing with the increasing costs of labor.”

From half to 70% of the remodelers surveyed by the NAHB reported that the top effects of the labor shortage have been higher wages and subcontractor bids, higher prices for customers, and difficulty completing projects on time, and some have even had to turn down some projects because of it.