Marion Woods and her husband, Paul, were so firm in their quest to buy either an older house or a double-wide mobile home that they balked at their real estate agent’s idea of considering a newly built home.
That was until they finally looked at one.
What happened after that changed their minds completely. In October, they purchased a 1,900-square-foot, four-bedroom newly built home in a new development on the south side of Opelousas for $238,500.
If you ask Woods about the buying process, you’ll need to stay a while. From incentives offered by builder DR Horton to the accommodating agent to the actual house itself, she can point to a positive experience at every turn.
Now, she and her husband of eight years have a home that she says is better than anything they could have found if they stuck with their initial plans.
“The foundation was beautiful, as we wanted in the old house,” she said. “It was as big as the old house, and it was very, very well-built. Everything was spacious. The fact that we were the first people to live in the house, that was a plus. Everything we wanted in the old house, it was in the new house — times 10.”
The Woodses capitalized on a trend in the Acadiana real estate market that took a bit of an odd turn in 2024. When the higher interest rates all but extinguished the red-hot market from a couple of years ago, this year builders took a different tactic.
They ramped up incentives for the buyer, including significantly lower interest rates. The end result was the second-busiest year for builders in Lafayette Parish and an average sale price that dropped 3% after three straight years of increases.
It’s led to a splintering of the market as existing home sales in Lafayette Parish had its worst two-year run in sales in more than a decade. Comparing 2024 to 2019, sales were down 23% while the average sale price rose 30%, according to data compiled by Bill Bacque with Market Scope Consulting.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” said Jim Keaty, longtime owner of Keaty Real Estate. “New construction, even though the price is more than an existing (home), is more affordable. It’s the first time I’ve seen where the impact of new construction (is) really hitting the incentives so much that it makes it more affordable.”
Why new construction
In Woods’ case, that final sale price is a bit of a misnomer. They paid $210,000 with the rest going into equity. The builder contributed an additional $5,000 to closing costs.
While the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage remains just under 7%, Woods and her husband got the house at 3.5%. After they put $7,000 down, their monthly mortgage is under $1,500. The new construction, unlike the older home, came with a warranty.
They were so excited about the deal, the whole family came to the closing, said real estate agent Jessica Parker with Keaty Real Estate.
“It was a beautiful, beautiful experience,” Woods said. “Another thing — the house in five years is going to be worth way more than what we purchased it for. In the front of our subdivision, there’s going to be businesses right there. I think there’s going to be an urgent care clinic and a restaurant.”
Those incentives from DR Horton and Denham Springs-based DSLD have kept new homes more affordable and kept the market hot. Another factor was that many homes were built in rural areas, which qualifies eligible first-time buyers to purchase with no money down.
The goal has been affordability. In Lafayette Parish, the number of newly built homes that sold for $150,000-$300,000 increased 18% compared to a year ago, data shows.
Nationwide, single family home construction rose 6.5% in 2024 as builders tried to add more supply to address the housing affordability crisis, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
In Lafayette Parish, prices have moved in that direction. The median sale price for a newly built home went from $272,387 in 2022 to $270,900 in 2023 to $267,219 in 2024, data shows.
“It’s always been this way but now moreso — the No. 1 thing without a doubt is affordability,” said Crowley-based real estate agent Michael Doughty with Platinum Realty. “First-time homebuyers, I don’t think, are going anywhere because rents are through the roof with insurance going up.
“What Lafayette is missing is that $180,000, smaller new construction. In rural parts of the parish, if I get something that’s remotely new, not in a flood zone and with affordable insurance, I’m selling that in a week. That’s what we need across Acadiana.”
Existing homes
Take the negative headwinds in the industry in 2024, and most of them are connected to existing home sales. The price? The median sale price climbed again in 2024 after a one-year reprieve in 2023.
The average home is sitting on the market for 12 more days than a year ago (new construction’s days on the market dropped by three). Buyers on average paid 97.3% of the list price (new construction was at 99.6%).
Are prices flattening? Yes, but at a more realistic rate, said Robbie Breaux with Real Broker. Getting prices to drop requires more supply, and in Lafayette Parish that is starting to happen.
Existing homes listed for sale last year increased by 8% from a year ago, data shows. National real estate broker Redfin reported in June that 20% of homes listed for sale in the Lafayette area reduced their price.
On Thursday, Redfin reported that homes across the country are selling at the slowest rate since the start of the pandemic.
“I think what everyone is seeing right now as far as price drops are people that are still living with COVID aspirations,” Breaux said. “They are working with what I like to call ‘aspirational pricing.’ After the market hits them in the face, they realize that aspirational pricing is not what’s going to happen in today’s world.”
Bacque, who has been monitoring the Acadiana market since 1982, predicted average and median sale prices — barring any exterior jolts to the economy — will flatten before they rise or fall. The market historically has taken a breather for a three-to-five-year period before another shift occurs.
Of 11 ZIP codes in Lafayette Parish, data shows that the median sale price dropped in six of them in 2024 compared to 2023.
Even if prices flatten in 2025, it will still be a challenge for first-time homebuyers, he noted. Interest rates along with rising insurance costs could keep some buyers on the sidelines.
“There’s a part of our market that’s going away, and that’s the affordable market,” Bacque said. “The average age of a person that’s a first-time homebuyer is over 30 years old. My fear is we lose the ability to have that kind of affordability.”