"It appears the cycle has been turning negative since the firstof the year," George Roddy, president of Roddy Information Servicesin Carrollton, TX, tells GlobeSt.com. "The numbers surprised me inthat the real estate markets in Dallas are larger than TarrantCounty's yet Tarrant has overtaken it by a pretty wide margin."

Sales information lags the market so Roddy used May stats for2007 and 2008 to assess market conditions, perhaps a betterbarometer than year to date because it's not skewed by thehistorical dog days of summer. Dallas County foreclosure sales are60% higher than last year, hitting 40 sales in the first fivemonths of this year. Tarrant County's foreclosure sales spiked161%, reaching 34 sales at the end of May versus 13 for the sameperiod in 2007. A partial list of June sales shows the trend iscontinuing, he says.

Roddy says the commercial markets' backslide is more telling infive-month cumulative and one-month comparisons. Dallas salesdropped 18.3% in the first five months of this year versus 2007 andwere off 18% just in the month of May. Tarrant County was down 2.4%for the five-month cumulative and dipped 23% in the monthlyanalysis. "To me that indicates, in the Tarrant County market, thatany slide in real estate sales has begun later than in DallasCounty. It looks like it just materialized in May 2008," he says.The Dallas dip, he adds, may have started to surface in thirdquarter 2007.