As 2017 begins winding down, homebuyers are becoming more price conscious and less status conscious.

According to the Dallas Morning News, buyers have begun the cyclical trend of gravitating toward more affordable neighborhoods. After the housing market crash a decade ago, sales in the pricey neighborhoods were the first to rebound. Now the least expensive neighborhoods are having their turn at robust sales.

"Buyers can go to Lancaster and be the same distance to Downtown Dallas as Richardson," Paige Shipp with Metrostudy Inc. told the News. "They can get the same house for less. Sales in the lower price ranges are lifting all of our numbers. But the higher price points are taking a hit."

While median home sales prices in North Texas have increased 9 percent in the past 12 months, the largest growth has been in the southern suburbs of Duncanville, Lancaster, andCedar Hill where prices are 15 percent higher than this time last year.

Dallas real estate agent James Martin, the 2017 president of the Metrotex Association of Realtors, attributes the shifting buying trend to the stabilization of the Dallas-area home market and less panic-buying.

"People are researching and taking a couple extra steps in the process of buying," Martin told the paper. "That's good for the market." 

A slightly larger inventory of homes for sale is good for the market as well because it gives buyers more choices. Though most of Dallas-Fort Worth has a 2.5-month supply of houses on the market, Mesquite, Lancaster, Hurst, and Bedford each has less than a one-month inventory because of strong sales.

Dallas-Fort Worth is still one of the nation’s hottest housing markets, and the demand for homes priced below $200,000 is driving sales in the more affordable neighborhoods.