Midland, TX NOT dropping???

[Nate Barbee]

I've been working in West Texas for 3 years now. The price of oil drives the entire economy. Yet, with thousands upon thousands of oil workers getting laid off, the housing market remains sky high. Homeowners are just allowing themselves to get foreclosed on because even if they broke even on the sell, they wouldn't have enough cash to settle the closing costs. Volume of home sales are very low, inventory is high, but the prices have not decreased. I would think there would have to be some type of correlation between commodity prices and the housing market in an economy so reliant upon oil. Midland home prices are higher in 2016 during an oil crash, than in 2012-2014 during the boom. Am I missing something here? Are banks using a different foreclosure strategy to not shock the market into a downturn? Or will it just take longer for nature to take it's course? Or maybe this shows the real estate market on a macro level is on a bubble.