PLANO, Texas—A half-hour drive straight north from downtown Dallas sits one of the fastest-growing counties in the country. …Yet even with the booming growth, Dallas’s once vibrant housing market is sputtering. …The housing market—which makes up a sixth of the U.S. economy—has been a troubling weak spot. …U.S. existing home sales have declined on an annual basis for eight straight months, the longest slump in more than four years. Those price challenges have been masked in part by access to cheap credit, but that era is coming to an end. …Dallas has been the “canary in the mine shaft” this housing cycle, said Paige Shipp. Homes are taking longer to sell, bidding wars are rarer and price cuts are more common as buyers absorb the impact of higher rates….As mortgage rates rise, buyers increasingly look for less-expensive homes. That is pushing builders further out to the fringes in search of lower-cost land where they can try to build more homes priced at $300,000 or less. [subscription required to access the full WSJ story]