Market Update

Is the housing market dampening in H-town? It's hard to tell right now.   Last year's hurricane has skewed the data for August and September. For several weeks, the housing market halted completely as Houston dug themselves out of flood debris and waited on insurance companies. Then, housing availability was scarce, housing needs were in high demand and pricing remained stable which lead to shorter days on the market. Still, according to HAR, “Not adjusted to account for Harvey, August sales of all property types totaled 9,978, up 36.8-percent versus the same month last year.”  

The inability to compare current data with last year has economy forecasters comparing numbers to 2016, when we were at the height of our most recent oil slump (in case you are new here, Houston is driven by the oil industry); we are over 4% ahead of 2016 single family home sales. In an attempt to establish accurate statistics, HAR has compared August 2017 pre-Harvey with the same days of 2018 and found our market to be healthy with a 7.6% increase in single family homes and 7.2% ahead of last year's total volume. Our inventory has fallen, but still meets the national average of 4.3 months, and our prices are rising by 1-3% increments, well below the national average. Zillow lists us as “neutral”, neither a buyer’s or seller's market.  

A news article from February of this year touted North Carolina’s housing market as one of the healthiest in the country (USA Today Money), along with Nevada, Texas and Tennessee, citing their mixed property developments and influx of residents. Right now, the market numbers in North Carolina don't look much different than ours according to Zillow, we have similar median house prices and days on market, but their market has slowed this year at little more than 1% growth versus over 7% growth last year. Here's hoping they can weather Florence with the same resilience as we did Harvey. #CoastalStrong