First quarter housing market 2017

The first quarter housing market in Houston continues last year’s positive movement. Home sales are up, demand rises and supply continues to drop.

Across the USA, homes are selling for record high prices as home buyers take advantage of the lowest mortgage rates of the year. Home sales jumped nearly 9% in March 2017 compared with March 2016 though the number of homes for sale plunged 13%.

Here in Houston, the real estate market continued to thrive in March, as single-family home sales and pricing rose while housing inventory grew, according to HAR. The Houston March sales of all property types in Houston totaled 8,495, up 10.5 percent from the same month last year. Days on Market (DOM), or the number of days it took the average home to sell, rose slightly to 60 days versus 58 last year. A historic house in the Montrose area had an offer in less than two weeks in February.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Houston Realtors sold 7,013 single-family homes last month at a median price of $227,530, up 5.8 percent. The highest median price on record, $233,000, was reached last summer. Some 40 percent of Houstonians surveyed said they plan to buy their first home on their own instead of waiting to get married or have children, according to the bank's Homebuyer Insights Report released Wednesday. That compares to 27 percent nationally.

Some economists are beginning to worry that Houston is on the verge of an affordable housing crisis similar to the market in California, however multiple sources show that Houston homes are still relatively affordable compared to other metro areas because we have the largest new home communities in the country. Also, with its lack of zoning and lower construction costs, Houston has created an environment ripe for homebuilding and community growth. According to Metrostudy, a company that provides housing market intelligence, proprietary research and analysis, homebuilders are benefiting from the lack of supply of existing homes for sale. Single-family homes months of inventory grew to a 3.8 months supply.

Did you know that Houston has the No. 2 homebuilding market nationally?