Have you heard the word? August was another extremely productive month for real estate! The Houston market is still going strong, and we are obviously thrilled.
The market performed particularly well in a few key areas. Notably, sales in the luxury market crushed last year’s numbers, pulling up overall sales as a result. Sales of luxury homes actually increased a whopping 43%! In total, 9,195 single-family homes sold compared to 8,673 last year. Sales of homes in the $500,000 – $750,000 segment jumped 34.4% from last year, and homes priced between $250,000 and $500,000 also achieved positive year-over-year sales. All told, sales of single-family homes in Houston saw a 6% increase and the third consecutive year of positive sales. Not bad at all!
The median price of a single-family also increased to $269,000 while the average price shot up nearly 8%. Both figures are records for any August in Houston’s history and position sellers to potentially do really well if they plan to sell their home.
However, with the decline in the number of listings for sale, inventory has sunk to its lowest level in five years. It’s expected that despite low interest rates, sales will moderate in the coming months as a result. After all, you can’t sell homes that aren’t for sale! Although the fall and winter seasons typically see a reduction in housing supply, it is particularly low at the moment due to the coronavirus; despite rumors of people picking up and leaving the city, many homeowners would simply rather stay put. Houston’s lease market, including for single-family homes and townhomes/condos has also cooled down.
If you’ve read the recent HAR report, you might have noticed that sales of homes priced below $250,000 actually decreased during the month of August. Those figures may be a little deceptive. The increased availability of low-interest loans and “jumbo” loans may be contributing to people actually buying more home for their buck. In particular, this might be the reason sales of luxury homes ballooned!
For those who don’t mind looking a little harder or a little longer for a home, now could be a great time to start the search. Certainly, if you were going back and forth about selling your home, you might want to seriously consider it! Although we expect the market to stabilize soon, nothing about this year has been typical. We’ll keep you posted on how the market is trending – keep an eye out!