Area Analysis: Oak Forest, Houston

[Trey Watson]

(To see charts, pictures and graphs, you may have visit my BP blog to enlarge.) 

Area of Analysis: Oak Forest- 77018- Houston

Oak Forest is an up and coming subdivision just north of the 610 North Loop that intertwines with a sister subdivision- Garden Oaks. The general style, build and feel of homes in these 2 subdivisions are very similar, although I am only analyzing Oak Forest. Most of the homes here were built in the 50's and 60's but within the last 5-7 years, there have been many tear down/new build projects in the area with very large homes (3000-4000 sqft) ranging anywhere from 500,000-1.2 million. Basically there are 2 types of investors that come into this neighborhood- people who renovate and flip properties and people who tear down and build new homes. Either way seems to be working for many.

What I did here first, was attempt to illustrate the activity in the neighborhood by graphing the number of homes sold each year within the given time frame (August 1st- February 28th).

I then figured out that the average non new build home in this neighborhood is around 1500 sqft and is equipped with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a 2 car garage. I used the comparables available for each year, to price out what a 1500 sqft home (renovated) should sell for at that time. This is an attempt to illustrate changes in value. I used actual price and price per sqft to show both perspectives.

You can also see AVG days on market, but there really is no annual trend here. It's really about what time of year you list, not which year you list.

As you can see, prices have been climbing for the past 15 years, regardless of the 2007-2008 recession. Prices may have stalled during this time...maybe even dipped a little, however, I don't think people realize how little impact the recession really had on Houston housing prices. (It definitely affected it, but not to the doom and gloom degree that many think).

I hope this is helpful.