Will people leave the Houston area? Where will they go?

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I enjoy reading the reports that are sent out by the Greater Houston Partnership. They are factual and they don't try to sugarcoat bad news. Here are some excerpts from the report on Harvey:And many of the data points [about Hurricane Harvey] that have been presented as fact are misleading or just plain wrong. Case in point, one report had Harvey inundating more than 100,000 apartment units. Yet Texas Department of Public Safety reports that fewer than 2,200 units were damaged or destroyed. The first number represents 15.7 percent of inventory and suggests devastation. The second number represents 0.3 percent and suggests pockets of damage. The pillars of Houston’s economic base—upstream energy, the Houston Ship Channel, chemicals and refining, health care, corporate headquarters, and aerospace—emerged largely unscathed.Of the 89,400 office, industrial, multi-family and retail properties that Xceligent tracks in Houston, only 7,155 were in Harvey-affected areas.The institutions in the Texas Medical Center learned from Tropical Storm Allison years ago and moved critical systems out of their basements. Though flooding occurred in neighborhoods around TMC, the hospitals by and large remained open.Reports filed with TxDPS indicate that Harvey damaged or destroyed 72,000 single-family homes in metro Houston, or about five percent of the Houston region’s 1.5 million single-family homes. The official reports fall well below the 150,000 to 200,000 originally reported.The Partnership’s analysis of FEMA data shows that 83 percent of Houston’s single- and multi-family homes lack flood insurance. The University of California-Davis found that half of the area flooded in Harris County occurred outside of the 100-year and 500-year floodplains. The financial analytics firm CoreLogic estimates that only $6.5-$9.5 billion of the $25-$37 billion in residential damages will be covered by insurance.Harvey will have no lasting impact on long-term population or economic growth. As noted earlier, the engines of Houston’s economy—energy, chemicals, trade, corporate operations—emerged from Harvey intact. Economic growth drives employment growth and employment growth drives population. If Houston’ long-term growth slows, it won’t be due to any impact associated with Hurricane Harvey.Also noteworthy IMHO, the # of rigs operating in NA is twice what it was a year a go, Oil and Gas coming back

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I've been speaking to my friends, family, neighbors, etc. and none of them are planning on leaving the Greater Houston Area. Folks that flooded ripped out the carpet, drywall, and anything that was ruined and had it out on the curb before the weekend was over. We've been through this before. Neighbors help each other. Churches and community organizations "flooded" into damaged areas to help. Sure, some people are still in shelters, but most made temporary living arrangements with family and have gone back to work. Houston is a huge, sprawling, monster of a city and many of the SFRs in the suburbs are enormous, with guest rooms and game rooms and home offices. It's no "hardship" to take in another family for a few months when you have 2500+ sqft. Church groups know this and literally went door to door in such neighborhoods, matchmaking displaced families with places to stay. The only people I've heard who are seriously considering moving "away" are retired older folks and they are just talking about moving further from the city center and further from the coast to areas like Tomball and Brenham, which are less than an hour or two from Houston. These older folks don't want to move too far from their families, and their families aren't moving because Houston has jobs. It's also no secret that selling a house in Texas usually won't garner enough money to buy a comparable house anywhere else. It's also worth noting that we have teams of engineers working on our perpetual flood problem and every time we have a monster flood like this, they have new data to work with. Quite a few areas that have historically seen flood damage were spared this time thanks to their efforts.For those of you thinking of doing BRRRR with short-sale flood-damaged properties (which in my opinion is a great way to help others and yourselves) consider what you can do on the property to keep water out next time. If it's possible to alter the grade of the land or improve the drainage, and the house only got an inch or so of water in it, that house may escape flood damage next time. There will always be a next time. Houstonians know this.P.S. Oil and Gas may have seen a slowdown, but industry insiders aren't worried. People are confidently buying and holding stocks in their own companies. I haven't observed the kind of hand-wringing and awkward conversations typically associated with massive layoffs and job scarcity in the O&G sector. Also, there is more to jobs in Houston than just O&G.

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@Kevin Wiley I responded a little in another post, but I just don't see a mass exodus (I am a Houston import and won't be going anywhere). The reason is because jobs is the controlling factor here and not something that NOLA had to offer to the degree that Houston does. Houston has become a financial destination location, coming solely for employment and then eventually migrating back to where they originated from: As long as there are jobs - people will be here. Very bad floods (although not to this degree) have happened in Houston before, and the populations never decreased. I believe it's a different kettle of fish to Katrina in my opinion - but only time will tell. If you are going to invest in cities that you expect Houstonians to flock to - what cities can offer the job opportunities that will still be available here, for hundreds of thousands?? Not many. And especially not many in O&G.

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New Orleans had a mandatory evacuation with a large number of residents coming to Houston who just decided it wasn't worth the effort to go back. Even if Harvey displaces tens of thousands of people, there are 5+ million people in the Houston area and most of the displaced people haven't left town. Moving away from Houston is a much bigger step than just staying where you've already been evacuated. Keep in mind as well that the news will focus on the trouble areas. I have 5 properties in the west to northwest area of Houston and not a single one got water in them. I also manage properties spread from the east side of Cypress down to the energy corridor and none of those properties flooded either.

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I agree with the folks above. Too many jobs here. If anybody moves, it will be moving across town, closer to work, better schools, etc., which is pretty much what would have happened anyway. One factor to consider, however, is that there had been dozens of folks rolling in here from other states each and everyday -- folks coming for work. Will that slow down a bit now? People not from Houston have only seen the horrible photos on TV and may not grasp just how big this place is geographically, how spread out and dispersed everything is (meaning as bad it as it was, most folks were fine)... and decide to go elsewhere for work. So perhaps the floods 'might' be a temporary speed bump for the inflow of new folks. But then again, the motivation is employment, so I would imagine that people will do what they have to do, and it won't be long before it all gets back to normal.

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That's actually a good point Joe. I'm just concerned about what they will be able to come back to. I'm not in the Houston area, but I'm wondering where people will live. Even if there are jobs, won't there be a shortage of housing for awhile?

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@Kevin Wiley Well, come on down to Texas! Our tax and homestead laws are comparable to Florida and Dallas is a great market.

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Thank you all so much. It's amazing to get insight from you guys who are actually there and live locally to the disaster. It's crazy just how dramatically different the news is by the time it reaches me in Clearwater, FL. The news only showed the terrible, nightmarish images of flooding and made it sound like millions would leave. I'm glad for the city's sake that the damage was less than I thought. I'm considering moving to Dallas in the next 6-12 months to get out of Florida. I'm glad Texas is so strong. I feel trapped in Florida..

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@Kyle Bryant, you're thinking the Texas Triangle. The Golden Triangle is a different region. But I agree, investing along the Texas Triangle is good. That stretch of I-35 is particularly strong.

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I agree with most everyone here: Houstonians probably won't leave because of Harvey. Katrina was so different from Harvey in that people left NOLA and never came back. Not that many people left Houston, and those that did have already returned. Our major job centers are still operational; only minor setbacks. That said, if you are looking for another Texas market to invest in, stay in the "Golden Triangle" (San Antonio to Austin to Dallas to Houston). Some emerging markets along that stretch may be towns like San Marcos: in the triangle, college town, strong population growth, not Austin-y house prices.