Houston Housing Stats January 2019

[Sharon Tzib]

https://www.har.com/content/newsroom?pid=1593

Houston Real Estate Highlights in January:

• Single-family home sales fell 8.1 percent year-over-year, with 4,100 units sold, marking the third consecutive month of declining sales;
• Days on Market (DOM) for single-family homes lowered from 68 to 65 days;
• Total property sales tumbled 8.4 percent, with 5,011 units sold;
• Total dollar volume declined 4.4 percent to slightly more than $1.3 billion;
• The single-family home median price edged up 1.4 percent to $222,000, reaching a January high;
• The single-family home average price increased 2.4 percent to a January high of $277,483;
• Single-family homes months of inventory was at a 3.7-months supply, up from 3.2 months last January and equal to the national inventory level;
• Townhome/condominium sales fell for a fifth straight month – down 10.5 percent, with the average price down 2.3 percent to $188,268 and the median price down 2.8 percent to $154,250;
• Lease properties saw their strongest performance since November 2017, as single-family home rentals climbed 16.5 percent with the average rent up 0.4 percent to $1,755;
• Volume of townhome/condominium leases surged 16.4 percent with the average rent down 0.8 percent to $1,504.

“January appears to have delivered a perfect economic storm of sorts, with some consumers focused on paying off holiday credit card bills, others concerned about the recent bump in mortgage rates and still others that may have felt the squeeze from the partial government shutdown,” said HAR Chair Shannon Cobb Evans with Heritage Texas Properties. “We are encouraged by the strong performance among rental properties, and I believe that as inventory levels continue to grow, more buyers will return to the market.”