We’re speeding toward the fall season—there have been a couple days where we could tell that the summer heat is drawing to an end. With that in mind, I wanted to give you a quick breakdown of the Houston market, but with a different angle this time: Some of the year-over-year numbers were skewed by Hurricane Harvey, the storm that brought the city to its knees for several weeks. 

As an example, if we look back to the week ending on September 2 and compare that to the same period last year, listings went up 180% over that 12-month period, and sales went up over 400%.

Keep in mind that those numbers came off of Harvey, when nothing was going on in the market. So if we go back to a week before that and look at more of a normal market, we see that the homes going under contract went up about 23% between last year and this year. Closed sales were down by a little over 4%. We typically see August as a slower month, anyway.

“Some of the year-over-year numbers were skewed by Hurricane Harvey, the storm that brought the city to its knees for several weeks.”

Interestingly, the average price of a home in Houston is now over $311,000, and it continues to climb, causing affordability issues in certain areas. Although the overall Houston market is still strong, there are parts of the market that are struggling due to inventory and slow sales. Some of these areas were impacted by Harvey, and others just have a lot of inventory that isn’t being pulled off enough to speed the market up.

Both the market and the economy is strong, but we are beginning to see a shift. The numbers don’t play that out in Houston yet, but we are going to keep an eye on that and watch what the trends are doing so we can keep you updated from both a macro- and micro-perspective.

If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to reach out to us. We’re always happy to help.