Houston Home Sales Slow as Inventory Climbs in September

By Sonit Seth

As a real estate professional and entrepreneur, Sonit provides his clients with comprehensive real estate services, including buying and selling properties.

September extended a pattern that has defined the Houston housing market over the past couple of months, and it’s one worth understanding before your next move. Homes are coming onto the market faster than they’re selling, and the latest figures from the Houston Association of Realtors confirm that the trend is holding.

More homes, fewer sales. Single-family home sales fell 5.7% year over year to 7,030, and pending listings, which are homes under contract but not yet closed, dropped 11.6%. Active listings rose 6.3% to more than 40,000, which lifted inventory from 5.1 to 5.5 months.

Homes are also taking slightly longer to sell, averaging 58 days on the market, up from 56 a year ago. Prices, however, have barely moved. The median held essentially flat at $325,000, and the average rose less than 1%.

Opportunity for buyers, pressure on sellers. Taken together, these numbers point to more opportunities for buyers than the Houston market has offered in some time. For sellers, the implication is just as direct. With this much choice, homeowners need to price more aggressively to close deals.

A look at the national picture. All real estate is local, but national data offers useful perspective. Through August, existing-home sales nationwide were running 1.6% ahead of last year’s pace, and the national median price rose 1.6% to $429,100.

That raises the question on many homeowners’ minds: when will prices come down further? So far, the answer isn’t as quick as rising inventory might suggest. Of the 300 largest metro housing markets in the country, 246 recorded year-over-year price gains in the most recent reading, while only 54 posted declines. Inventory is climbing, yet prices haven’t softened as much as many would expect.

Home sales versus population. One of the more revealing measures compares the number of homes sold with the size of the U.S. population. The country is on track to sell about 4 million homes this year, roughly the same number sold in 1995. Far more people live in the United States today than three decades ago, so home sales have slowed considerably relative to the population.

A big part of that gap comes down to the hold that low rates have on current owners. Many who secured mortgages at 3% or 4% are reluctant to give up those low rates, so they move far less often than homeowners once did.

Because all real estate is local, the numbers that matter most are the ones tied to your own neighborhood and goals. If you have questions about what this means for your home in Houston, Sugar Land, or the surrounding areas, call me at 281-393-8686, email sonit@sethedge.com, or visit sethedge.com. I’d be happy to walk through the details with you.