KATY AND THOSE NEW HOME GROWTHS “Houston is the largest home-building market in the nation, according to the Greater Houston Partnership and Builder and Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, with 42,697 building permits. Population trends, job growth, home prices and the rate of building permits all factored in to rank the top 75 markets in 2008. Assisting the numbers, no doubt, was Katy. Business Week magazine ranked Katy as the second-fastest residential community in the U.S. in a study published this month titled ‘America’s Biggest Boomtowns.’ The study was based on new home growth from 2000 to 2008.” And what will next year’s numbers say? [Houston Business Journal]
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Although I do think 09’s number will be lower, I don’t think it’ll be a bust.
Most builders in Houston are better managers of inventory and on top of that our housing market didn’t necessary go into bubble mode with tons of investors trying to flip properties.
I got this email from the Parthership and it was some seriously bad PR spin with a bunch of stale economic statistics. I hope nobody bases any decisions from it.
for example, houston home prices were down 8% from January 08 to January 09 (rose in 1H08, fell in 2H) or down 18.8% since the hurricane! and this is from HAR medians!
kjb – go drive around Katy, there are 4 homes for sale on every block and the restaurants are empty every night except friday and saturday.
Its here.
Kjb
Ahhh,ignorance is bliss. Guess you weren’t here during the 80s oil crash. Good times. But let’s focus on the present
Oil dropped $100/bbl in the last six months. Houston is the oil capital of the US. Do the math.
34% of the Houston home sales in the last month were foreclosures. Yeah, the bust is here.
Wake up.
If the 34% of the Houston home sales were people buying foreclosed home, then they are quite lucky. It’s a great time to buy.
People talk on tv and write in papers how bad these foreclosures are. The side they don’t tell you is that these foreclosures need to happen. The more people are propped up to not lose their homes just means we are putting off the problem. It also means the responsible mortgage owners are going to pay for the irresponsible. Most of the foreclosures are not due to people losing jobs.
What did Houston do to solve the problem in the 80s? What did California do in the late 90s early 2000s for the tech bubble bust with tones of foreclosures? NOTHING! It just happened. Now we have idiot talking heads on TV and politicians in Washington that can’t grow a set and tell people what they need to hear.
The reality is that isn’t not bad here in Houston at all. Just look at Nevada, Florida, and California.
Yes, 2009 will be a bust. I’m in the new home industry, and right now, NO ONE is building or selling homes. High-end, low-end, it doesn’t matter. Sales are a trickle, and it’s annualizing to less than 10,000 new homes. It may pick up as the year progresses, but right now, zilcho.