Mixed Forecast for Houston Housing Bubble; Halliburton Tax Abatement Not Sitting Well for Some

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Photo of the Texas Medical Center: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool

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  • That elevator in the Manzel development looks like the thing Augustus Gloop got stuck in….

  • Summary of the HBJ article on the Houston housing bubble: Prices might go up, but they also might go down.

  • hmm, so experts are torn on whether we’re in a bubble. meanwhile, anything outside of the 150 – 250 range is already seeing close to 10% price drops.

  • Housing prices in Houston went up because of real demand from a huge pile of people moving to Houston and supply that was very slow to meet demand. People who bought, especially higher priced properties, put real money down (20% for jumbo is standard and many had to put extra cash in to clear appraisal shortfalls) and had to have all their ducks in a row to get a loan. Economic winds have shifted in Houston and demand is falling. As predicted by most junior high economics text books, prices are falling, but not crashing (I am still sitting on $200k in appreciation since 2010). Sharp rise in foreclosures? Nope. New build projects getting left to rot as the developers go bust and head for the hills? Not happening. Homes underwater? Not since Memorial day. we are just shifting from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. It is still a very healthy market compared to most of the rest of the US.

  • Pneumatic people-tube! Love it.

  • Yes, it’s a bubble. Friend is doing one of these Blackstone things buying up resiRE & renting ’em out. Have they been buying in Houston? Nope. Why? “B/c Houston is in a bubble & prices are too high. Suckers’ bet.”

    Compare H to DFW – where prices are 60%? less.

    Only people refusing to recognize this are people leveraged in RE, working in o/g(most of you), or both.

  • Prices are 60% less in DFW?! My word. I’ll begin packing immediately.

  • ^For high end, definitely. $1M buys a castle in some parts of DFW. Same house is $2.5M here. Though Dallas is catching up quick…

    We all know how this ends…

  • “..some parts of DFW..” that’s like saying Houston but including from Katy to Baytown and Pearland to Woodlands. Are you saying there is no place in that expanse of land you could build and castle for $1m?

  • So DFW as a whole has more resonable prices than River Oaks. Congrats on that analysis. Seriously though there are a lot of places you could grab a huge house in the loop for 1 mil. Even in the loop. I remember that one absolutely beautiful mansion in riverside Terrace went for like .9 or something a few years ago. I mean ok it’s in riverside terrace but that areas starting to clean up and that house was just ridiculously beautiful.