December 2, 2009 – 2:37 pm
“According to USDA maps, we still have about 3.2 million acres of prime farmland within 100 miles of Houston. We can’t produce everything we like and want to eat. No cacao trees for chocolate here, for example. A more relevant question is whether we could supply most if not all of our basic needs from soils within a hundred miles or so. I think the answer is yes. The amount of land to support one person varies in the scientific literature from less than an acre to 20 or so acres. With 4 million people, we would likely need at least 2-4 million acres of farmland. But we are expecting 3.5 million more people by 2035. So not only will there be more people to feed, there will be less land to feed them from, locally. If current density and development practices continue, we can expect to lose at least 1,000 square miles of prime farmland, prairie, and forest habitat to development.” [OffCite]
Read more about: Agriculture, Forecasts, Landscape, Soils
November 20, 2009 – 8:04 am
Swamplot’s chart-wielding analyst is back with a few comments on the Houston Association of Realtors’ latest report and media push:
Median and average home sales prices fell $7,200 from the prior month. This was including increased activity to get the $8,000 home buyer tax credit in under the wire! Now it is not fair to compare month to month numbers as seasonal factors are working against the housing market this month.
So we get some good spin from the realtors: “Home prices up 5%” “Sales up 13.8%” …this maps directly over to the mainstream press with no research: “Home sales rise for second month,” “Home prices up 5%,” “Sales up 13.8%” Homeowners in this town should be proud that such a hardworking PR machine still gins out great product!
Why would you call those year-over-year increases spin?
The realtors get to make a press release every month and every month something is a “record” and the press is under deadlines and it gets copied in verbatim. This is home prices up 5% and sales up 13.8% from HURRICANE IKE with no caveat in the headline going out to 200,000 print readers and as many web readers! Not bad for a days work.
Oh, yeah. Forgot about that whole Ike thing. So what’s the market looking like really?
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Read more about: Disaster Aftermath, Forecasts, Foreclosures, Houston Data, Hurricane Ike, Memorial, Price Trends
October 20, 2009 – 5:32 pm
HAR is out with its September home-sales figures, giving Swamplot’s spreadsheet-side correspondent a chance to eulogize the spring-summer selling season:
Home prices and volumes are flying south for the winter. With this volume downturn for the year, we have most likely seen the highs and sales volumes will now complete their third year of contraction. Prices were down 2-3% in the month, depending on whether you follow the median price or the average price. Pending sales are well below sales for the month, suggesting a further seasonal contraction in October.
This month featured an upturn in foreclosure sales as a percentage of the total. Foreclosure sales were 18.6% up from 16.7% the prior month. Luckily, foreclosure sales are still way down from the 32% peak in January.
But aren’t all those foreclosures going away soon?
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Read more about: Buying and Selling, Forecasts, Foreclosures, Home Prices, Houston Data, Price Trends
August 19, 2009 – 12:39 pm
HAR’s real estate sales report for July is out! And Swamplot’s housing-market reader-analyst uses the data to piece together a better picture of Houston’s still-somewhat-mysterious foreclosure scene:
The press releases in 2009 have included a running commentary on the % of foreclosure sales in the month. This month’s release featured an interesting nugget — foreclosure sales from the prior year’s month! It is new information, and a few future monthly releases of it will allow us to fill in the data gap in the graph [above].
The foreclosure graph can be looked at in two ways. The glass half full crowd can cite the fact that a wave of foreclosures has been passed through the system — like a painful kidney stone — and it hasn’t led to piles and piles of unsold homes on top of each other in a negative feedback loop. Inventory is down to 6.5 months, backing this view.
And what if you aren’t sure there’s enough water in that glass to, uh . . . pass those stones?
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Read more about: Buying and Selling, Forecasts, Foreclosures, Home Prices, Houston Data, Price Trends
“The increase in local unemployment reported this week is sickening,” reports Swamplot’s local financial correspondent. But don’t the latest HAR numbers show Houston home prices at some sort of record high?
Historically, the peak for home prices comes in July or August every year. The increase in the median and average over the past several months has been due to two factors. First, seasonality –summer prices are always the highest. Second, a change in the “product mix” of Houston homes –the % of foreclosed homes has fallen every month for several months straight . . . So the change in the product mix means that the value of any given house probably has not risen, only a change in the product moving through the system is reflected in the numbers.
Is it okay to get excited about the foreclosures, then?
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Read more about: Buying and Selling, Forecasts, Foreclosures, Home Prices, Houston Data, Price Trends
A broker tells reporter Amy Wolff Sorter that no new multifamily apartments — beyond the 14,000 units currently “in the pipeline” — are likely to be built in the Houston area until 2012. MPF Research says the multifamily occupancy rate for this area is hanging at around 89.7 percent, not too far from where it was last year: “. . . rents continue to hold steady and concessions aren’t being jacked up in response, though they do exist. [MPF's Greg] Willett points out that about 38% of the product on the market today has some sort of concession, with the typical giveaway hovering at a 9% discount, which translates to a little more than one month of free rent. Still, ‘that really hasn’t moved,’ Willett remarks. ‘We’ve been at that 9% figures for awhile.’ Both [Apartment Realty Advisors' Matt] Rotan and [CB Richard Ellis's Craig] LaFollette say that the infill locations are faring better than the outer submarkets, which are giving away up to two months free rent.” [Globe St.]
Read more about: Apartments, Forecasts, New Construction: Residential, Renting
More comments on Greenwood King’s April market report, which focuses on real estate activity in Houston’s higher-end neighborhoods. A second reader focuses on prices, determined to find storm clouds in the report’s silver lining:
While some avg. sales prices are higher, this is most likely due to builders no longer buying lots to build on for b/t 400 and 500k.
Last week you had a poster ask to see the evidence of price declines and an eroding market. Here is further evidence of a declining market. Moreover, the poster requested to see comps that show declines. I think I have proof. Can we get a Realtor to confirm that a prime West U. property–3128 Lafayette–sold for 700,000 over two years ago and now has been recently reduced to 699,000. Welcome back to 2007–[how] much further do we have to go?
One problem with finding these declining comp examples (and I think there are more, and more on the way), is that the Realtors control all of the data and are reluctant to admit that the prime inner loop area that has been so good to them is begining to substantially turn negative.
Photo of 3128 Lafayette St. in West University: HAR
Read more about: 77005, Buying and Selling, Forecasts, Homes for Sale, Houston Data, Price Trends, West University
Enjoy your spring, everyone! Armed with a few pointed charts fueled by the latest data from HAR, Swamplot’s spreadsheet-wielding correspondent writes in again, this time with comments on March’s residential real-estate market report:
The Realtors always speak breathlessly of the “Spring Selling Season” with an almost religious reverence. Well it shows in the data. Home sales are 60-100% higher in the warm weather months. Prices are 10-20% higher, too. . . .
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Read more about: Buying and Selling, Economic Conditions, Forecasts, Houston Data, Price Trends, Real Estate Marketing
Looks like HAR has responded to some Swamplot reader criticism and added a bit of needed real estate to the bottom of the charts in its latest report — as well as a thin white line to indicate actual, non-adjusted values. The changes and the addition of the latest numbers show a market that doesn’t seem quite so steady as last month’s HAR report made it seem.
There were 25.9 percent fewer property sales this February than last, according to the report. But our reader’s 3-month-moving average chart doesn’t look any worse than last month:
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Read more about: Buying and Selling, Forecasts, Houston Data, Price Trends, Real Estate Marketing
Comment of the Day: Here Come the Almeda Promoters
“Washington ave is already done. . . . Whats next you ask….Almeda (59 to med center)….two bars opening right now and four more planned on the way. Wide streets, lots of empty places to park, a community who wants the crowd and can handle it better than wash or mid town. The two bars that are going in are building out in empty spaces right now but more on the way with some new buildings planned. You will all want to know where I get my info but [ride] down and you will see for your self what I know.” [Dj Ashby, commenting on Comment of the Day: Reading the Washington Ave Crystal Ball]