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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

HAR Monthlies: Sales Down, Prices Up

July 16, 2008 – 11:59 am
   

“Of 41 Houston-area regions tracked by the Houston Association of Realtors, sales of single-family homes in June were up in seven and down in 34 from a year earlier. The median home price was up in 18 of the 41 regions. The median home price overall in the Houston area was $162,000, up 1.3 percent from a year earlier.” [Houston Chronicle]

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11:59 am | Comment | Read more about Houston Data, Price Trends, Quicklink
Thursday, February 7, 2008

Mattress Mack: A Consistent Record of Slashing Prices

February 7, 2008 – 11:30 am

The McIngvale Home at 3002 Pine Lake Trail, Northgate Forest

We now have the scoop and an update on Gallery Furniture owner Jim McIngvale’s mansion in Northgate Forest, and it’s a doozy. Yes, it’s still on the market. Yes, the price has been cut. But didja know the extent of the damage?

When last we left the Mattress Mack Pad, it was still soaring at $1.25 million. Well, now it’s down to . . . $885,000. Here’s the timeline:

  • May 5, 2007: 3002 Pine Lake Trail goes on market for $1,750,000
  • July 5, 2007: Price reduced to $1,499,000 — saving you 14%!
  • September 4, 2007: Price reduced to $1,250,000 — saving you 17%!
  • October 15, 2007: Price reduced to $975,000 — saving you 22%!
  • November 13, 2007: Price reduced to $885,000 — saving you 9%!

Total savings overall: Almost 50% . . . if you buy now!

And here comes the Houston real estate cliche: You can take the mansion way out of the Loop, but you can’t take the “way out of the Loop” out of the mansion.

Or something like that.

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11:30 am | Read more about Buying and Selling, Homes for Sale, Neighborhoods: Northgate Forest, Price Trends, Real Estate Marketing
Monday, January 7, 2008

Katy, Texas: At $210K, Still Cheaper than East L.A.

January 7, 2008 – 10:56 am

Pool and Lake at 24315 Lanning Dr., Katy, Texas

Honey, stop the car! 2300 square feet, new construction, in-ground pool, spa, game room, on a man-made fake lake. $209k. Bonus: The Relitter actually typed in “HONEY STOP THE CAR!!” as a description.

That’s blogger Lou Minatti’s punchline, after a brief tour of tiny, chain-linked-fenced, or apparently leaning homes available at similar prices in Los Angeles.

Also in the description of the Katy home is this paradox:

POPULAR LENNAR FLOORPLAN! . . . A ONE OF A KIND GEM!

After the jump: more pics, plus the sad news about this some-of-a-kind Katy home.

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10:56 am | Read more about Buying and Selling, Homebuying, Homes for Sale, Katy, Price Trends, Real Estate Marketing
Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The Clearest Sign of Trouble in the Houston Housing Market

November 21, 2007 – 10:27 am

Map Graphic from HoustonFacts.orgSure, there’s the latest numbers out from the Houston Association of Realtors, showing a continuing decline in home sales in October, an 8 percent upswing in the average number of days homes have sat on the market, and a slight drop in the median home price compared to this time last year.

But the most blatant sign that serious problems in Houston housing have already arrived is the new promotional blitz just unleashed by the Greater Houston Builders Association — telling us all not to panic: Everything’s just rosy in the wonderful world of Houston residential real estate. Hey, everybody back in the water!

The PR push, which includes a blanketing of radio and TV spots in local markets, is designed to reassure nervous would-be buyers that now’s the perfect time to buy a home way out on the latest subdivision frontier, even though lots of scary signs have been suggesting otherwise for quite a few months now. The heart of the homebuilders’ campaign is the ominous-sounding HoustonFacts.org website, which fills Houston homebuyers’ ears with fact-filled, sage advice like this:

If you try to wait and time the market until it hits rock bottom, you are likely to lose out. Just as no one can accurately predict the peaks and valleys of the stock market (name one person who sold their tech portfolio in April of 2000), the same holds true for housing. If you sit on the fence and wait for the absolute best deal, you could end up literally waiting for years. And most likely, your guess on market timing would be wrong. But if you choose to buy now, you will not only be in the driver’s seat during the buying process, you will also reap the gains of price appreciation once you become a home owner. Remember, those who purchased homes in the early 1990s during the last big economic and housing downturn came out as big winners.

There’s lots more of this kind of wisdom available on the site, but here’s a special challenge to eagle-eyed Swamplot readers: See if you can find the comparison of a home investment to a stock-market investment on the site that simplifies all those messy calculations by leaving out the cost of monthly mortgage payments and expenses!

Keep reading for a HoustonFacts.org tip on home foundations for the Houston climate!

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10:27 am | Read more about Homebuying, Housing Data, Houston Data, Price Trends, Real Estate Investing, Real Estate Marketing
Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Mattress Mack Saves You Money

September 5, 2007 – 10:59 am

Mattress Mack's Home at 3002 Pine Lake Trail in Northgage Forest

Speaking of fame and real-estate listings, we may have an answer to our earlier question about the power of endorsements by celebrities—or local celebrities—to sell houses quickly and at a premium price.

The Northgate Forest estate of Gallery Furniture owner Jim McIngvale—written up here a month ago—is still listed for sale! And the asking price has dropped a quarter of a million dollars.

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10:59 am | Read more about Buying and Selling, Homes for Sale, Neighborhoods: Northgate Forest, Price Trends, Real Estate Marketing
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Smith to Homebuilders: Whoa!

May 9, 2007 – 7:30 am

Houston’s housing market will slow, UH economist Barton Smith told homebuilders, real-estate agents, and a Chronicle reporter at his annual spring symposium:

Smith cautioned builders that this area is not immune to the national housing market correction just because housing remains affordable and fixed-rate mortgages are still low.

A national crackdown on subprime loans because of increasing foreclosures will significantly shrink the number of households that qualify for homeownership.

Combined with interest rates that are slightly higher today than two years ago, Smith estimates that the reduction in subprime lending will eliminate nearly 100,000 Houston households from the owner-occupied home market.

On the other hand, real estate experts have seen an uptick in sales of higher-priced homes.

“You’re just seeing the high end of the market going wild,” said Mark Woodroof of Prudential Gary Greene, Realtors.

More than ever before, builders are creating homes valued in excess of $500,000 in places other than the silk-stocking neighborhoods where they’re traditionally found.

“Today, they’re in The Woodlands, Fort Bend, and it’s not because prices are skyrocketing, but because we’re building bigger, more luxurious homes,” Smith said.

Of course, it’s difficult to compare last year’s prices to this year’s—because the house that sold last year is in the landfill, and the new one that replaced it is three times the size. In Houston, that’s your growth in the residential market. So maybe Dr. Smith’s just calling for a little less Foyer.

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7:30 am | Read more about Forecasts, New Construction: Residential, Price Trends
Monday, April 23, 2007

Money is Big on Texas

April 23, 2007 – 8:50 am

Texas boasts six of the top 12 residential real-estate markets in the country, says Money magazine. Houston is ranked number 12, behind San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth/Arlington (yeah, they broke them out), El Paso, and that southern juggernaut McAllen. They predict a 3.2 percent increase in home prices here over the next year.

Money’s handy chart gently reminds readers of the 9.6% drop between 1984 and ’85, but it includes another statistic that suggests any downturn here won’t be as catastrophic as it might in Los Angeles, for example: the median mortgage here is only 15 percent of a homeowner’s income. In L.A., that figure is 57 percent.

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8:50 am | Read more about Price Trends
Thursday, April 19, 2007

Appraisal District: You Look Fabulous!

April 19, 2007 – 8:30 am

Harris County homeowners might worry that the nationwide downturn in the real-estate market will ultimately affect the prices they can get for their homes, but HCAD says there’s no problem: Things are looking up! To prove it, the agency has raised property-tax assessments an average of seven percent this year. How’s that for a vote of confidence?

Sounds even more flattering than the Chronicle, which comes off sounding insufficiently boosterish. Their survey last week declared that home prices in 2006 had risen an average of only 4.3 percent in the greater Houston area.

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8:30 am | Read more about Price Trends
Monday, April 16, 2007

Good Morning, Houston! Here’s Your Donut

April 16, 2007 – 8:22 am

Some highlights from the Chronicle’s annual housing-price survey extravaganza, published Sunday:

  • Yeah, prices were up again last year, growing steadily since 1992 (a good year to start with if you’d rather forget Houston’s big busts). But price increases slowed down in the second half.
  • Anyone needing proof that Houston is still a donut need only glance at this map of sales activity inside and around the Loop and Beltway. We love that creamy filling as much as anyone, but there’s more dough to be made at the edges (eighty percent of sales are outside Beltway 8).
  • The front-page graphic, which at first glance appears to show steeper historical price growth for inside-the-loop homes (and a better rate for them this year), is a little misleading: Except for last year, average percentage price increases since 2001 have been highest outside the loop.

As usual, specifics on last year’s neighborhood price trends are hidden in the Chronicle’s Homefront section.

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8:22 am | Read more about Homebuying, Housing Data, Houston Data, Price Trends