Housing-News-Report-March-2018

HOUSINGNEWS REPORT

A RISING TIDE IN HOUSTON

“I just helped a client with a six-month temporary lease while his house is being remodeled. There are still a lot of people affected by Harvey. I think overall the market, for how devastating the hurricane was, I still think we have a very healthy market.”

THOMAS MOUTON OWNER RE/MAX EXCLUSIVE BELLAIRE, TEXAS

As of the 2010 census numbers released by the Census Bureau, Harris County had a 56.8 percent owner-occupied housing units with the remaining 43.2 percent renter occupied housing units. Within the city limits, Houston residents have a median age of 32.7 years and a median household income of $47,010, according to the 2016 American Community Survey conducted by the Bureau. Investors Scared Off In its 2013 Housing Profile for the Houston metro area, the Census Bureau counted nearly 2.4 million housing units in all, 55.6 percent of which were owner-occupied 34.4 percent-renter occupied units. Less than 10 percent of those were either destroyed or damaged by Harvey, noted Jones.

Fortunately, the stock of Class A apartment buildings were overbuilt in Houston. “We have 70,000 Class A apartments that prior to Harvey had never been lived in. We were fortunate to have those units because they had to be temporarily occupied,” he explained. Realtor Mouton has experienced firsthand the aftermath of Harvey, as have many other real estate professionals. “I just helped a client with a six- month temporary lease while his house is being remodeled. There are still a lot of people affected by Harvey. I think overall the market, for how devastating the hurricane was, I still think we have a very healthy market.”

ATTOM reported at year-end 2017 that the Houston metro area had a 5.4 percent growth in median home price compared to the year earlier, up to $214,000. For January, HAR reported the median price rose to $218,000 from January 2017 with a 3.3-month inventory of homes, down from the over 4-month supply before Harvey hit. The amount of time homeowners in the metro area are staying put in their homes has risen steadily quarter by quarter since the second quarter of 2016 to 7.88 years for the fourth quarter of 2017, a 3 percent increase from the previous quarter and up 7 percent from the same quarter the year before, according to ATTOM.

Prior to Harvey, real estate investor Aaron Amuchastegui, principal of

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MARCH 2018 | ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS

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