Houston Housing Continues to Stay Above Average

This Guest Post was written by Emma Summers and discusses the Houston Housing Market.

With a look at some of the top housing areas in a less than stellar overall market, Houston has continually ranked among the top of the list. Multiple Texas cities have been listed among the best markets, including Dallas and Austin as well. With a better outlook on jobs and an excellent eye towards new features and technology, expect the Houston housing market to continue to rank among the top of these lists.

Just recently, Forbes mapped out the top 10 housing markets in the nation with three different cities making the cut. While Dallas and Austin both made the top 10 list, they were each ranked considerably lower than Houston at spots 10 and nine. Houston came in at number three on the list, ranking behind only the Pittsburgh and Louisville markets. Some of the primary reasons for the high ranking were Forbes’ analysis of foreclosure amounts, to which Houston netted only 1.3 percentages. On the magazine’s housing opportunity index, the city notched a ranking of 73.2, which was considerably close to the top markets.

Statistics of home buys in the area have also contributed to the high rankings for the Houston area. According to the Houston Association of Realtors, sales are up in most of the brackets in comparison to last year. The figures showed a 19 percent increase in homes that ranged from $150,000 to $250,000. Also telling is the fact that sales for homes over the price of $500,000 were up by nearly 26 percent this July. In a market where some areas are experiencing overall drops of nearly 40 percent, Houston has maintained only a slight drop in overall sales. As a whole, home sales for the entire U.S. are down by 14 percent from 2010. Some experts believe that the area is seeing an increase, hopefully back towards where the market had been in 2009.

Area developers have also continued to boost their numbers in comparison to other cities because of s strong dedication to energy efficiency. Most builders have kept the new Houston area apartments, condominiums and houses along the Energy Star qualifications. Some area developers are exploring new irrigation techniques along with eco friendly building techniques.

Because the Houston area has stayed afloat with better than average employment numbers mixing with great new building features, expect it to continue to rise back to where numbers once were. Regardless of what the national market continues to do in the near future, Houston will likely remain among the top of the lists when it comes to analysis of overall housing markets.