What Does the Houston Market Look Like Post-Harvey?

What does the Houston real estate market look like post-Harvey? I’ll explain today.

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Instead of doing my regular monthly update, I wanted to spend some time talking about the real estate market in general here in Houston after Harvey. First, I want to send out my true sorrow for those who have lost anything (or everything) in the flood. We’ve been helping people clean out their homes for the last week and the destruction and devastation is just unbelievable.

There’s a lot of work still left to do, but I’ve been starting to get a lot of questions about how the flooding is going to affect property values. I think, at least for the time being, properties will fall into one of three buckets:

1. Those that have never flooded
2. Those that only flooded during Harvey
3. Those that have flooded multiple times

Properties will fall into one of three categories.

I’ve also been getting a lot of questions about rebuilding. While it’s still uncertain how flood insurance claims are going to work and what FEMA’s role is, I will say this. If you are planning to repair and sell, you need to look at that home as an investment. You want to fix it up and bring its value back in line with the neighborhood. You don’t want to over- or underdo it though. You want to get as much money back as possible. 

If you have any questions about the kinds of repairs you should make or any other question about the post-Harvey real estate market, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I would love to hear from you.

How Accurate Is Zillow's Zestimate?

You may have heard of Zillow’s Zestimate feature—but is it accurate?

Selling in the Houston area? Get a market analysis report

Purchasing in the Houston area? Get full MLS access

If you haven’t already heard about Zillow’s Zestimate feature, there are a few things you need to know. A Zestimate is Zillow’s estimate of a home’s value. But how accurate are they really? I get questions about this all the time.

For example, many people wonder why the Zestimate is so different from what they’re seeing from their tax records or the market value.

In short, Zestimates can sometimes be inaccurate. On average, Zillow’s Zestimate is off by 5.6% from what a home will actually sell for. However, Zillow’s accuracy depends on location. In fact, on their website Zillow actually rates themselves on a scale of one to four in terms of accuracy for a given location. 

If you truly want to determine your home’s value, you’ll need professional help.

In Austin the rating is four out of four while in Houston it’s only one out of four. There are a lot of different intricacies that sometimes can’t be factored in by Zillow’s algorithm. The CEO of Zillow himself sold his Seattle home for 40% less than what the Zestimate said it was worth. 

Zillow is interesting and can give you a general idea, but if you truly want to determine your home’s value, you’ll need to get help from professionals like myself. 

If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon. 

An Update on the Houston Real Estate Market

It seems like time is flying here in Houston, and the market is heating up accordingly. Here's the latest on our market.

Selling in the Houston area? Get a market analysis report

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Time is flying—I can't believe it's already May, and my older son is heading to middle school. Both the weather and the housing market are heating up. Total property sales in Houston are up 4.2% over last April and dollar volume is up by about 8.1%. Here in Houston, the biggest gains are coming in the luxury market, or homes priced more than $750,000. That market segment took the largest hit during the energy slump, but now it's up 15.8% this year compared to last year. It's a small sliver of the total home sales, though. We see that the next biggest market was for homes priced between $250,000 and $500,000, which rose more than 11% on a year over year basis.

All in all, we see a lot of very positive and strong movement.

The average number of days it takes to sell a home stayed about the same, but the average home price continues to rise up to nearly $300,000. This makes affordability difficult for many buyers in Houston. Conversely, the market for homes under $100,000 fell 35%, but it's almost a non-existent market now. For new construction homes, costs for labor and material continue to rise, so we expect the price for new builds to rise. On the leasing side of things, we know that leases jumped by 15%, but on the flipside, average prices came down by about 5%. Many really nice, class-A apartments are still offering free rent and low moving costs, which has caused a lot of competition for homes, especially in the inner-loop area.

All in all, we see a lot of very positive and strong movement. It all comes down to what the inventory levels are in your area. If you have any questions about buying or selling a house or about the market in your specific area, don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I'd be happy to help you out!