Houston-area home sales increased nearly 10% in September from a year ago as buyers closed on 7,035 single-family homes, the bulk of which sold for between $150,000 and $500,000.
Sales of the city's priciest properties, however, were down from September of last year by close to 3%, new data from the Houston Association of Realtors show.
The median sales price of a single-family home last month rose 4.7% from a year earlier to $244,000.
"I cannot recall a fall in Houston when home sales and rentals were quite this brisk," Shannon Cobb Evans, HAR's chair, said in the report, citing low mortgage rates and a strong local economy.
Freddie Mac last week reported an
Even as low rates make it advantageous to buy, single-family rentals were highly sought after, too, in September. The market saw a 6.9% boost in homes leased last month with an average rent of $1,838, up 1.5% from last year.
Inventory of properties for sale edged up to 4.1 months, meaning it would take that long to sell all of the homes on the market based on recent activity. Six months is considered to be a balanced market where neither buyer nor seller have the upper hand in sales negotiations.
