Five months and counting. That's the number of months the Houston market has showed gains in its existing home sales.
According to the Houston Association of Realtors, single-family home sales rose 9.1% in October. All segments of the market -- from below $80,000 to $500,000 and above -- recorded positive readings. And on a year-to-date basis, sales were up 3.4% for the first 10 months of 2011.
The positive sales figures coupled with an increase in pending sales (contracts that have yet to close), rising prices that reached an all-time high for any October, and a continued decline in inventory “signals” a healthy market, HAR says.
“As we analyze the local housing data, the clearer an indication we get of market performance, and the latest numbers show a healthy sales climate for an autumn in Houston,” said HAR Chairman Carlos P. Bujosa, who works at Transwestern. “As long as the Houston economy continues to strengthen with additional job growth, we can be cautiously optimistic about the state of the housing market going into the new year.”
A total of 4,080 existing homes changed hands in Houston in October, up from 3,741 a year ago. The average price rose 1.1% over the 12-month period to $208,506. Sales of all property types totaled 4,815, up 8.9% from 4,420 in October 2010.
Foreclosure property sales increased 6% year-over-year in October, accounting for 22% of all transactions. The median price of a foreclosure sale was flat in October $80,600.
Month-end pending sales for October totaled 3,092, an increase of 9.6% from a year ago and portending a sixth straight monthly gain when the November sales figures are tallied.
The number of active listings at the end of the month was down 12% from October 2010 to 46,674 properties. The inventory of single-family homes dropped to a 6.6 month's supply in October, its lowest level since April of last year. In October 2010, it would have taken 7.7 months to exhaust the supply of houses on the market.
