• The big story for me this past month is that it seems as if all the folks fighting against each other to BUY houses are now fighting against each other to RENT houses. A lot of my seller clients have converted their for sale listings to for rent listings and have done well recently. As an example, I listed a nice home for lease in Prestonwood Forest at peak rental pricing per the comps, and within 24 hours had about 5 rental applications with the winner ultimately offering to pay about 10% over asking price. I've been leasing homes since 2008 and I've never seen anything like this. If you've got a home, now is a great time to rent it.
• Inventory is still favorable to sellers, with 2.5 months worth of housing available in Houston as of July. (If 6 months is equilibrium, we still have roughly 2.4 buyers out there for every active listing).
• I am also still putting homes under contract to sell. I had a home in the Heights listed at over $1M that was on the market for 45 days, then received multiple offers on the same day this week at great terms.

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HOUSTON (August 10, 2022) The frenetic pace of home sales that dominated the Houston housing market throughout most of the pandemic continues to slow its roll. Some consumers, facing record pricing, rising interest rates and limited inventory, have moved to the sidelines or opted to rent. Home sales experienced their fourth consecutive monthly decline in July, while new listings buoyed inventory to the highest level in two years.

According to the Houston Association of Realtors' (HAR) July 2022 Market Update, single-family home sales dropped 17.1 percent, with 8,370 units sold compared to 10,102 in July 2021. That is the lowest one-month sales volume since January 2022. On a year-to-date basis, the market is now trailing 2021's record-setting pace by 1.3 percent.

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• Although overall inventory continues to rise in North Texas (equilibrium is 6 months), this is not the case for properties located closer to the city centers of Dallas & Fort Worth. For example, Collin County inventory rose 1.1 to 2.3 months year-over-year, whereas Dallas County remained relatively unchanged at 1.8 months (1.5 months in 2021).
• Pricing seems to be sticking in high demand neighborhoods that check all the boxes (great schools, large backyards, newer homes), however, the buyer pool continues to thin out. Previously those houses would commonly attract 10+ seller friendly offers and now it seems that is less than 5 and in some price ranges just 1 or 2.
• Homebuilders are still having trouble sourcing trades and construction timelines are still stretched due to labor & supply chain constraints, exacerbating the inventory problem.