As always, real estate is hyper local, see how your neighborhood is trending now.

Notable Updates:

• Total sales volume for all property types in Sept. & Oct. 2017 dropped compared with both the average sales volume for Early 2017 and the Prior Period (as expected).
• Most of this decline occurred in the first few weeks of September, when both buyers and sellers paused from the market.
• The noticeable “winners” from Hurricane Harvey were the Houston condos that did not flood. The median condo price and the number of condo transactions jumped—both when comparing to Early 2017 and the Prior Period.
• In our opinion, based on what we were seeing in the market, we believe this increase in condo sales came from two segments:
  • New buyers moving to Houston who were inundated with images of flooded homes. Many chose to be in a protected building instead of a single-family home.
  • People who flooded (or came close to flooding) did not want to take the risk of this happening again, and they chose to live in a condo building away from the bayous/flooded areas.

As always, real estate is hyper local, see how your neighborhood is trending now.

Notable Updates:

• Based on our outreach to over 250 clients, building managers, and HOA community leaders throughout the city for our Houston Neighborhoods That Did Not Flood research project, we also have anecdotal data that most of the subdivisions within these neighborhoods fared very well during the storm.

As always, real estate is hyper local, see how your neighborhood is trending now.

Notable Updates:

• This was the most fascinating data to our team. Our speculation for why this occurred is below. Contact me to talk about specific neighborhoods or your home for details.
• Based on our anecdotal data and what we’re seeing in the market, we believe that most people who experienced flooding did not change regions of the city (e.g. Flood victims in Memorial, on average, did not relocate to the “dry areas” of the Inner Loop. Instead they stayed in the same region with their schools, churches, dry cleaners, and friend community).
• This implies that many of the biggest “winners” were neighborhoods that had partial flooding or were in proximity to flooding. The homes, subdivisions, and streets that did not flood experienced material benefits (details & specifics below).
• Here’s an example of what we saw in the Downtown Houston market:
  • Many of the condos in the northern part of downtown flooded.
  • Several notable buildings were without power for a while and without elevators for more than three weeks. Units in those buildings experienced a huge drop in showings (Do you really want to see a condo if you can’t use the building’s elevator to get there?).
  • However, all of the sales that occurred downtown since Harvey have been isolated to two buildings (both on the Houston condos that did not flood list).
• In each of the neighborhoods above, we have anecdotal data of both streets and homes that did very well and streets and homes that did not.

As always, real estate is hyper local, see how your neighborhood is trending now.

Notable Updates:

• Within West University, Bellaire, Briargrove Park, and Memorial Villages, there are subdivisions that experienced the same benefit as the section above (certain streets benefited, and homes that did not flood appreciated in value). However, the overall stats for the geo market area are presented above to be comparable with the rest of the study.
• Nearly all areas that experienced the worst decline in median sales prices have:
  • A massive increase in the number of “Lot Value Only” and “Lots” listings & sales as compared with both periods from early 2017 and Sept. & Oct. 2016.
  • Material sections of the community that are located in the known and disclosed 100– or 500–year floodplains.
  • A surprisingly large number of properties that have flooded multiple times in the past 5-15 years (e.g. Tax Day Floods, Memorial Day Floods, Tropical Storm Allison). Caveat emptor.

We have tools to search just for homes that did not flood. If you’re looking to buy a home please contact us.

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Methodology:

• We analyzed Houston’s Top 52 Neighborhoods from https://www.houstonproperties.com/houston-neighborhoods/salary-needed-to-buy-home
• All properties compared are just single-family homes unless the neighborhood has an asterisk (*). Neighborhoods with an asterisk include single-family homes, townhomes and condos, except for Downtown Houston which only compares condo sales.
• “Post-Harvey” data is referred to as the time period between September 1 – October 31, 2017.
• “Early/Earlier 2017” data is referred to as the time period between January 1 – August 31, 2017.
• “Prior Year” data is referred to as the time period between September 1 – October 31, 2016.
• All data is from the Houston Multiple Listing Service.
• Close in Houston refers to HAR MLS areas 4, 9, 16, 17, 22, 23 & 24.
• To compare average sales volumes, we “monthalized” the data (e.g. took the total sales for Sept. & Oct. 2017 and divided the number by 2; sales data for Jan – Aug 2017 was divided by 8).