HOUSTON – Houston’s single-family homes are selling at record pace through the first half of 2016, according to a midyear sales report by the Houston Association of Realtors.
Through the first six months of the year, 36,393 homes were sold in the Houston area – the strongest beginning ever for a year of residential selling. It represented a 2.7 percent increase over the midyear sales in 2015, the Realtors Association reported.
The brisk pace of sales has come even as Houston’s economy has slowed. Job growth has been weak because of softness in the energy industry.
The strongest sales are in the $150,000 to $500,000 range. Upper-end home sales are soft, HAR reported.
“We continued to see solid buying activity among middle-range housing in June,” said HAR Chairman Mario Arriaga with First Group. “Even though sales overall leveled off compared to last June, volume is up for the year, and we anticipate a sufficient supply of inventory and low interest rates to draw more home buyers into the market in the weeks ahead.”
The single-family home median price—the figure at which half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less—rose 2.5 percent to a record high of $230,538 in June. The average price declined a fractional 0.8 percent in June to $300,178, the second highest level of all time (the highest was $302,599 in June 2015).
HAR reported 7,696 single-family homes were sold in June, almost unchanged, compared to the 7,710 sold in June of 2015.
July 14, 2015