October Home Values See a Dip in Houston

There was an interesting article in The Houston Chronicle yesterday reporting that home values in Houston fell 2.7% in October compared to October 2007. The median home price is currently at $142,000. This comes after a 4% rise in September and small, incremental rises throughout the year. The Chronicle reported that a slowing national economy, tighter mortgage guidelines and an uncertain presidential election continued to plague the local housing market, which also saw sales fall 20 percent last month, compared to a year ago. The median price had been holding up because of a shift in the types of homes that had been selling. The number of lower-end sales dropped as sub prime credit dried up, while activity increased for more expensive homes. But in October, the only price segment that posted an increase in sales was that less than $80,000.
Despite the bad news, year-to-date home prices are still up compared to 2007. And national figures show Houston continues to fare better than many other U.S. markets, some of which have experienced price declines of as much as 40 percent, the local association said in its monthly market report. Also on Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors reported prices in the July-September quarter fell in most U.S. cities but were up slightly in Houston."Houston is the highlight in the country, but there's no way to get around the national uncertainty in the economy," said Michael Levitin, chairman of the Houston Association of Realtors. Another bright spot in the data was the number of months it would take to sell all the homes on the market at the end of October, which was about half the national average at the end of October, the association said.Residual business interruptions from Hurricane Ike also hurt the market last month, as did the generally slower time of the year for real estate sales. Realtors sold 4,202 single-family properties in October, marking the 14th consecutive monthly drop, according to the association, which tracks primarily existing homes sold through the Multiple Listing Service. In September, sales fell 30 percent as power outages and damage from the hurricane shut down real estate offices for weeks. Thousands of transactions were postponed as sellers repaired their damaged properties. All can agree that there both buyers and sellers are being very cautious at this time and what the real estate market is really lacking is confidence!