For Houston real estate, and more specifically Harris County, the pace of new listings hitting the market has been trending downwards. As with most of the country, we need more inventory in the housing market here in Houston. More inventory means more options for buyers, which in turn encourages more sellers to list.
Looking at single-family homes within Harris County and the last six months of activity, we’ve had 38% fewer listings in comparison to 2020 and 49% fewer than in 2019 for the same time period. See below for more details.
Looking at new listings, we are up year over year; however, still behind pace from 2019. Looking a bit more closely, I wanted to then look at the last three months and then only August. The goal was to see how new listings and total active listings compared during that time period.
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As you can see, the gap in total active listings has been slowly decreasing; however, this trend looked to be slowing down. To look at this, I took at look at the weekly activity within Harris County that tracks data for all three property types: single-family, townhomes and condos.
Looking at the last 16 weeks of Houston real estate activity and grouping them into 4-week blocks, it was evident that trends are moving in the wrong direction. See below for the weekly average trends:
- 5/31 – 6/27: 1854/week average
- 6/28 – 7/25: 1798/week average
- 7/26 – 8/22: 1780/week average
- 8/23 – 9/19: 1508/week average
This past week, Harris County saw the fewest number of new listings (1314) since 2/22/2021 and 232 fewer than the same week a year ago.
Why is this important for the real estate market?
Simply put, we need inventory to go up and not down to create amore even market between buyers and sellers. If you’re a seller on the fence, talk with a trusted professional to determine if now is a good time for you to sell. Keep in mind, the answer will all be determined by the market area you are in, the home type/condition and your specific location among other things.
This is a trend I’ll continue to monitor as it’s going to determine how Q4 2021 will be moving forward.
Thanks for reading,
Harris
