Houston Area Real Estate Trend- Good News!

According to a HAR.com press release, when it comes to the Houston area's real estate, January was a good month this year compared to last. Single family homes for sale and for lease are included in this upward trend. Great news!

First of all, the demand to lease single family homes rose 27% compared to last January. The demand for townhomes and condos increased by 24% when comparing the same two periods. The preceding facts dictate an increase in what to expect to pay for rent per square foot compared to last year. Good news for landlords, not so great for tenants.

Now onto sales. Total property sales for the month increased almost 10% compared to January 2010. Total dollars brought in from real estate in Houston increased about 12% when compared to January 2010.  The average sales price of a home increased from $192,617 to $196,879 or about 2.2%.  Hopefully this trend continues.

There is some bad news to go along with the good news, though.  The amount of inventory on the market increased from roughly 6 months to 7 months.  This is the amount of time that it is predicted it will take to sell all the homes on the market for periods ending January 2010 and January 2011 respectively.  The single family median sales price decreased about 2.2% or from $143,560 in January 2010 to $139,000 last month.  This is not a huge decrease, so that is not horrible news.

Let's keep up the spirit of recovery Houston!