Homes sales in Houston's real estate market were positive for the 15th consecutive month.

Single-family home sales in Houston posted their greatest one-month volume since 2007, in August, increasing 20 percent from August 2011 and sending housing inventory to its lowest level in more than 10 years.

According to the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR), that’s the 15th consecutive month of positive home sales in the Bayou City, and the 6,600 closed contracts in August pushed active housing inventory to just 4.9 months supply.

Houston Housing Market – Still Going Strong

News was uniformly good for Houston’s housing market in August:

• Average price for single-family homes rose 4.0 percent from last year to $224,464, the highest level ever for an August; similarly, median price rose 3.8 percent year-over-year to a record high $165,000.
• Foreclosure sales made up 16.8 percent of all property sales, down 4.2 percent from last August.
• For all property types in Houston, sales were up 20.5 percent, with the total dollar volume for property sales rising by 26.3 percent to $1.7 billion.
• Pending sales for August were also up, rising by 8.3 percent from August 2011 and likely indicating another positive month of sales when September’s numbers are computed.
• Inventory has fallen by 31 percent in the last year, dropping from 7.1 months to 4.9 months supply, the lowest since April 2002; since December 2011, inventory has been lower than six months.

Wayne A. Stroman – A “Prosperous Summer”

Augusts strong sales numbers, said Wayne A. Stroman, the HAR chairman, put the cap on what has been a very positive summer of sales for the Houston area.

“August rounds out an extremely prosperous summer for the Houston real estate market,” Stroman said. “As we saw in July, homes sold well in every pricing category, but particularly the higher end, which contributed to another boost in home prices. Further growth in local employment and low interest rates continue to make Houston attractive to home buyers.”

Also, homes in the upper price brackets continued to attract buyers, a trend we first reported on back in July. Though sales were strong for homes prices $80,000 to $149,999 and $150,000 to $249,999 (they increased by 18.3 percent and 22.0 percent, respectively), sales were up by 26.6 percent for homes prices $250,000 to $499,999 and by 23.9 percent for homes in the $500,000 to $1 million price range.