The Houston residential real estate market continues to heat up as demand for housing stays strong. Compared to the same time last year, the number of new listings, pending listings, closings and showings are all up, according to the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) weekly residential real estate activity snapshot report for the week ending April 26 (week 16). 

The difference between 2020 and 2021 numbers is not as skewed this week as they have been in the past several weeks. This is likely because, by this time last year, the real estate industry had already been deemed an essential service, and Realtors were able to go back to selling properties. 

Despite shrinking inventory, home closings saw their most considerable one-week year-over-year increase during week 16, with closed sales totaling 2,217 compared to 1,393 closings the same week last year (up 59.2%). 

New listings continued on a positive trajectory for the fifth straight week (up 14.6%), with Realtors entering 2,913 properties into the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) compared to 2,542 for the same week last year. 

Pending listings climbed for the eighth consecutive week (up 23.4%), with a total of 2,824 listings that went under contract versus 2,289 pending listings during the same week of 2020.

Off-market listings remained 30.1% lower than the same period last year, with a total of 858 homes went from active to off-market listings compared to 1,228 last year. 

Property showings rose considerably during week 16, with 49,314 showings compared to 34,938 last year (up 41.1%). There was also a combination of 3,763 in-person and virtual open houses. 

HAR.com listing views were up 3.0% compared to last year, with 13,863,792 listing views during week 16 of this year compared to 13,462,106 listing views during the same week the previous year.