National News

Inventory in Houston Starts 2014 on Wrong Foot, Drops 18.5%

Houston’s housing inventory blues have not improved much with the New Year. Houston’s housing market has distinguished itself from other national markets in several ways the past few months; unfortunately, the area’s rapidly declining housing inventory has been one

Trulia: Houston Asking Prices Leap 13.5% in January

Houston’s housing market continued to grow in confidence in January. Asking prices in the Houston-area housing market increased 13.5 percent year-over-year in January, according to the latest Price Monitor from real estate website Trulia. That continued Houston’s track record of strong

CoreLogic: Houston Home Prices Rise 10.7% in 2013

Houston’s housing market showed some definite positivity in 2013, according to CoreLogic. Home prices in the Houston marketplace rose 10.7 percent in 2013, according to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Index. That was the sixth strongest yearly increase of all the

Census Bureau: Residential Construction Jumps 18% in 2013

Last year proved a very positive one for residential new construction, according to the final Census Bureau numbers. Residential construction spending finished out 2013 at a very fine $352.6 billion, according to the final number crunching by the U.S.

Redfin: 26% of Houston’s Listings Pending in Two Weeks

Has Houston’s housing market picked up any steam in the last year, or is it moving sideways? We’ve been reporting with marked regularity on how the nation’s housing market has slowed down, but is that trend consistent here in

NAR: Housing Inventory in Houston Drops 13.3%

Housing inventory is something we follow pretty closely, and realtor.com’s latest numbers suggest quite a bit about the current housing market. Oh housing inventory, how we love you. One of the major narratives of the housing recovery, it seems

CoreLogic: Houston Foreclosure Inventory Down 16%

Houston’s foreclosure inventory continues to improve, according to the latest research by CoreLogic. Houston’s foreclosure marketplace continued to improve at the end of 2013, according to CoreLogic’s latest National Foreclosure Report. In Dec. 2013, just 1.0 percent of the Bayou City’s

Pending Home Sales Drop 8.7% in December, is Housing in Trouble?

Last year closed out on a sour note for pending home sales, according to NAR’s final tally. Dec. 2013 was a rough month for pending home sales, with the Pending Home Sales Index dropping 8.7 percent from November to

NAR: Existing-Home Sales Leap 9.1% in 2013

Existing-home sales enjoyed a very healthy 2013, though it’s unlikely the market will repeat that performance in 2014. The housing market capped off a successful year in existing-home sales in December, with sales rising 1.0 percent from November to

3 Reasons Not to Freak Out About the Weak New Home Sales Data

The Census Bureau’s latest report on new home sales was a bit weak, but that does not mean that the sky is falling. We’ll get the bad news out of the way first: the sales of newly built single-family

Texas Home Prices Remain Positive in November Case-Shiller

November 2013 was a good month for home prices in Houston, according to the latest Case-Shiller report. Texas’ housing market retained its steady, unwavering character in the Standard & Poor’s latest Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the most authoritative look

Compared to Int’l Markets, Real Estate in Houston is a Steal

We may complain about high housing costs in the U.S., but internationally speaking, we don’t have a leg to stand on. It’s a common complaint among consumers that their rent/mortgage payments are too high, but if they only knew

The 7 Costs of a Single-Family Home’s Construction

We’ve looked at how newly built homes are priced and how those prices have changed in recent years; now, we look at costs. The last couple weeks, we’ve looked at both how a single-family home is priced and how

6 Nuances to the Latest New Construction Numbers

The year of 2013 was a promising one for new residential construction, though there remains considerable room for improvement. We’ll start with the good news: housing starts in the U.S. were up 18.3 percent year-over-year in 2013 and building

NAHB: Builder Confidence Dips Slightly in January

Homebuilder confidence declined a smidgen in January, though it remained in positive territory. Builder confidence for the newly built, single-family home market declined a single point from 57 to 56 in January, according to the latest Housing Market Index

How Have the Cost & Price of New Homes Changed?

The costs and prices of newly built single-family homes are hardly static, the data shows. Last week, we reported that a newly built single-family home in 2013 cost $399,532 to homebuyers, and we looked at the seven components of

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