Weekly Market Conditions
Local Activity Reports
View local data and download free local reports online.
Get your market information from a local source.
Find Out MoreWhat's Your Home's Value?
Buyer & Seller Resources
Accurate home pricing in a changing market is critical.
Request a free neighborhood market activity report online.
Neighborhood Spotlight
NE Houston SubdivisionsHome Search Options
Houston Listing Data Home & Realty ToolsMortgage Calculators
Buyers & Sellers ResourcesHouston Metro Links
Local Information
Learn about Houston culture and lifestyle
Information about activities, destinations, events, employment, government, community, recreation and more....
Find Out MoreTexas Consumer Disclosure
Texas Agency Information
Learn about Texas agency
and know who is working for you.
Information about brokerage services
Find Out MoreBetter Business Bureau
Membership Information
Sterling Residential, Realtors
Houston BBB Online Reliability Program Member.
7 Tips for Selling a Home Faster and for More
Online real estate firm Redfin offers seven recommendations for selling a home faster and for more money. The seven tips come from an analysis of academic research, multiple listings service data, and from information posted on Redfin’s various Web sites.
1. Don’t overprice your property. According to a 2002 academic study of 3,490 California listings, homes without a price reduction sold for 97 percent of the initial list price, whereas homes with a price reduction sold for 88 percent of the initial list price.
2. Set your price to show up in Web searches. A September 2007 Redfin study analyzed how online search filters affect traffic to a listing. Because real estate sites filter on price in $25,000 or $50,000 increments, listings priced at or below these thresholds — $250,000 rather than $251,000, or $325,000 rather than $326,000 — get as much as 7.1 percent more online visits.
3. Debut on Friday. A December 2007 Redfin analysis of its online traffic for 119,079 listings across seven markets found that listings that debut on Friday get on average 7.7 percent more visitors in their first seven days than those that debut on the worst day, Thursday.
4. Get sellers engaged with your agent. According to several academic studies, motivated, active sellers are able to sell their property as much as 30 percent faster.
5. Market the property online. Promoting a listing on Web sites beyond the local Multiple Listing Service can drive a significant number of new online visits to a property. A December 2007 analysis of 121 Redfin listings found that promoting the listings on Craigslist resulted in an average of 6.8 online visits to the property for each Craigslist promotion.
6. Have sellers stay put. The study of 3,490 California listings, cited earlier, found that vacant homes were 9.5 percent more likely to undergo a price reduction.
7. Wait to list your property until neighboring foreclosures are off the market. According to a November 2007 report from the Center for Responsible Lending, a foreclosure costs neighboring home owners an average of $5,000 when listing their property.
Latest Blog Postings
Are you choosing from half of the homes on the market?
When you were searching for homes in Houston, maybe you didn’t realize that you were viewing a limited number of listings on nationally-know web sites like Google, Zillow, or Yahoo, but a recent survey suggests just that. The WAV group studied “advertising web sites” and found that many lacked the most up-to-date listing information, with some sites missing between 31% and 64% of the listings, according to their survey results as reported in TexasRealtor Magazine.
Why should I pay asking price if the housing market has dropped 15%
Today’s Houston real estate asking prices are derived from local market conditions based on comparable sales prices paid by home buyers in a particular neighborhood. Despite recent sales volume declines, prices are holding steady across Houston. While that may not be true for all Houston area neighborhoods, there hasn’t been an overall 15% drop in Houston home values. The housing supply is growing — tending to favor home buyers — but it hasn’t increased enough to force home sellers into large double-digit price reductions.
Houston Market Conditions
Buyer & Seller ResourcesSeptember 2008: Home sales down dramatically as Houston recovers from Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike’s impact on local housing sales was dramatic — power outages and property damages forced the postponement of real estate closings across the area. Houston’s residential real estate housing market sales were down significantly in September 2008 with a year-to-year sales decline of 29.5% — the lowest September sales volume in years. Nationally, sales for existing homes were up 5.57% in September.
Markets across the US experienced home price declines of up to 20% or more, while Houston’s median home price for existing single-family housing made modest gains throughout the current year. In September, the median price increased again — jumping 5% in year-to-year comparisons from $150,000 to $157,500. For the US market, the median home price declined 9.0% from $210,500 to $191,600 in year-to-year comparisons.
Real Estate News
- Seller Financing Becomes Popular Alternative
- Good Credit? Home Loans No Longer a Sure Thing
- Some Home Sellers Can Be Lenders Too
- Consumers' Credit Getting Not So Easy
- Nearly 1 in 6 Owners 'Under Water'
- Finding Ways to Dodge Foreclosure
- 10 Most Expensive States for Closing Costs
- Home Buyers Acting On Lower Prices
- Getting a Mortgage Tougher for Buyers
- Economists: Housing (Price ) Declines to Remain Small