Four Months 2016 Market Report for South Katy TX- MLS Area 36
I like to examine year-to-date data throughout any given year and look at year to year comparisons for discovering market trends. My primary market is South Katy or MLS area 36. Of course I also am interested in MLS 25 or North Katy; MLS area 37 Fort Bend West; MLS 29 Fort Bend-Sugar Land and Stafford; MLS 30 North Western Section plus a few others in Cypress TX.
Four months YTD 2016 versus Four months YTD 2015 for MLS for South Katy comparison shows some interesting trends. Here are the salient numbers:
Units sold in 2016 decreased from 934 in 2015 to 856 during 2016 which is a 8.4 % decrease. At the same time Average prices decreased by approximately 4.8 % from $343,000 to $326,500 during 2016. Median prices also decreased in 2016 by Approx.4.1 % from $315,000 in 2015 to 302,000 in 2016. Prices have fallen for the first time in several years. I think the price decrease is mainly due to energy prices significantly dropping last year and early this year and energy companies continuing lay off almost 20% of their Houston workforce. The low levels of available inventory for the previous several years has cushioned the impact for many months especially in late 2015 and it is having a continuing negative impact.
New Listings also increased by approximately 16.2 % during 2016 and active listing went up in 2016 by approx. 47%. Inventory levels of homes priced above $400K have definitely increased and probably will continue to do so during the rest of 2016. There appears to be a fairly large inventory of available homes priced at the $500,000 plus level. Sellers at these higher price points will have to wait a longer period of time to get their home sold.
Days on the market have moved from 47 days to 58 days and months of inventory which were almost hyper market level numbers during recent past years went from 2.3 months to 3.7 months in 2016. Obviously South Katy is still, depending on the price point, a seller's market at the lower price points but weakening quickly.
Pending sales have increased by a huge amount from 738 to 1,216 or about 65%.
Demand for affordable family homes has risen in South Katy and available inventory is still very low. I consider affordable to be homes priced at $300,000 or less. The demand and supply equation gets much worse when looking for homes priced at less than $200,000.
I personally think units of sale in 2016 will continue to drop and prices will continue to move downwards. Some older neighborhoods especially those with a high level of rental homes will probably experience a fairly large price decrease during the remainder of 2016 and some neighborhoods will probably experience a small price increase. I do not see new home builders reducing their prices. The best new home buyers might see are larger builder price incentives which has started to occur in certain communities.
If you have questions about South Katy market or any other surrounding area call me and let's get started finding you and your family a home. These are general market trends and every home needs to be evaluated by itself.
Four Months 2016 Market Report for South Katy TX- MLS Area 36
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