Five Months 2016 Market Report for South Katy TX- MLS Area 36
I prefer 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 plus a few others in Cypress TX.
Five months YTD 2016 versus Five months YTD 2015 for MLS for South Katy comparison shows some interesting trends. Here are the salient numbers:
Units sold in 2016 decreased from 1,234 in 2015 to 1,199 during 2016 which is a 2.8 % decrease and shows improvement from earlier periods this year. The Four months 2016 vs 2015 indicated a unit sold decrease of approx. 8.4% . At the same time Average prices decreased by approximately 4.9 % from approx $346,000 to $328,700 during 2016. Median prices also decreased in 2016 by Approx. 5.4 % from $317,000 in 2015 to $300,000 in 2016. Prices have fallen for the first time in several years. South Katy generally is a stable market which shows gradually rising prices. I think the price decrease continues to be mainly due to energy prices dropping significantly last and early this year and energy companies laying off almost 20% of their Houston workforce. The layoff trend will continue for a few more months based on what experts are saying. The low levels of available inventory for the previous several years has cushioned the impact for many months especially in late 2015 and now it is starting to have have a negative impact on 2016 sales and prices.
New Listings also increased by approximately 10.3 % during 2016 and active listing went up 2015 by approx. 42%. Inventory levels of homes priced above $350 K have definitely increased and probably will continue to do so during the rest of 2016. There is a lot of homes available for sale priced at $500,000 and above price level.
Days on the market have moved from 46 days to 57 days and months of inventory which were almost hyper market level numbers the last few years went from 3.0 months to 4.2 months in 2016. Obviously South Katy is still, depending on the price point, a seller's market but weakening each month this year.
Pending sales have decreased by a small amount from 1,504 to 1,494 or about .7%.
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 but has improved in the last few months of 2016 and prices will continue to move downwards. Some older neighborhoods will probably experience a fairly large price decrease during the remainder of 2016 and some neighborhoods will probably experience a small price increase or stay flat. I do not see new home builders reducing their prices. The best new buyers might see are larger builder price incentives which has started to occur in certain communities.
If you have questions about the South Katy market or any other surrounding area call me and let's get started finding you and your family a home. There are still excellent opportunities to buy a really nice home. If you like some information about these available family homes, I can create a custom search for you which will be presented to you on your own web page. These are general market trends and every home needs to be evaluated by itself.
There is no implied or express warranty or guarantee of accuracy of the above figures. All figures were obtained from the Houston Association Realtors MLS system. These market numbers are constantly changing on a daily basis as this is a very dynamic market.
Five Months 2016 Market Report for South Katy TX- MLS Area 36
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