Local Market Report - Grand Lakes Katy Texas Year 2011

Local Market Report - Grand Lakes Katy Texas Year 2011

Grand Lakes is a neighborhood in Katy Texas or MLS area 36. Grand Lakes is a Master Planned Community developed by Trendmaker and is located off of the Grand Parkway or 99 at the Fry Road exit. If you and your family turn left and go under the freeway and Grand Lakes is on both sides. If you turn right heading west then Grand Lakes is in the right after all the shopping. There are no more new homes in Grand Lakes as the area was completed several years ago. The development is totally built out and has been for at least 3-4 years.

Grand Lakes is comprised of 1,250 acres with numerous cul-de-sacs. Approximately 20 % of the land is dedicated to parks, hike/bike trails, lakes and recreational facilities. There are also 100 acres of stocked Lakes. There are numerous pools and a dog park. Residents actively use the various recreational facilities. My family and I live in Grand Lakes and we use the facilities. It is really hard to find another area so suitable for walking than  Grand Lakes.

There are currently 37 homes available for sale in Grand Lakes ranging from $150, 000 to $649,900. The low and high priced homes have stayed the same the last few months. The median or mid-point price is $312,500 or $99.83/ sq. ft. with 84 days on the market while the average price is $348,484 or $105.12 /sq. ft. and average days on the market is 96. The Median and Average prices have climbed each month as more of the lower priced homes have sold. There is a good supply of reasonably priced homes (but rapidly diminishing) now available in Grand Lakes as 15 or 40.5 % of the available homes are priced at less than $300,000. There is about a 2 month supply of homes priced at less than $300,000 in Grand Lakes right now. This number of available homes at this price point has decreased the last 5-6 months at a rather rapid rate. As I have said numerous times during the last year, Buyers don’t wait as these affordable homes are selling quickly and you cannot count on a large number of homes priced at the lower levels coming on the market this spring.  What I have seen recently is more homes priced above the $300,000 level are being put on the market or are in the process on coming on the market during January 2012.

The chart shows the current range of available homes at the various price points:

During year  2011, there were 185 homes sold in Grand Lakes with low price being $159,900 and the high being $719,000. The median adjusted price of homes sold for 2011 is $14,250 or $95.41/ sq. ft. and the average adjusted price is $ 326,053 or $99.19 sq. ft. There is approximately 2.4 months’ supply of homes available in Grand Lakes which to me indicates this is a sellers’ market. The discount from list price is only 2% and has been in that range for a long time. We had a neighbor who got transferred overseas and their home sold in 8 days per MLS but in reality it was more like 3 days. It was the case of the right buyer at the correct place at the right time. No one can count on that type of fast sale but it still  happening.

The good news is that units sold during 2011 were 44 homes higher versus 2010 reflecting an increase of 31.2 % increase in homes sold. The median price of homes sold has decreased by a small amount of $750 or .2 %. The discount from list price has remained about 2% for both years and for both average and median prices. However, the median cumulative number of days on the market has increased from 41 last year to 51 days for 2011. These statistics track about the same trends as all of MLS area 36. Currently there are 9 pending sales in Grand Lakes with 5 of those sales priced at $300,000 or less.

The Homes sold for year 2011 on a year to date basis are as follow:

There are no Foreclosures or Short Sales available right now in Grand Lakes. There were 7 foreclosures sold out of the total of 185 homes sold in 2011 and the median sales price was approximately $83 per sq. ft and with only a small 1% off of list price discount. As I have said in several blogs there are no golden rainbow buy opportunities in Grand Lakes or any of the other master Planned Communities in South Katy. If you or your family is waiting for this tremendous buy opportunity it will never materialize.  One of the foreclosure homes sold during 2011 has 4,857 sq. ft. and the final sales price was $464,000 or $96 per sq. ft. As I said numerous times you are not going to find the diamond in the rough in Grand Lakes or for that matter all of South Katy by concentrating on Foreclosures and Short Sales.

As I have advised for months, it is still excellent time to look and buy a home in Grand Lakes even though inventory of available homes in the under $300 K price category is shrinking and I guess this will continue for most of 2012.

If you and your family are interested in this neighborhood or any other neighborhood in Katy I will arrange to take you on a tour of the whole area.

If you or your family would like to search for homes in Grand Lkaes or another neighborhood in Katy or search the Houston MLS go to my profile on Houston Assocation of Realtors.