HOUSTON HOUSING UPDATE - FEBRUARY 2023

Every month, HAR releases market data for the month prior. Here’s our monthly housing update based on October’s figures, and our take on how to make sense of it.

If you see February's year-over-year average price decline, or the decline in year-over-year units sold, or the average 30-year mortgage clocking in at 7%, you could be fooled into thinking the housing market is in bad shape. But that's definitely not what we're seeing when you look at all of the context, and it's not what we're feeling anecdotally.

2022 was a record-setting year in terms of home prices, so even though prices have pulled back from those levels, home prices are still way above what they were in 2021 (when the average in February was $348,988). Going back further to February of 2020, the average price was $301,301. So the point is home prices had such huge gains the last few years the current pullback is a modest price correction, and far from a "crash" like so many clickbait headlines might lead you to believe.

Interest rates are back in the 7% range, but we're still seeing plenty of active buyers in the market and there's still a shortage of inventory. Though things have cooled off from the frenetic pace of 2021 and 2022, we're still seeing plenty of selling and buying activity in Houston's housing market.