Homes sales in Houston for the month of July have set a new record, according to the Houston Chronicle. Low mortgage rates and a growing supply of homes are getting most of the credit. The Houston Association of Realtors is reporting that buyers closed on 8,953 single-family homes in the Houston area, which beats the old record by 568 sales. The jump is 12% marking it as one of biggest year-over-year sales increases in years. The city is also on track to beat last year’s overall totals as well.
“July was a strong month for home sales and rentals across the Houston area,” Shannon Cobb Evans, the association’s chair, said in the report released Wednesday. “We believe that the Houston real estate market is on track for another record year, and that is directly attributed to a healthy local economy, low mortgage interest rates and an improving supply of homes.”
Months inventory — the time it would take to sell all the properties on the market — has been rising for most of this year. It was 4.3 months in July, a slight decline from the previous month, but up from a year ago when there was just 4.1 months of inventory available. The number of homes on the market continues to grow. There were 30,295 active listings in July, up from last month and up 9 percent from a year earlier.
Inventory, however, varies significantly by price segment. The market for $1 million-and-up homes had a nearly 13-month supply in July. The segment just below that — homes in the $750,000 to $1 million range — had a 10-month supply.
