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Houston’s housing market is flirting with stability. Home sales have picked up. Price appreciation is returning to a normal pace. Inventory has improved significantly. And days-on-market, or how long it takes to sell a home, have adjusted to a more typical rate. 

February home sales (single-family, duplexes, townhomes, condos, high-rises) were 7.0 percent above last year’s level and mark the second-best February on record. Single-family home sales, which account for over 82 percent of all transactions, were up 7.6 percent.

The median price of a single-family home this February was 3.0 percent above February a year ago. Prices had trended down in ’23, a dramatic change from the previous two years when prices appreciated at double-digit rates. In “normal” times, home prices in Houston should appreciate between 3.0 to 4.0 percent annually.

Inventory is approaching pre-pandemic levels. There were 39,757 homes (single-family, duplexes, townhomes, condos, high-rises) listed for sale through the Houston Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in February. That’s nearly double the 20,620 listed in February ’22, the low point of the current cycle. Inventory has remained consistently above 38,000 units for the last six months.

Inventory expanded from a 2.5-month supply last February to a 3.4-month supply this February. A 4.0-month supply is considered a balanced market, where neither seller or buyer has an advantage. Months of inventory estimates the number of months it will take to deplete current active inventory based on the prior 12 months’ sales activity. 

Days on market (DOM), or the actual time it took to sell a home, eased slightly from 64 days in February ’23 to 58 days in February ’24.

February saw an increase in townhome, condominium, and high-rise listings, but drops in sales. The market for these properties is small compared to that for single-family, so month-to-month and year-over-year changes are often dramatic making it difficult to detect short-term trends in the data. That said, the median price of a townhome/condo is up 26.9 percent since February ’21 and the median for a high-rise unit is up 27.7 percent.

Prepared by Greater Houston Partnership Research

Patrick Jankowski, CERP
Chief Economist
Senior Vice President, Research
pjankowski@houston.org

Leta Wauson
Research Director
lwauson@houston.org