Houston Housing Market - 2022

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by Htown2013

Home owners don't want to sell and give up their locked in historically low interest rate.

There's many factors, but I have to agree that that's one of them.
I was lucky to refinance when the interest rates were at record low and I locked at 2.65%.

But there's other factors... salaries, unemployment rate, etc, etc.

[Htown2013]

Originally Posted by gwarnecke

That's a major factor suppressing existing-home inventory and thereby supporting prices. FWIW, in the last decade we've upgraded homes twice and quickly paid off the mortgage on the first two homes - but in today's rate environment, we won't be paying off early and are much more inclined to renovate/update than move again (unless we're forced to).

In my part of town, I see inventory as tight as ever and move-in-ready homes selling quickly, sometimes above asking price. I will say that demand for teardowns seems to have slowed, perhaps related to increased building costs and the jumbo mortgages often needed for new homes in the area. But anything <40 years old that can be easily updated seems to move quickly.

Lucky you got in when you did. We had wanted to "upgrade" homes, and had put off renovating/updating, since we thought we'd upgrade. By the time we started looking (Feb 2021) the market was insane, and now it's impossible. With the current rates our present home would cost more than double in monthly payments, with so much more going to interest. That's just stupid. We cannot afford to upgrade anymore in today's market. It is so much harder.

With our kids ages, if we do not upgrade in 3 years, it is too late to make sense. Unless we somehow skyrocket our income in that time, it's most likely we'll stay put.

We are lucky that we have a decent home. I really feel for those firstime homebuyers completely priced out.

[Kaiser Bob]

Originally Posted by Htown2013

Lucky you got in when you did. We had wanted to "upgrade" homes, and had put off renovating/updating, since we thought we'd upgrade. By the time we started looking (Feb 2021) the market was insane, and now it's impossible. With the current rates our present home would cost more than double in monthly payments, with so much more going to interest. That's just stupid. We cannot afford to upgrade anymore in today's market. It is so much harder.

With our kids ages, if we do not upgrade in 3 years, it is too late to make sense. Unless we somehow skyrocket our income in that time, it's most likely we'll stay put.

We are lucky that we have a decent home. I really feel for those firstime homebuyers completely priced out.

We ended up unexpected homeowners due to the market. My family was renting a house in Katy. Earlier this year, my mother decided to upgrade and moved into a new home in Cross Creek Ranch and expected to pay it off when her old home sold. Because we were getting priced out of the area with no respite likely in the near term, she instead put her equity into a newly built Express home in Tamarron that DR Horton was discounting for end of year, had some change left over and we can collectively pay off her home loan from earlier this year when interest was still in the 4's.