Houston Ranks #3 in Market for Home Price Growth

According to a recent article by Houston Business Journal, Houston and other Texas cities dominate top markets for home price growth. 

Home prices have been on the rise with impressive vigor across much of the South as well as in pockets of the West and the industrial Northeast. Texas cities — including Houston — account for five of the top six markets where home prices increased the most since 2006

But in dozens of cities across the country, values are more depressed today than they were a decade ago, according to an American City Business Journals analysis of new federal housing data.

ACBJ compared local house prices in the third quarters of 2006 and 2016 using an index managed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The analysis highlighted 10-year index changes for 124 metropolitan areas with populations in excess of 500,000 residents. The FHFA index is measured relative to a 1995 benchmark score of 100 points.

Among the 124 housing markets analyzed, slightly more than half, 66, saw pricing increases during the decade in question, according to ACBJ’s analysis. The remaining 58 areas were down from where they were in 2006.

The national pacesetter during the period analyzed was the Texas capital of Austin, where the value of a typical home soared by 64.9 percent between Sept. 30, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2016. Denver ranked second with an increase of 45.5 percent. Rounding out the top five was a trio of Texas metropolitan areas: Houston (up 45.2 percent), Dallas (43.6 percent) and San Antonio (35.9 percent). Fort Worth took the No. 6 spot with 34.6 percent.

At the opposite end of the spectrum were seven metros where home prices were at least 25 percent off from where they were at the end of the third quarter in 2006. The sharpest decline occurred in Las Vegas, where prices dropped 31.8 percent during the decade analyzed.

Similar declines have played out in other metros that saw homebuilding and home prices explode prior to the housing downturn and subsequent recession. For example, seven of the 14 lowest-ranking metros analyzed were located in Florida, and another five were in California.