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Here's where Houston ranks as a top U.S. housing market in 2021, according to experts

Real-estate experts say Austin will be the top housing market in the U.S. in 2021.

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In news that is likely to surprise no one, experts say Houston will be one of the nation's hottest housing markets.

According to the Q4 2020 Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey, real-estate experts, economists, and investment strategists say Houston will outperform the national housing market. The report, which was conducted by independent research company Pulsenomics, includes predictions about home-value growth in the largest 20 U.S. markets in 2021.

Houston ranked 12th overall, with 32 percent of experts saying the Bayou City will outperform the national average.

Also hardly surprising, Austin topped the survey as the No. 1 destination in 2021. Experts had previously predicted Austin’s housing market would be the hottest in 2020. By mid-December, when the median list price for homes in the Austin metro area had risen year-over-year by more than 23 percent — the biggest increase among the 50 largest U.S. markets — it was clear the Capital City would outpace all other large markets in 2020, according to the report.

Driving the housing growth in Austin are a number of factors, among them the seemingly immense exodus of tech companies and workers from the West Coast to Central Texas. This presumption is supported by the Zillow report, which notes San Francisco and Los Angeles land at the bottom of the 20-city list in terms of predicted housing growth this year, alongside New York City.

Even the New York Times recently noted the massive influx of techie San Franciscans moving to Central Texas, claiming Austin is their No. 1 relocation spot, with the paper saying it is the Texas city closest in spirit to the Bay Area and calling out recent news of growth in the local tech industry from such big-name players as Apple, Amazon, and Tesla.

The Zillow report notes another reason Austin’s housing market is the hottest is because, well, it’s hot here. In fact, it is mostly Sun Belt cities, including Austin, Phoenix, Tampa, and Nashville, that are expected to outperform the nation’s housing growth in 2021.

“These Sun Belt destinations are migration magnets thanks to relatively affordable, family-sized homes, booming economies, and sunny weather,” Jeff Tucker, a Zillow senior economist, said in a release. “Record-low mortgage rates and the increased demand for living space, coupled with a surge of millennials buying their first homes, will keep the pressure on home prices there for the foreseeable future.”

Meanwhile, Dallas-Fort Worth claimed the No. 6 spot, with 54 percent of real-estate experts saying the area will outperform the national home-value-growth average.

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2 Houston suburbs had the priciest rents in the metro in November

Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash

Asking rent for a single-bedroom apartment in Houston came out to $1,210 in November, Zumper said.

After American shoppers spent $11.5 billion on Black Friday this year, it's safe to say everyone is watching their wallets this holiday season, including renters. And a new Zumper report is shedding light on the Houston-area cities that are shelling out the most for their rent.

The report analyzed active listings from the previous month across all cities in the Houston metro. It tracked the most and least expensive rent prices for one- and two-bedroom apartments, and determines the cities with the fastest growing rents. Listings were aggregated by city to calculate median asking rents.

Sugar Land had the highest rent prices in the Houston area in November, the report found. The median rent price for a single-bedroom apartment came out to $1,480 last month. That's $30 higher than the median asking rent for the same apartment in June.

For two-bedroom units, median rent prices in Sugar Land rose 4.3 percent from October to $1,940.

Pearland had the second-highest rents in the metro last month. Single-bedroom units had a median asking price of $1,370 per month, while two-bedroom units had a $1,700 price tag in November.

Residents in both Pearland and Sugar Land are expected to spend more than $3,100 on their holiday presents this year, a recent WalletHub study revealed, which means they may be keeping a closer eye on their budgets than other Houston-area residents.

Meanwhile, Houston proper had the third-priciest asking rents in the entire metro area in November. Median asking rent for a one-bedroom unit totaled $1,210 in November, and two-bedroom units had a $1,480 price tag.

These are the median rent prices for one- and two-bedroom apartments around Houston:

League City – $1,180 for one-bedroom units; $1,410 for two-bedroom units
Spring – $1,170 for one-bedroom units; $1,530 for two-bedroom units

Houston-area cities with affordable rent compared to the statewide median
Zumper found the statewide median rent for a one bedroom apartment came out to $1,126 last month.

Huntsville, a city 70 miles north of Houston, had the most affordable rent for a one-bedroom unit in the region, with median prices adding up to $880. The report also found that Huntsville's single-bedroom rent costs are surprisingly 6 percent more expensive than they were a year ago. However, the median cost for a two-bedroom unit in Huntsville – $1,000 – is the same asking price as it was in November 2024.

Six more Houston-area cities had more affordable single-bedroom rent prices than the statewide median:

Galveston – $1,110
Conroe – $1,100
Baytown – $1,000
Lake Jackson – $920
Pasadena – $910
Texas City – $890

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Here's where Houston ranks as a top U.S. housing market in 2021, according to experts

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