Where to Buy

Houston named one of the best real estate markets for first-time homebuyers — again

1 On the Market 5226 Mulford St. March 2015

This is the time to buy in Houston.

Photo courtesy of © TK Images

Looks like Houstonians in the market for their first home have chosen the right time to buy. Not only are home values rising (while list prices remain relatively flat), but the city has again been named one of the best for first-timers.

A new report from SmartAsset ranks Houston fourth among the 10 best cities for first-time homebuyers in 2018. The finance company looked at seven factors to determine where first-time homebuyers should put down roots: number of HUD-approved lenders, loan funding ratio, average price per square foot, affordability ratio, stability score, price variance, and number of negative quarters from 2012-2017.

Perhaps the biggest distinction for the Houston market is that "first-time homebuyers have no shortage of options when it comes to banks," says SmartAsset. "According to our data, there are 227 HUD-approved mortgage lenders in the city. For that metric, Houston ranks first."

Houston also boasts a price per square foot of only $87.50 and a loan approval rate of 71 percent. Plus, Houston has seen zero year-over-year quarters of negative growth in home prices. (Earlier this year, Zillow named Houston the No. 3 market for first-timers using a different set of metrics, including price cuts and inventory.)

Texas is home to three of SmartAsset's 10 best markets for first-time buyers, with San Antonio at No. 7 and Dallas at No. 10. The Alamo City is celebrated for its affordability, while Big D is deemed a safe housing market in which to invest.

Five other Texas cities appear on the finance site's full list of 25: Fort Worth (11), Arlington (14), Corpus Christi (16), El Paso (20), and Austin (24).

bests reports

millennial magnet

Houston stars among 30 hottest U.S. metros for millennial homebuyers

Photo by Jose Losada on Unsplash

Houston is a millennial magnet.

Houston and its surrounding cities have already proved to be magnets for millennials, and now a new national housing report has established the city as one of the 15 hottest destinations for millennials, whose local homeownership rate has nearly doubled since 2018.

The number of millennials who own their homes in Houston has grown from 227,365 to 418,698 households over the last five years (84.2 percent), according to a new housing analysis from RentCafe.

The study compared homeowner growth rates versus renter growth rates of millennials — based on Pew Research Center's definition as individuals born between 1981 and 1996 — across 107 U.S. metro areas from 2018 to 2023.

Houston ranked No. 29 in the overall list of U.S. metros that have seen the highest increase in millennial homeowners since 2018. About 49 percent of all Houston-area millennials own their homes, with the remaining 51 percent renting, the report found.

Houston also ranked 22nd in the national list of cities with the biggest growth rates among millennial-age renters. The number of millennial renter households jumped from 397,410 to 439,371 in five years, a 10.6 percent hike.

About 5.3 million millennials have become homeowners over the last five years nationwide, RentCafe's analysts said, which represents a massive 74 percent increase in millennial-owned households. The growth rate of renters was much lower in comparison.

"At the same time, the number of millennial renters in the U.S. rose by a modest 5 percent, adding approximately 600,000 households," RentCafe said. "This brings the total number of millennial homeowner households to 12.4 million, close to the 12.6 million millennial renter households."

While the rate of millennial homeowners is on the rise, the same can't be said for Gen Zers. Less than 15 percent of all Gen Z households in Houston own their homes, while the vast majority are renters, a separate RentCafe study found.

Elsewhere across the state, Austin (No. 7) and San Antonio (No. 10) ranked among the top 10 U.S. cities with the biggest growth rates among millennial homeowners.

The top 10 U.S. metros with the highest gains in millennial homeowners are:

No. 1 – North Port, Florida
No. 2 – Lakeland, Florida
No. 3 – Jacksonville, Florida
No. 4 – Stockton, California
No. 5 – Oxnard, California
No. 6 – Palm Bay, Florida
No. 7 – Austin, Texas
No. 8 – Tuscon, Arizona
No. 9 – Deltona, Florida
No. 10 – San Antonio, Texas

rentcafe study real estate housing report millennials houston