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Houston home prices jumped 86 percent in 10 years, report reveals

Houstonians, stick to buying houses outside downtown.

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A new real estate report confirms something that Houstonians pretty much already knew: The city of Houston saw a significant increase in housing prices among U.S. cities within the last decade, with median home prices skyrocketing up to 86 percent.

The report by online real estate database PropertyShark analyzed median home sale prices in 41 of the most populous U.S. cities and locales in 2014 and 2023. According to the study, the median sale price of a home in Houston in 2014 was $142,000. A decade later, median housing prices in the city nearly doubled, landing at $264,000 in 2023.

Demand for housing increased dramatically due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when "millions of office employees suddenly shifted to working from home across the country" and many of the city's attractions, restaurants, and events were suddenly gone, according to the report.

The report did not analyze the reasons for Houston's price growth, but it did analyze Dallas' growth, which was the sharpest jump of all cities at 142 percent. It says the jump in Dallas was due to "a notable increase in population, a robust economy (further bolstered by the increase in corporate HQs) and a generally low unemployment rate." Houston likely followed a similar pattern.

According to the study's analysis of downtown-only residential transactions, median sale prices of a home in downtown Houston jumped from $324,000 in 2014 to $391,000 in 2023.

The 21 percent price hike over the last decade reflects a common trend Houstonians already know well: Living close to downtown has always been less sustainable than living in other parts of the city, but as both get more expensive, the outskirts are catching up.

This — a major slowdown in prices of downtown residential properties — was a big trend throughout the country. It's one that started during the pandemic in 2020 and has widened ever since. In 31 downtowns of the 41 locations analyzed, prices grew at a slower rate than they did in the entire city.

"As the pandemic persisted — along with remote work models, which later morphed into hybrid setups — buying preferences shifted from downtowns to more suburban areas and smaller towns," the report said.

Even more dramatic, Dallas was one of nine locations in the U.S. where city-level housing prices rose so fast that they eclipsed downtown prices, along with cities such as Los Angeles, California, Seattle, Washington, and Kansas City, Missouri.

The full report can be found on propertyshark.com.

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rent report

New report reveals how many Texans are paying too much for rent

Photo by Francesca Tosolini on Unsplash

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Millions of Texas renters, both current residents and new arrivals, suffer from wallet whiplash.

A new report from the Texas Affiliation of Affordable Housing Providers shows 45 percent of the state’s renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Renters occupy more than 4.2 million Texas households, representing nearly half of the state’s residents.

Worse yet, 81 percent of extremely low-income households in Texas spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing, the report says. For that income group, Texas has a shortage of 864,000 affordable homes.

Thirty percent is the standard financial benchmark for spending too much income on rent, while 50 percent puts a renter in the “severely cost-burdened” bucket.

“To sustain growth and secure future prosperity, Texas will need more than 320,000 additional affordable homes [rented and owned] to address workforce housing affordability and meet the demands of a growing population,” says the report.

“Today, the state is creating thousands of new jobs,” the report adds, “but housing supply has not kept pace with demand, driving up housing costs and constraining continued economic growth.”

Not surprisingly, people who live in or move to three of Texas’ biggest metro areas get hit with the state’s highest apartment rental rates. Here’s Apartments.com’s list of the 10 most expensive places for renters in Texas, based on apartments whose average size ranges from 713 square feet in Austin to 771 square feet in Plano:

1. Frisco — $1,477 per month
2. Plano — $1,461 per month
3. Austin — $1,417 per month
4. Dallas — $1,413 per month
5. McKinney — $1,363 per month
6. Grand Prairie — $1,327 per month
7. Irving — $1,318 per month
8. Garland — $1,237 per month
9. Fort Worth — $1,217 per month
10. Houston — $1,183 per month

San Antonio boasts some of the lowest average rent among Texas’ 10 most affordable markets: $1,075 per month. Mesquite, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb, also fits into that category, with average monthly rent of $1,052.

Earlier this month, Gov. Greg Abbott announced more than $114 million in grants to help develop or rehabilitate properties, providing more than 4,400 affordable rental units.

“As our state grows, we must ensure that Texans have access to the affordable housing they need to thrive,” Abbott says.

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