HAR’s August 2017/2018 market comparisons distorted by Harvey
Thousands of people are still haunted by Hurricane Harvey’s devastating effects as they continue to rebuild their homes and lives. Even now, the storm is affecting the way housing numbers compare August 2018 to August 2017. The traditional yearover-year measurements that the Houston Association of Realtors uses to track market trends have been thrown out of whack because Harvey halted most real estate activity across the greater Houston market during the final week of August 2017 and beyond.
Therefore, this HAR report presents the actual numbers of our August 2018 - August 2017 comparison while offering additional analysis to help provide more accurate and statistically relevant assessment of market conditions by removing the “Harvey effect.”
According to the traditional, full-month numbers, Houston singlefamily home sales rose 37.2 percent year-overyear, with 8,358 homes sold in August versus 6,090 one year earlier when Harvey struck the region. HAR isolated single-family home sales for the period of Aug. 1-24 since Harvey’s effects began to take a toll on the market on Aug. 25, 2017. That analysis showed sales up 7.6 percent in August 2018, with 5,844 homes sold through August 24 of this year compared to 5,433 during the same timeframe last year.
HAR also compared August 2018 home sales to August 2016 — the last August for which a complete month of data were available. A total of 8,016 single-family homes sold back then, accounting for a 4.3 percent increase two years later.
On a year-to-date basis, home sales are currently 7.2 percent ahead of 2017’s record volume.
The single-family home median price (the figure at which half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less) rose 3.0 percent to $236,870, and the average price increased 1.9 percent to $300,670. Both represent the highest figures ever for an August.
“We all know how catastrophic Harvey was and how incredibly resilient our community has been, so HAR has taken great care to gauge Houston’s August housing market performance as accurately as possible given the data distortions caused by the disaster,” said HAR chair Kenya Burrell-VanWormer with JPMorgan Chase. “We will likely see similar distortions in the September numbers, as Harvey’s effects lingered, however current market conditions are healthy, with singlefamily home sales and rentals up despite constrained inventory.”
Not adjusted to account for Harvey, August sales of all property types totaled 9,978, up 36.8-percent versus the same month last year. Total dollar volume shot up 40.1 percent, reaching $2.86 billion.