In a tight housing market, Texas is seeing some relief for buyers
In a tight housing market, Texas is seeing some relief for buyers
We don’t need to tell you that housing is expensive. According to new Case-Shiller data, national home-price growth came in at 5.9% year-over-year, marking three consecutive months of new all-time highs. Texas, though, is a different story. In the Lone Star State, the median home price has actually dropped by nearly a full percent compared to a year before.
LaTisha Grant is the executive managing broker at TAS Realty Group in Houston, Texas. She joined Marketplace’s Amy Scott to talk about a potentially cooling housing market in Texas. An edited transcript of their conversation is below.
Amy Scott: Well, you folks in Houston have been through a lot after Hurricane Beryl hit earlier this month. Three million people lost power. First, how’re you doing?
LaTisha Grant: So I personally am doing just fine. And my family is as well. So we are okay. We just lost a lot of trees.
Scott: How about your clients? Have you been working with anyone who had damage to their homes that they’re trying to sell or maybe had a deal fall through because of the wait?
Grant: So you know, with Hurricane Beryl, we didn’t have anyone that lost a home because of it. It was the bad weather that we had prior to. We had a property that basically blew away, the framing just blew away. But, right now, the biggest barrier to overcome is backyards, fences, the trees. I have a client that’s looking to sell her home, but her backyard is destroyed. But overall, to be honest, we made it out pretty good compared to what the rest of the city is experiencing.
Scott: This, of course, isn’t the first storm that Houston has dealt with. Do you think these kinds of events and the headlines they get all over the country discourage people from moving to Houston and buying homes?
Grant: Absolutely not. it’s so crazy. So you know, things are happening all over. And I guess people are just kind of winging it. The job opportunity is still great, homeownership, even though it’s gone up tremendously, it’s still more affordable here than other areas. So that hasn’t hit us yet. I’m not going to say that it won’t because the people that I am working with that are not from Houston that are unfamiliar with this type of weather, they are extremely afraid. And they have communicated that to us on several occasions.
Scott: Pulling back a little bit, how’s the market doing? Generally, we’ve seen, you know, so many struggles to get into the housing market because of the tight supply, the high prices, the still-high mortgage rates. Are you seeing any loosening up in Houston?
Grant: We are. You know, Amy, the last time we spoke, I was saying that I was hopeful that things will change some for our poor buyers. And they have. In our office, I have not seen us write more than two offers before getting an acceptance. Whereas before it was writing offer after offer after offer before you were going to get your offer accepted. So it has definitely loosened up for the buyers.
Scott: So sales have slowed down a little bit, meaning that sellers may be more willing to take an offer from one of your clients?
Grant: Absolutely. A more reasonable offer now. So, gone are the days that buyers are waiving inspections, gone are the days that buyers are saying, “Oh, well, we’ll just take what you give us.” So the good part for many of our buyers is that they are now able to make a reasonable offer on a property —market value, not above market value — and even asked for some closing costs.
Scott: Wow, that is quite a change. Well, another big change that’s happened since we talked was some more clarity about the big settlement with the National Association of Realtors. And the bottom line is it was supposed to make commissions come down a little bit. At least that was the goal of the people who sued the National Association of Realtors. Do you see commissions falling? And how will that affect your business?
Grant: No, I don’t see commissions falling. It’s like the cost of bread. Once it goes up, why would it go down? So I think that transparency is probably the piece that was missing. But I do not believe that agents are going to start reducing their commissions. Now, one conversation that I’m hearing is to treat it like a retainer fee. So I am hearing agents charging upfront fees versus waiting until closing to then get paid.
Scott: Interesting. Do you think a lot of this we’re just not going to know until after August 17 when people start realizing what it means if the buyer is on the hook for a commission?
Grant: Absolutely. That is 100% what I believe in even pretty far thereafter, because we have to wait on the rest of the world to catch up and know that there was a lawsuit first and then we have to see it play out in a transaction. So yeah, it’s gonna take some time for it to catch up.
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