Apex Properties Blog and News:

The January Fresh Report has been published by HAR and Houston just continues to impress.

Average January list prices are up 2.6% compared to last year at $408,076, and I anticipate this number will continue to rise as we get into the spring and summer.

City wide listing volume has returned to a normal level with just over 23,000 homes for sale. It appears we have officially left the Covid market behind.

For now, we are back in what I would consider a "normal market."

With 4-6 Fed interest rate drops scheduled for this year, I am anticipating a strong spring market with good sales activity.

Case in point, we just got our most recent listing sold the very first weekend on market for full list price and multiple offers.

Give us a call when you are ready for a real estate conversation. We will be here when you are ready.

Each month in Cinco Southwest I distribute market updates as a doorhanger. (attached is a copy)

The information is interesting to look at. January of 2024 saw 5 homes sale versus 6 the same month the prior year. The average sales price was roughly $600,000 both years however price per foot was higher last year by $13 per ft.

What I found most interesting was the change in days on market. Jan 24 saw 80 days on market as the average. That when compared to 26 the year prior shows it is taking longer to get homes sold. A lot longer on average...

9 homes are currently on the market, 6 pending, and 26 have closed in the past 90 days.

There has been a shortage of inventory in Cinco Southwest. I'm actively looking for more inventory to sell here.

Please reach out to me if you have questions about selling or the market.  

Click here to search Cinco Ranch Southwest homes for sale.

Page 1 of Cinco Southwest Doorhanger:

Page 2 of Cinco Southwest Flier:

The Fed is believed to be planning to drop the Fed Funds Borrowing Rate at least 4 times over the next 12 months.

This means we could see Mortgage Rates back into the 5's by the end of this year.

If that happens, experts are saying that we could see another run up in prices.

So my advice to you, is if you are thinking about buying a house, the time is NOW and through the next 6 months because if these rates do go down, we will see a flood of buyers enter the market and you could see bidding wars again on homes.

You can always refinance later if you don't love the rate, but the short term pain of high payments will HEAVILY outweigh the pain of having to waive appraisals, overbid and still lose houses.

We will see how this advice ages of course... but this is what I believe right now. This also dovetails with my advice of buying and holding Real Estate forever, you simply need to own it to start and you can refinance it when optimal.

Here is a link to the Forbes Article that talks about the Fed's upcoming meetings.

We have been in San Diego this week learning to become better salespeople and Realtors at the Mike Ferry Production Retreat.

Twice per year (usually January and July), we attend a training event held by our Real Estate coach, Mike Ferry.

Real Estate is an industry where no one has a direct supervisor, and no one has any accountability to do their job daily, other than the accountability they set up with their co workers or coach.

Every professional that is looking to perform at a high level will ultimately hire a coach, and this company helps me be a better agent for you.

When it comes to choosing a professional in a service based business, I would only want to hire a person that is in constant pursuit of improvement....so that's how we've chosen to run our business.

If you've worked with us before, I hope you'll agree the service level and communication was fantastic.

I also hope that if we work together 5 years down the road, you notice that we've somehow improved.

There shouldn't be any ego here. Everyone has the capacity to constantly improve. If we don't, we're squandering our gift to the world.

We are here to serve you if you have a Real Estate need.

Please call me anytime if you've got questions about the market or if you'd like to have any kind of Real Estate conversation. 

If you are looking for a Katy home for sale check out our search here.

*Below is a picture of The Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego - Our home for the last 3 days

The December Fresh Report is in from HAR

The basic summary of this data is we have returned to a very similar inventory level that we had 4 years ago.

The difference now is that the average mortgage rates are about 2% higher than they were 4 years ago, and the average value is up over 30% from 4 years ago. You can see the pre-pandemic comparisons at the bottom of each column. Surprisingly, prices have held on.

The Fed is expected to cut the Funds Rate 4-6 times this next year so if they do that it will further bolster the values and possibly even move them higher.

This brings me back to my message I repeat so often. I am asked constantly on the phone when the best time to buy or sell a house is... and the answer is that the best time is right this second, and you'll realize the full benefit at some point over the next 10 years.

Buy and hold is the name of the game.

Looking to start your home search? View homes for sale here.

Here is what our team accomplished in 2023!

Overall we closed 115 transactions for a total of 39 million in sales volume. Several of our clients had more than one transaction with us, overall there were 88 families that we served.

Thinking about 2024... With the Fed hinting at up to 6 interest rate drops this year we are hopeful for another robust year in the Katy Real Estate Market. In fact, we are expecting it to be extremely busy!

If you're thinking about moving in 2024 and you want an agent with honesty, experience, and positivity to help make the process smooth and stress free then call me anytime!

Looking for a home? Start your Katy home search here. 

Interesting headline this week from Business Insider.

They believe the Fed will cut their rate as many as 4 to 6 times next year as the economy cools.

You can read the full article HERE.

Obviously, an easing of the interest rates will eventually affect mortgage rates as well and may make it easier for thousands of buyers to get back in the game.

If this really does come to pass, we may see the next market cycle start trending up soon.

It will be interesting to see what happens during this next spring selling cycle. Typically we see robust activity during the first half of the year and that's mostly driven by school year needs of families.

HAR just published the FRESH Report for the month of November.

New listing volume is up quite a bit with almost 10,000 new properties listed last month.

Total listing inventory has grown to just about 25,000 homes available and we're finally pulling very close to some of the numbers from 4 years ago when there were 26,257 active listings.

List prices are essentially flat year over year at a 0.1% increase to an average list price city wide of $417,155. This is below our all time record list price of $441,748 back in May of this year. The interest rates are definitely taking a toll on demand and were seeing that affect list prices.

The 4 year price increase is still incredible at over a $100K added to the average list price from when it was $309,496 in November of 2019.

Real Estate is truly cyclical and you can see we are heading out of the seller frenzy and into more stable market for the time being.

I believe this is the time where you begin to stockpile your investment funds and prepare to acquire new investments in anticipation of the next upward cycle.

If you would like to talk about your real estate options give us a call today!  

And use our website for your property search - check out homes for sale in Katy Texas here.

The FRESH Report is IN!

Interesting things are happening in the Houston Market last month.

List prices are up 34.5% over the $321,000 average we had 4 years ago, and even up marginally at 2.1% from a year ago.

When to Sell? 

On the daily....people are asking me,
"When is the best time to sell a house?"