Active listings have soared to nearly a 15-year high in the Houston metropolitan area, putting sellers on notice and buyers in an unfamiliar position of power.
Total active listings for homes and condos in April hit 43,244, up 36% from April 2024, according to the Houston Association of Realtors. The number of listings in the 10-county region hasn't been higher since July 2010, said Brittany Aucion, spokesperson for the Realtor group, in an email.
In Galveston, a market rife with short-term rentals and investment properties, there were 1,369 home and condo listings as of the end of April, up 41.6% from a year earlier, according to the Texas Association of Realtors. That represents an 18.2-month supply, meaning it would take that long to sell all the properties if no more were listed. A market balanced equally between buyers and sellers has between four and six months of supply, agents say.
The rise in listings is likely the result of sellers locked into historically low mortgage rates from the pandemic finally realizing they can't stay put indefinitely and are chasing new jobs in other towns or states, according to Jennifer Wauhob, a Houston-area agent and the 2025 chair-elect for the Texas Association of Realtors. Spikes in insurance rates, particularly in Galveston and other coastal areas, could also be contributing to the deluge of listings, she added.
Wauhob said she and her colleagues at the Better Homes and Gardens Gary Greene brokerage were using the latest figures to counsel sellers and advise buyers that they were in a better position than they may have thought.
"There are exceptions to everything, but generally homes have to be in good shape, priced well, staged and have good photography," she said in an interview. "You need to present your best when you hit the market. Buyers have options now."
Meanwhile, the surge in for-sale signs has helped flatten prices in the Houston region. The combined median price for homes and condos in April was $335,000, the same as the prior April, according to the Houston Association of Realtors. Houston home and condo sales fell 3.5% in April from a year ago to 9,283.
Houston also shows a leveling out of prices, according to Homes.com data. At the end of April, the city's median sale price was $314,400, up 1% from April 2024. Nearly six out of every 10 Houston residents are homeowners, the data shows.
Despite the crush of listings, Houston is the second-fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country, adding more than 198,000 residents between 2023 and 2024, according to the U.S. Census. New York-Newark-Jersey led the U.S. with more than 213,400 new residents, while Dallas was third at nearly 178,000.
The Houston metropolitan area continues to be one of the nation's better-performing markets for employment growth, according to Itziar Aguirre, a Houston-based senior director of market analytics for Homes.com and CoStar. She noted that the labor market has more than 300,000 more jobs than before the pandemic, among the most substantial gains in the country.
“Our young population, affordability, warm climate, low taxes, generally pro-business environment, diversity and culture are all central to Houston’s draw and explain why we continue to attract new residents,” Aguirre said in an email. “Furthermore, we’ve done a great job of diversifying our economy. While it is still very much an oil town, we have made great progress in fostering other industries, such as healthcare, aerospace and biomedical research."
For buyers, adjusting to the new reality means enjoying more leverage and not feeling rushed to make full-price offers, as they've had to do for most of the past several years. And while sellers don't get to call as many shots, Wauhob said, they also benefit when they turn around and become buyers themselves.
"This market is better for everybody," she said.