HAR: Home sales Nov. 2015

​​​​HOUSTON – The onset of the holiday shopping season and continued strains within the energy industry weighed on Houston’s housing market in November.

Home sales fell for the second consecutive month and dragged average price down with them, marking the first price decline since February 2012.

According to the latest monthly report prepared by the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR), November single-family home sales slid 10.5 percent with a total of 4,595 sales compared to 5,135 a year earlier.

Only homes in the $150,000 to $250,000 price segment experienced positive sales volume. That, coupled with a 22 percent drop in luxury home sales, accounted for the decline in average price.

Among homes that did sell in November, Days on Market (DOM) edged up to 55 days versus 54 in 2014.

Slower sales allowed for a slight improvement in months of inventory, the estimated time it would take to empty out current active housing inventory based on sales over the previous 12 months.

It grew from a 2.7-months supply last November to a 3.4-months supply. Inventory has held at about a 3.5-months supply for the past five months and remains below the current national housing supply of 4.8 months of inventory.

While the average price of a single-family home fell 3.5 percent year-over-year to $262,064, the median price — the figure at which half the homes sold for more and half for less — reached the highest level ever for a November, rising 2.2 percent to $200,000.

Sales of all property types totaled 5,623 units, down 10.1 percent compared to last November. Total dollar volume fell 13.5 percent to $1.4 billion. (Data release date was Dec. 10, 2015.)