Rio Grande Valley housing market bouncing back

PHARR – Home prices and sales have gone up over the past year across the Rio Grande Valley.

The median price for a single family home in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metro area is $122,500.

That’s a 3.8 percent jump compared to 2014 prices, according to the second quarter 2015 Texas Association of Realtors housing survey compiled by the Texas Association of Realtors and Texas A&M Real Estate Center.

The median price for a single family home the Brownsville-Harlingen metro area is $123,000 — a 6 percent increase since last year during 2Q.

Across Texas, home sales have increased 4.7 percent overall and median home prices went up 8.1 percent to $200,000.

Cameron County also saw home sales jump 7.1 percent in 2015 while in Hidalgo County, those sales grew only 4 percent since last year.

But there were fewer physical houses sold in the Brownsville-Harlingen market overall — only 577 compared to 697 in McAllen-Edinburg-Mission real estate market.

Overall though, the biggest challenge is lack of new homes on the marketplace.

In Brownsville-Harlingen during 2Q 2015, there is 11.5 months of housing stock before the market would sell out, down from 13.4 months during 2014.

In the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metro area there is about 10.6 months’ worth of inventory, down from 11 months from last year during the same quarter.