Hot hot hot Texas home sales

TEXAS – The Texas housing market is hot. The latest quarterly numbers from the Texas Association of Realtors show nearly the entire state is enjoying the fruits of a robust economy.

The numbers for second quarter, from April through June, show homes sales up almost 18 percent statewide compared to the same period last year.

The median price of homes also surged, up almost 10 percent in Texas. In Houston in second quarter, homes sales jumped nearly 21 percent.

Dr. Jim Gaines, economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, says it comes as no surprise that the state’s housing market has remained hot.

"We have, here in Texas and particularly in Houston, have been leading the country in job creation and in population growth and other business activity, health care, public services, business services growth, even our construction sector, which did take a big hit, has come back reasonably strong here in the last year or so, so we’ve been able to attract activity to the area that has sustained the improvement and the growth in the marketplace."

Second quarter home sales numbers for other big cities in Texas were just as impressive as Houston’s. Dallas was up nearly 20 percent, Austin up 18 percent and San Antonio up 19 percent.

With the hot market, the state’s housing inventory has suffered, shrinking to just 4.1 months of available housing in the second quarter. That is more than 30 percent less than the same quarter last year.

Read more at KUHF.