Buyers swamp housing market

   Houston’s housing market roared back in 2012 as job growth and ultra-low mortgage rates brought buyers out of hibernation in a big way. Single-family home sales were up 16.1 percent last year, and prices gained ground, too, the Houston Association of Realtors said Tuesday in a monthly report. A year earlier, annual sales were up about 4 percent. Less than a month into the new year, the market is still hopping. Houses are going fast and at higher prices than ever before, experts say. Some properties are selling before they even hit the market.    “A year or two ago you would get a listing and hope to find a buyer. Now there are qualified buyers, but they can’t find the right property,” said Ken Brand, a sales manager at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Gary Greene in The Woodlands. “It has totally flipped around.” 

   The supply of homes has fallen remarkably low, which has led to bidding wars on best properties.

   The median price of a single-family home reached $172,500 in December — a record high, the realty association said.

   Generally, sellers have the upper hand.

   Housing inventory has fallen to just 3.7 months, meaning it would take that long to sell everything on the market based on recent activity. A six-month supply is considered a balanced market.

   A shortage of new homes is contributing to the supply crunch.

While builders are expected to put up as many as 27,500 homes this year, that’s still not enough to meet demand, housing analyst Mike Inselmann said this month. He predicted housing prices would increase 5 percent this year.   Hungry buyers   Properties are in such high demand, agents with new listings will spread the word to their peers with hungry buyers, and contracts will often get signed within days. When those properties hit har.com  , they’re already listed as pending sales.

   As the overall recovery continues, not all sellers are benefitting. Neighborhoods once laden with foreclosures are having a hard time bouncing back.

   And some buyers continue to have a hard time qualifying for mortgages.

   Houston’s energy industry is helping drive the recovery as companies expand their operations or consolidate workers here in high-wage jobs.

   Housing in The Woodlands and other subdivisions north of the city is benefitting from a number of corporate expansions — the largest being Exxon Mobil Corp.’s plan to move 10,000 workers to a new campus under construction off Interstate 45.

   Houston-area employers created nearly 100,000 jobs last year, said Bill Gilmer, executive director of the University of Houston’s Institute for Regional Forecasting at the C.T. Bauer College of Business.

   This year won’t be quite as strong, but the energy business will continue to bring people here. “There are very few areas in the country growing as fast as Houston,” Gilmer said.

   In December, buyers closed on 5,039 single-family homes, up 11.4 percent over the same period in 2011, the association said in its report, which is based on sales recorded on the Multiple Listing Service in the greater Houston area. It was the 19th straight month of year-over-year increases.

   In all of 2012, there were 62,229 single-family home sales. The peak of the market was in 2006 when agents sold 72,376 single-family properties and builders started nearly 50,000 homes.

   Even with the low inventory, Gilmer doesn’t expect an extended price bubble. “The history in Houston is we can build homes fast enough to keep any long-term increase in prices under control.” [email protected]