Housing prices are falling in Houston — and condos are sinking like lead.
The median price of a Houston condo was $182,250 last month, 21 percent lower and almost $50,000 cheaper than a year ago, according to Homes.com. For comparison, Houston’s overall housing price decreased by 1.5 percent.
“People buying condos are first-time buyers on a more limited budget, and those people are most affected right now by inflation and high mortgage rates,” said Itziar Aguirre, senior director of marketing analytics for CoStar.
“And there’s also a lot of new supply. Coming out of the pandemic, we saw a surge of demand here for housing, and developers went bananas.”
Heightened insurance premiums and HOA fees also contribute to the trend, Aguirre said.
Houston is still the best-supplied housing market in the country, but growth is slowing. Inventory stopped increasing for the first time in nine months in September.
Condo inventory grew by a narrower margin than other housing types in the last year, with just 15 more units for sale last month compared to September 2024, amounting to a 4 percent increase. Detached housing inventory grew by almost a thousand homes, a 9 percent year-over-year increase.
Houston and Austin tied last month for the greatest decrease in median home price in the country, with each city registering a 1.5 percent drop.
Other Texas metros failed to counterbalance that. Prices increased by 1 percent in Dallas/Fort Worth and were flat in San Antonio.
In addition to Houston and Austin, only four other cities depreciated: Atlanta, Tampa, Seattle and Las Vegas.
On the other end of the chart, the Rust Belt had the greatest increase in home sale prices, with Pittsburgh, Detroit and Saint Louis taking the top three spots with appreciation of 7 percent or more.
Houston developers have been taking an interest in condos in recent years.
Transwestern, Satya and Marriott International are all undertaking branded condo projects in the area, following Howard Hughes Holdings, which introduced a Ritz-Carlton development to The Woodlands.
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