There are alot of examples of 3000 sq ft houses with 4-5 bedrooms built in the last 20 years going for 120-170k in the suburbs of Houston. Why is housing so cheap there? Is this a high crime area or what? Even in bumfuck Arkansas housing isn’t this cheap, and these aren’t towns within driving distance of major metropolitan areas like the Houston suburbs are.
Supply and demand.
Living in a cheap house in Houston (actually in Houston, unlike some of those which are in Katy and Humble) – mine was around $160k for a nice sized 3-2, around 2000 sq ft – I can give a number of reasons.
- Katy and Humble. These are both outlying suburbs around 30 miles from downtown and linked to Houston by irritatingly congested freeways. I-10 links Katy to Houston and it is a nightmare during rush hours. Your commute would be at least an hour. Humble, linked by US-59, is a bit better but still can be irritating (and is also around 30 miles). The other houses linked are also on the outskirts of Houston, which is a sprawling, vast city, with lots of congested freeways, making commutes very long and tedious.
In general, these areas are low-crime, have pretty good schools, and beautiful houses. It is why people love living here, despite all of the drawbacks. There are some exceptions – Alief in the far southwest is kind of rough – but most bad neighborhoods are closer to downtown. As a side note, it becomes easy to build a palatial mansion here, and as such Houston is said to have the highest number of professional sports stars with houses here.
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In general, lots of cheap land tends to lead to lots of new-ish subdivisions on the outskirts of the city. Especially in seller’s markets like currently exist, contractors tend to overbuild. These can lead to drastic fluctuations in these outlying home prices.
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Houses get thrown up here what seems like overnight. Slab concrete foundations are poured, then 2x4 wood studs are used for the frame, with wood/plastic/brick siding and drywall for internal walls. Brick isn’t used much around here – it seems kind of contradictory since we do worry about hurricanes. But building costs are cheap.
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“Houston factors” could be causing huge reductions in these house prices. One of the biggest is the flood plain. Flooding is a huge problem around here, and houses in a flood plain have depressed value (and you end up paying huge amounts of flood insurance). We live a street away from a major bayou which comes over its banks about once every 5 years. Our house doesn’t flood, but we pay enormous amounts of flood insurance because other houses in our neighborhood do flood. Thus for every dollar we save on mortgage, we probably make it up in flood insurance…
Another “Houston factor” is foundation integrity. This is not usually such a big deal, as slabs crack all the time around here, and foundation repair and house releveling is a pretty big business. It can cost around $10k, though, so if any of these houses actually have foundation failure, their price may be depressed because of it.
A last “Houston factor” is mold. One species of mold found around here, especially in our wood stud/drywall houses that have seen standing water (from flooding and leaks) is called Stachybotras. This “black mold” is thought to be damaging to the lungs, and mold remediation is a huge deal (including everything from whole house steaming with toxic chemicals to stripping the house down to studs and rebuilding to just bulldozing the entire house). Many insurance companies will not cover it anymore, and get very leery over flooded houses (or houses with significant leaks) because of this.
Don’t be talkin’ shit about the 'Lief, dogg.
Actually, Alief is kind of ghetto and cruddy these days It and Sharpstown are the oldest West side areas- they date from the late 50’s and 60s. My parents’ old house (near Wilcrest and Bellaire) was 10+ years old when they moved there in 1973.
I think the main reason for the housing values in Houston is supply and demand like Crafter_Man says. Houston experienced a huge housing boom from the late 70’s through pretty recently- there are just a LOT of houses down there.
My parents just bought a 3 bedroom 2 bath house in Meadows Place for around $120k, and you couldn’t get close to what they got if you were buying a house up here in D/FW. Nice neighborhood (residential town), good location, no crime, etc… and for $120. The house isn’t brand-new, but it’s in good shape.
I think it mainly has to do with two things:
1)The availability of lots of wide-open develop-able flat space. I’ve lived in Denver where things are also wide open, and houses were cheap. Now I live in Seattle, where we are hemmed in by geography (steep unbuildable hill sites, and lots of water bodies).
2)Regional Incomes. Are there few high paying jobs in Houston? I dont know, but I bet the percentage is less than on the coasts. Having Microsoft in my area just drives up prices.
All of the houses you listed are far, far west of Houston. They are all right along I-10 which is in the beginnings of a 7-8 year widening project, that is going to cause nightmare traffic problems.
In most cases that far out, brand new homes can be had for a bit more just down the road. Hard for a 10 year old house to compete with a custom build.
I’m not really aware of housing markets around the country, but our housing prices are high way out and close in, with a widening gap of what used to be “the” newest, best 'burbs, turning into below middle class housing, in between.
In my experience, anything between 610 and Highway 6, or 1960 is headed down the shitter.
except Memorial, sorry, I forgot about Memorial.
Thank god we clarified that
Then there’s the old Indian burial ground issue… :eek: