December 2016 Reports and January Preliminary Data

New titles for December took a slide from November’s totals, but with a strong 14% gain in single-section titles over December of 2015 we closed the year out with 10% growth across the board for single and multi-section homes.

Looking at specific county markets, Montgomery County actually had an increase in new installs month-over-month to place it first on the Top Five County list for December installs. That strong finish puts Montgomery County at 526 new installs for the year and tied for second in the state with Bexar County. That is all the more remarkable considering Bexar has roughly 3 1/2 times the population.

Harris County though down 11% over 2015 still landed on the top spot for new installs on the year. Be sure to take a look at where your county finished at on our County Annual Totals Report.

With 2016 titling data officially completed, you can get a good look at the distribution of new home installations across the state with our new installations heat map. The counties encompassing the metro centers of Houston, San Antonio, and Austin stand out as the hot markets on the year, while the metroplex is visible, but did not see the same sales intensity. Both Dallas County and Tarrant County did put up solid year-over-year growth however, and with real property listings below two months of inventory and DFW placing second on CBRE’s Americas Investor Intentions Survey 2017, I expect a good 2017 for the region.

The preliminary data for the state for the month of January doesn’t look great, lagging behind December’s pace, but we saw a similarly slow start for the same month last year.