Houston Ranks Among Nation’s Top Real Estate Markets… Again

The list of top markets for 2024 is out — this time with a focus on affordability — and it’s no surprise that Houston is included.

Published by Builder Magazine, the predictive catalog of top markets often zeroes in on a particular feature of the housing market. Last year, the magazine highlighted what it thought would be the most interesting markets. (Houston made that list, as well.)

For 2024, several factors determined which markets were deemed most affordable. The number of new-home communities with homes priced below $400,000 and the ratio of the attainability of the median existing home relative to median incomes were both drivers.

Also affecting the ranking were total net migration and the share of high-income jobs. According to Builder, Houston’s existing-home affordability ratio stands at 43 percent, and it has a total net migration of 1.2 percent. High-income jobs comprise 23 percent of Houston’s job market.

Sixty-two percent of new-home projects in the Houston area — the second largest new-home production market in the country — have homes base-priced below $400,000. All of Johnson Development’s actively selling communities with the exception of one have homes priced below $400,000. Veranda in Richmond is that exception as it is in close-out with only one builder having a few remaining homes. Woodforest in Montgomery and Sienna in Missouri City even have homes base-priced below $300,000.

Helping the greater Houston market is its relatively easy regulation for homebuilding, land availability and cultural diversity. People are drawn to the area because of an overall low cost of living and no state income tax.

Read more on the 2024 top markets for affordable homes here.

Larry Johnson, Founder of Johnson Development, saw Houston’s potential when he launched Johnson Development in 1975. Since then, Johnson Development has opened 13 Houston-area master-planned communities and has three more under development. Many of these communities have been listed among the nation’s top-selling; in fact, Johnson Development has had more top-selling master-planned communities over the last decade than any other developer in the nation.