Home prices drop 6.7%

Houston, Texas real estate home prices fell more than any of the other large Texas markets in the first quarter.

The median price for an existing single-family home declined 6.7 percent here, compared with 4.7 percent in Dallas/Fort Worth and about 1 percent in both San Antonio and Austin, according the National Association of Realtors.

Nationwide, sales of foreclosures and short sales accounted for nearly half of all transactions in the first quarter. That’s been pulling down median prices in most markets, the association said.

In Houston, 29 percent of the homes sold through the Multiple Listing Service in the first quarter were foreclosures. A year earlier it was 23 percent.

Distressed homes typically are selling for 20 percent less than traditional homes, according to the national data.

Here, the median price of a Houston-area home sold out of foreclosure was down 13 percent in the first quarter to $81,000, according to the Houston Association of Realtors.

That compares to a 1 percent dip for a non-foreclosure home, which slipped to $163,129.

Still, Houston looks a lot better when compared to the rest of the country.

Nationwide, home prices fell 13.8 percent to $169,000 in the quarter. Houston’s median was $138,500.

Economist Jim Gaines of Texas A&M’s Real Estate Center said Houston and Dallas may have seen bigger price declines than the other major Texas cities because they attracted more new home building.

During the boom, builders developed neighborhoods with scads entry-level homes, many of which sold to subprime borrowers, and are now rife with foreclosures.

“In Houston, you have more of the lower end,” Gaines said.