HOUSTON – When it comes to the booming Houston real estate market, it’s all about location and price. According to the Houston Association of Realtors, single-family home sales grew from 47.4% in April 2021, with 9,105 homes sold across the greater Houston area, in comparison to 6,175 in April 2020, which means finding a home and making an offer before someone else does is the key to landing your dream home.
The Sinha family knows all about the competitive Houston real estate market. After spending months at home during the pandemic lockdown, the couple decided it was time for a bigger home.
“So one of the things that happened during COVID was we were not able to entertain. We wanted outdoor space,” the family said.
They also wanted an area for a home gym and more space in their backyard and pool area.
But they also still had a mortgage on the home they currently lived in, so they needed a mortgage product that would allow them the flexibility of finding their new home while they still owned.
They found it on Knock Home Swap, which would allow them to finance a new home while they still had the mortgage on the home they owned.
Could Home Swapping Be the Wave of the Future?
The Sinha family used the Knock Home Swap program to finance the mortgage on their home.
This is the way the Home Swap program works:
- Buyers are pre-approved for their mortgage
- Buy your new home, without the worry of a contingency since you still have a current home mortgage
- Move into your new home and begin paying your new mortgage
- Make repairs to your old home, with an interest-free loan from Knock Home Swap
- Sell your old home for a profit, and repay the repairs loan to Knock Home Swap
“Think about how you would buy a new home now. The first thing you would do after talking to your realtor is get approved for a mortgage, and usually, when that happens, we’ll tell you how much mortgage you’re approved for contingent on your home being sold,” says Sean Black, CEO of Knock.
“The problem with that is that something like 70% of people are both buying and selling a home at the same time, and most of their equity is locked up in the old home, so they don’t have the free cash flow to put the down payment on the new home to fix up their old home or make payments on their own home,” Black explained.
The Sinha’s said without the Knock Home Swap program, they would have had to wait to enter the housing market until they sold their old home.
“It gave us that cash flow advantage. So, we’re very happy with how this all worked out,” the family said.
On the Real Estate Fast Track
In April 2021, the average Days on Market for Houston area homes was down to just 45 days, compared to 65 days in April 2020. The sales volumes for homes jumped while the average price for a single-family home rose from 20% to $371,854. Sales volumes for homes in the $500,000 to $750,000 price segment actually soared 132.2%, and homes priced from $750,000 jumped 164.3%.
We took a look at some of the Houston area’s fastest-growing cities, according to the U.S. Census. The cities of Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth and Dallas increased by almost 933,600 people. And Texas added 1.3 million housing units between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2019.
So, just where are the people going?
According to the Census, Sugarland and Pearland have experienced steady growth, and Fulshear is the fastest growing city in Texas.
Fulshear Fast Track and Growth
According to the 2020 Census, Fulshear is the fastest growing city in Texas, boasting a population increase of 1311% from 1134 residents, to 16,000 reported in the 2020 Census.