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Economist Jed Kolko of Truliarealestate.com says Houston will be one of the top five cities next year for housing growth. The other cities are Austin, San Jose, Rochester and the Boston suburbs.
“Five local markets where I think we’re going to see rising prices, or more construction, or some combination of both. These are cities that are going to have good news in their housing market in the coming year.”
Kolko says many cities that had high foreclosure rates will still have a lot of homes on the market which will keep prices down and new construction to a minimum. But he says Houston figures to be in good shape.
“Houston’s got a couple good things going for it. The first is that the economy is growing certainly helped by the energy industry. And so that means that housing demand will be stronger in Houston than elsewhere. People are going to be in better shape to buy a home, or to move up to a more expensive home in Houston, than most places in the country. At the same time, Houston is not hung over from the housing bubble the way a lot of other places are.”
While Houston made the top five on his watch list, he says most Texas cities figure to fare pretty well next year compared with the rest of the nation.