Recommendations for Buying Primary Residence in Houston Area

Recommendations for Buying Primary Residence in Houston Area

Flipper/Rehabber · Houston, TX · Member since 2016 · 77 posts · 19 votes

Hi All, 

It's been a while since I've been on the site. I'm reaching out to see if any BP'ers are extensively familiar with the Houston market. I just moved down here about 6 months ago (right after Harvey) and I'm currently looking for a new primary residence. I know a decent amount but definitely not enough to say I'm overly confident in this FAST moving market. 

We've found a perfect home in the Rosenberg area with everything we want but from what I'm reading the school systems are just so-so. Although I was just told not to put too much stock in to GreatSchools, SchoolDigger, Niche and others reviews. It's in the Reserves at Brazos/Enclave area.

For whatever reason it seems these homes are moving slow, and potentially having an issue holding value. Nonetheless it's an extremely new area and I'm curious as to if I should make the jump here or raise my price limit and look into other well-established areas with solidified school systems such as Pearland, Katy, the newer areas of Richmond (Long Meadow, Harvest Green...). Some of the reasons I'm considering on making the jump into this area is because they are steadily continuing to develop at a crazy rate, it has good highway access, the neighbors are cool and the location to the shopping center makes it ideal. My drawbacks are that because it's so new it could still be a serious risk in losing money, there's no guarantee the school systems will turn around once built out, and it has high HOA fees. Let me know your thoughts. Anything constructive is appreciated.

Just another little pre-qualifier...I am currently working with a really good realtor but I'm on here asking because I value different perspectives and opinions. Also we're looking for newer builds and aren't interested in renovating because my lady is due soon. 

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  • Real Estate Agent · Houston, TX · Member since 2017 · 117 posts · 34 votes
    8y
    Hi Ryan Collins your realtor should be able to provide some feedback on these questions very quickly. As per growth, everything is growing North and West. School systems are important. You can do a basic search for the top school districts and you’ll find out pretty fast what’s what. PM me for some more details. TREC (Texas Real Estate Commission) frowns upon agents and steering. And that’s why I mentioned doing a search. You’ll find out very quickly!
  • Residential Real Estate Broker · College Station, TX · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 969 votes
    8y

    @Ryan Collins. Go here for Texas Education Agency Ratings of School Districts & Campuses. 

    https://tea.texas.gov/2017accountability.aspx

    Even with these ratings an In'The-Know REALTOR can provide valuable insight. As an Agent in Austin several years ago, one of the top HS in the city got a very low overall rating, but when you dug into the data, it was because there had been too many minority students dropped out of the HS remedial programs. As this particular school had a very low majority / minority ratio, only a few dropouts greatly skewed the data.  

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