The Houston MSA

What?!?!  After my first post, there aren't hundreds of people hanging on my every word?  Heck, there's not even one!!  Shocking.

Quick, before the disappointment sets in, let's get right into today's topic:  the Houston MSA.  For an exhaustive definition of the Houston MSA, click here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Houston.  For the purposes of this discussion, the Houston MSA (as it pertains to single-family residential construction) is largely composed of five counties:

1. Harris,
2. Fort Bend,
3. Montgomery,
4. Brazoris, and
5. Galveston.

Yes, there are five more counties (Liberty, Waller, Chambers, Austin, and San Jacinto) that make up the technical definition of the Houston MSA, but the overwhelming majority of homebuilding occurs in these five counties.

However, when it comes to homebuilding, analysts don't focus on counties.  Instead, they look at "Areas" and "Submarkets."  According to Metrostudy, a national Houston-based firm that specializes in housing and retail data, Houston can easily be broken down into the following Areas:

• Far North,
• Northeast,
• East,
• Southeast,
• South,
• Southwest,
• West Southwest,
• West Northwest,
• Northwest, and
• Central.

Further, each of these areas can be broken down into "submarkets" which are loosely defined areas that share common characteristics.  In laymen's terms (and for the purposes of this blog), a submarket is an area that is typically well-defined geographically and contains housing, retail, and industrial uses of like kind. 

For example, some well-known submarkets in the Central Area are the Heights, Montrose, and Midtown submarkets.  Each of these three, while not seperated too much from a geographic perspective, are very different.  Each one has its own unique characteristics.  These may be as mundane as commuter patterns and school zoning/districts, or to even something as esoteric as the general "feel" of the general area. 

There can be (and sometimes is) a great deal of debate regarding the exact boundaries between two submarkets.  Where exactly does Midtown stop and Montrose start?  As you can imagine, it can be a touchy subject.  It is not the intention of this blog to get into such debates.  Rather, I want to talk about the new homebuilding activities in the different submarkets, and what makes them unique.  In addition, I plan to spend an exhaustive amount of time onthe different builders in the market.

Enough for today!  Those discussions will be for another day!  Next time, I will attempt to define the geographic boundaries for each of the ten Areas.  After that, we will start with an Area and define more specifically the general charactieristics of the existing housing stock and communities, and how that area is perceived by the new home building community (of course recognizing that there are no exact definitions/answers).

If you happen to stumble upon this blog before next time, please let me know where you would like to start!  Otherwise, I'll pick one and go, go, go!!!

Until next time, I thank you for reading and following my blog. (I realize that this a bit presumptuous given the fact that not one person has viewed this blog, but bear with me here.)

Houston Home Boy
11/7/2011