Texas is still a strong market for home sales, with San Antonio and Dallas finishing last year in upward trends, while Austin is seeing something of a downturn, but one major success story is Houston.
The Bayou City is seeing what Equity Angels Founder and Managing Partner Kenya Burrell van Wormer calls "smart growth," a systematic approach to home building that aims to keep them affordable and resilient.
Such growth will find home building going on in areas where land prices may be a little bit cheaper, which can help make those homes a little more affordable.
Some people may not consider the areas of eastern Montgomery County such as Porter and New Caney, north of Houston, as wide growth areas, yet the Houston Association of Realtors lists them alongside Conroe Northeast, Waller, Fulshear, Simonton, Hockley and Brookshire as up-and-coming home markets.
There's a rhyme-and-reason to it, Ms. Burrell van Wormer says, as part of the area's rational building patterns.
"This is part of Houston's story of smart growth. As popular areas of Katy fill up, we're seeing the next ring of suburbs build up with new communities."
The next ring of growth after the Katy area is moving out toward Brookshire.
That's pretty far to Houston's west, but then again one of the hottest growth areas of Houston now is the inner-city Montrose area.
Yet just like New Caney, Montrose has its place in smart growth too, she says.
"That's among those areas that you're not considering at times because it's not your Katy or your Cypress or The Woodlands, but we're starting to be more creative, where we can build homes and the American Dream."