With just one more transaction scheduled to close in the month of June – that makes a grand total of two, both of which are lot sales – we can give you a preview of the demographics of buyers and sellers of River Oaks real estate for the first half of 2023. (If you are not already receiving our printed twice-a-year River Oaks Market Report, subscribe here to get the final, official numbers.)
Origin of Buyers
The trend for the past few years has been moving in, followed by moving up.
Let us explain: As the energy industry restructured following the 2014-15 debacle, a new generation of buyers of River Oaks properties moved in from other neighborhoods, mostly those immediately adjacent.
Having gained a foothold, many of those relative newcomers strengthened their positions at the top of the financial/legal/trading pyramid of energy and have been expanding their footprint by buying larger pieces of land and either building new mansions or reimagining existing ones.
Destination of Sellers
Most sellers stayed close by, and the majority were in the energy business. Unlike the exodus we saw in 2015-2018, when old-school oil producers who had over-extended themselves were selling out, today’s energy sellers are riding the tide of the newly restructured energy industry and related professions. Most of them are either moving to something fancier in River Oaks (generally the younger ones) or downsizing close by with a place in the country for the weekend or the holidays.
Age of Buyers and Sellers
Those same forces account for the fact that buyers in their 40s represent nearly half of all the buyers in River Oaks so far in 2023. That’s the greatest percentage that we’ve observed since we began tracking that particular data point nine years ago. And many of those buyers were already living in River Oaks, which is why the 40s were also the top age group of sellers.
Areas
After a two-year hiatus, the Country Club Estates section of River Oaks has once again taken the lead, a testament to the fact that there is still plenty of money chasing high-status locations in the neighborhood.
Typically, the areas east of Kirby Drive take the two top spots, but the school-driven St. John’s quadrant is tied in second place for real estate sales for 2023 … so far.
Financing
It’s not as though people moving to River Oaks are so well-to-do that they have no need to ever finance a large real estate purchase. But they do have the advantage of often being able to choose how they pay for their real estate, more than the rest of us.
Rising interest rates have had an interesting, but not obvious, effect on the financing of home purchases in River Oaks.
At this time last year, when mortgage rates were still around 3%, some River Oaks buyers were borrowing to make the purchase, despite having a lot of cash. The idea was to have plenty of dry powder in case the economy took a powder in 2023.
Now that rates for jumbo mortgages are above 6%, many are paying cash instead. And others, with ample cash at hand, are instead financing the totality of the purchase price, thanks to some very generous terms made available by certain financial institutions for high net-worth individuals.
Just for fun, the following were the highlights of financing in the first half of 2023:
Highest cash purchase $10 million-plus
Biggest builder loan $10 million-plus
Largest trust fund purchase $8 million
Biggest mortgage loan $7 million-plus
If you enjoy drilling down into the numbers, you’ll like the mid-year edition of the River Oaks Market Report, which should be in mailboxes by early August. Until then, you can browse several years’ worth of River Oaks real estate articles on our blog.
