The Houston Mortgage Bankers Association held their monthly luncheon at Maggiano’s Little Italy on Wednesday, August 12. Featured speaker for the event was Scott Davis, Houston Regional Director of Metrostudy. Davis has a particular focus on millennial generation housing preferences and has authored two books on the millennial generation.

In his remarks to the assembled mortgage lending professionals, Davis gave a state-of-the-market assessment of Houston’s housing market and offered his thoughts on the market’s performance in the near future.

“The Houston metropolitan area continues to lead the nation in single family permits. We are down a bit from June 2014 but I believe that is a return to a more normal, balanced market than we’ve had in recent years,” Davis said. “In fact, recent data is showing that the overall Houston economy is stronger than indicated.”

According to Davis, inventory is still low, hovering at a three month supply of available housing on the market. “Equilibrium is a six-month supply of available housing. I see inventory remaining low well into 2016 and 2917, and that’s going to keep the market up.”

Davis also said that an anticipated mortgage rate increase would not suppress housing sales activity and might even stimulate sales.