Houston neighborhood will have 'hottest' real estate in 2017, brokerage firm says

Homes for sale and under construction in the Spring Branch area. Homes for sale and under construction in the Spring Branch area. Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Houston neighborhood will have 'hottest' real estate in 2017, brokerage firm says 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Spring Branch Central -- an area roughly along and east of Blalock Road between U.S. 290 and the Katy Freeway -- will be the "hottest" neighborhood in metro Houston for real estate this year, according to brokerage firm Redfin.

The designation comes from web traffic to Redfin's website. The company analyzed page views from metro areas across the country to gauge home buyers' interest and compiled its Hottest Neighborhoods Report, listing median price, the length of time homes stay on the market and whether homes are selling above or below asking prices.

In Redfin's data, the Spring Branch Central neighborhood's homes sell at a median of $297,500, spend a median of 65 days on the market and are selling at an average of 93 percent of asking price.

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Galveston's San Jacinto neighborhood -- a triangular area between Broadway Street, Seawall Boulevard and 25th Street -- registered as second-hottest, according to Redfin. In third place was the Astrodome-NRG Stadium neighborhood, the area south of the Texas Medical Center and between Main Street, Texas 288 and Loop 610.

Data show Houston follows the trend seen in other major cities: people are bypassing center-city neighborhoods, where prices are rising the fastest said Nela Richardson, Redfin's chief economist.

"The hottest neighborhoods of 2017 will be those edge communities that deliver urban convenience at prices that are closer to earth," Richardson said.