Houston vs Orlando

**Price Trends & Affordability**

Houston and Orlando have both experienced price softening over the past two years, but from very different starting points. Houston's median peaked near $375,000 in mid-2024 before sliding to $350,500 by March 2026 — a cumulative decline of roughly 6.5% from peak, with a -4.0% year-over-year reading. Orlando peaked near $444,500 in mid-2024 and has since pulled back to $419,000, a -5.7% decline from peak with a much shallower -0.2% year-over-year print. The $68,500 gap in current median prices is meaningful: at prevailing rates, that difference translates to roughly $400–$450/month in principal and interest on a conventional loan. Houston's cost-of-living index of 97 (3% below the U.S. average) compounds that affordability edge, while Orlando's 90.6 index suggests broader day-to-day expenses are even lower despite the higher home price — a useful distinction for buyers weighing housing costs against total household budget.

**Inventory Conditions & Market Velocity**

Both markets have seen inventory rebuild from tight 2024 lows, but their supply trajectories diverged notably in late 2025. Houston's months of supply spiked to 4.7 in December 2025 before snapping back sharply to 2.8 by March 2026, while Orlando's supply peaked at 4.5 in December 2025 and settled at a steady 3.0 for three consecutive months through March 2026. With 31,970 active listings, Houston carries more than twice the raw inventory of Orlando's 13,222 — reflecting its far larger population base (7.8M vs. 2.94M) but also its historically high construction output. Orlando's days on market of 67 versus Houston's 50 suggest that despite Houston's larger absolute inventory, homes in Houston are still moving faster — buyers there face less decision time before properties go under contract.

**Buyer & Seller Dynamics**

Cash buyers represent 28% of Orlando transactions versus 24% in Houston, consistent with Orlando's elevated investor and second-home activity historically tied to short-term rental demand. However, that investor share is under structural pressure as Florida's insurance crisis raises operating costs and municipalities tighten STR regulations — factors that could weigh on Orlando resale demand at the margin. Houston carries its own structural risk in flood exposure and insurance costs, which the market narrative flags as an increasingly significant factor in neighborhood-level pricing. Property taxes are a starkly different equation: Houston/Harris County's average effective rate of 2.09% on assessed value versus Orlando/Orange County's ~1.02% means a buyer at Houston's median price pays approximately $7,325/year in property taxes versus roughly $4,274 at Orlando's median — a $3,000+ annual difference that partially offsets Houston's lower purchase price.

**Economic Fundamentals & Growth Context**

Both metros share no state income tax and near-identical median household incomes ($81,417 in Houston, $81,044 in Orlando), but their economic engines differ considerably. Houston's diversified base — energy, the Texas Medical Center, NASA/Johnson Space Center, and Port of Houston logistics — has historically demonstrated resilience through oil-price cycles. Orlando's dual engine of theme-park hospitality (Walt Disney World alone employs 80,000+) and a growing Lake Nona healthcare/simulation-tech cluster provides breadth, though the hospitality component introduces cyclical sensitivity to travel demand. Orlando's 3.5% unemployment rate edges Houston's 4.4%, and Orlando's population growth rate of +2.7% in 2024 alone — fastest among the 30 largest MSAs — signals robust demand fundamentals even as prices have plateaued. Houston's absolute population growth (9.5% from 2020–2024, adding roughly 675,000 people) is comparably impressive in raw numbers, underscoring that both markets retain strong in-migration tailwinds heading into the remainder of the decade.