​In addition to having more dogs, households are spending more money on them. While the percentage of households owning a dog increased by roughly 6% from 2005 to 2015, total U.S. consumer spending on pets nearly doubled, going from just over 36 billion to a projected 60 billion over the same period. A significant portion of that pet spending is dog related.

Not only are the number of dog owning households increasing, but dog owners have become increasingly vocal. Jurisdictions around the country have been responsive. In the 100 largest cities the number of dog parks have increased from roughly 420 in 2005 to more than 650 in 2015, a 53% rise. 

CDS Community Development Strategies

Link to the video. PDF of the Presentation.

​CDS President Steve Spillette recently spoke to a group of graduate students in the Bauer Graduate Real Estate program at the University of Houston. Mr. Spillette has several years of experience in retail market analysis and multiple degrees related to real estate and planning--including an MBA from Texas A&M University. In addition, he has performed a variety of market studies and financial pro-forma analyses for both private and public clients related to single family and multifamily residential, office, industrial, hotel, meeting facilities, and golf, as well as significant public sector studies related to major investments and strategic initiatives.

In this presentation he details the process and method required to perform a credible retail market analysis. This type of analysis is often performed for commercial developers who want to gauge how successful their planned development will be.

Click on the image below to watch the video on the CDS Youtube channel.

Link to article. PDF of article.

The Houston-area housing market continued to weaken in December amid growing concerns about the regional economy, but it ended the year with a near-record number of home sales for all of 2015, a report shows.

Buyers closed on 73,724 single-family homes last year, falling just 2.4 percent short of the market's 2014 sales peak, the Houston Association of Realtors said Wednesday.

"We have to remember the housing market from 2012 through 2014 was really quite extraordinary. It was really an overheated market," said Steve Spillette, president of CDS Community Development Strategies, a market research and economic analysis firm based in Houston. "We were adding so many jobs, and we really couldn't catch up."

That said, he added, "the hiring boom that drove so much of that increase in population and households in our region, that's over."
​
The slowdown in housing began to take hold late last year. December marked the third straight month of year-over-year declines in single-family home sales.

​See the link for the full article.

Link to article. PDF of article.

HOUSTON – Few people can judge the lay of the land better than an urban planner. Steven Spillette, an urban development strategist also experienced in real estate and urban planning, has done a variety of market studies and financial pro-forma analyses for private and public clients related to single family and multifamily residential, retail, office, industrial, hotel and meeting facilities, among other things.

A native Houstonian, he was educated at UC Berkeley, Texas A&M and Stanford. He launched his own firm, Spillette Consulting, in 2001 and recently merged with CDS Market Research.

He shared some of his prognostications for 2016 with Dale King, a contributor to the Realty News Report.

Realty News Report: The price of oil dipped to its lowest level in seven years in December, a major concern to Houstonians. What’s your outlook for Houston real estate for 2016?

Spillette: Even though Houston’s economy is more diversified than it was 30 years ago, the recent surge in hiring was spearheaded by upstream gas and oil. This boom has stopped and some layoffs are happening. Construction sectors like multifamily, suburban single-family and Class A office space will be much weaker in the coming year. There will be little demand for large-scale office space. Rents will plateau. We don’t need any more upscale apartments in some parts of town. Other aspects of the economy independent of gas and oil seem relatively stable. The southeastern part of town which has other industries will also remain stable or will grow. That area won’t suffer as much as the petrochemical sector. Logistics tied to the Port of Houston and consumer products distribution is strong and should remain so. The things that primed the pump for the massive boom since 2011 have largely gone away. The multiplier effects will still be felt in 2016, but things won’t be crazy. I’d call them unremarkable.

See the link for the full article.