YOU’RE NOT FROM TEXAS, BUT TEXAS WANTS YOUR MONEY ANYWAY

Wondering why a bunch of out-of-towners are afoot hunting down $214,000 homes (such as the Lakewood Forest number pictured here) to buy as investmentsin Houston — just as locals start to feel a bit jitteryabout the possibility of coming oil-price-drop aftershocks? The sudden outsider enthusiasm may stem in part from a roundup of “Best Buy Cities” published last month by Forbes, which purports to tell folks with extra cash on their hands Where To Invest In Housing In 2015. Number 3 on the list, which magazine writers in concert with a firm called Local Market Monitor came up with after exploring data on job opportunities and population increases — is Houston. But all 5 major Texas citiesmake it to the Top Ten. What, oil prices are falling? That just means you shouldn’t buy a home in Midland, declares the quoted expert, whose first name and credentials the article doesn’t bother to identify. (It’s Ingo Winzer, Local Market Monitor’s founder, who lives in North Carolina.) The list is revised annually, though between those efforts Forbes is generally busy producing a steady stream of clickbait ranking cities on various other criteria. [Forbes]Photo of 11711 Cedar Point Ct.: HAR