The Houston Pool Market

Where pools are going in, and which households are buying them.

Built from county appraisal permit records, the City of Houston permit archive, county ePermits, and the County Clerk's deed index. Every figure is measured; the method appendix in the full report states each source, definition, and limit.

1 · The headline: pools follow the moving truck

Across 4,579 Harris County pools permitted since 2022 that trace to the current owner's recorded deed:

55% were permitted within 24 months of the owner taking title. Median wait: 639 days — a little under 21 months.

The effect is not just timing — it is rate. Of the 69,430 households whose deed was recorded in 2023, 0.797% permitted a pool within 24 months, against a county-wide base rate of 0.200%:

A household that just bought is roughly 4× likelier to build a pool than the county at large.

Operationally: the freshest owner cohort in a community is the highest-yield audience you have, and the window stays open for about two years. The full report breaks this cohort out by community.

2 · The volume floor

Each publisher sees part of the county; the full report explains why these are floors and must never be summed.

Total pool permits visible county-wide since 2003: 39,945.

3 · Where the pools are going in redacted

The full report ranks every ZIP by recent pool volume, trend, and new-owner cohort size. Sample rows:

4 · Who is winning the work redacted

Statewide we identify 2,355 pool firms by name, market footprint, and annual permit volume — 305 of them active in more than one market. The full report names the leaders in each metro and how their share is moving: