Katy is one of the nation’s most family-friendly places to live, according to a new report.

HomeUnion Inc. named the west Houston suburb on its list of the 30 best places to live for families, based on a combination of home affordability and access to good schools. The Irvine, California-based online real estate investment management firm based its ranking of the top ZIP codes using home sale data from HomeUnion and school data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

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Another year, another population boost for Houston.

According to population estimates released May 25 by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bayou City added 18,666 new residents between July 1, 2015, and the same date last year. When comparing number of new residents, Houston is sandwiched between Austin, Fort Worth and Dallas. The Texas city with the most new residents was San Antonio, and the No. 1 nationwide was Phoenix.

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The cost of commercial buildout isn’t changing too much year-over-year, per a recent Kirksey report, but experts agree that demand in other sectors is stabilizing those prices.

Kirksey’s Construction Cost 2017 Update didn’t show too many changes in material construction costs – the cost of building a one-story flex office building, for example, raised around $1 per square foot from 2016. The volume of freestanding office building projects underway in Houston has plummeted, but an increase in piecemeal office interiors renovations and building renovations has kept construction companies busy.

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Houston is one of the most expensive cities in the world to build commercial and residential projects, according to a new report.

Turner & Townsend, a global professionals services firm based in the U.K., recently released its 2017 international construction market survey. The annual study examines construction costs for commercial and residential projects in 43 cities around the world.

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Real estate retail activity among businesses that target Houston’s growing Hispanic population is drumming up, said Rafael Melara, senior vice president of brokerage services at Houston-based Hunington Properties.

“I am seeing much more activity,” Melara said, when asked about real estate activity among Hispanic-facing businesses in 2017 compared to years prior. “People are trying to lease now because you don’t see as much vacancy. That’s really driven demand.”

Click to read more at Houston Business Journal.