Austin, known for having one of the hottest real estate markets in the nation, is starting to show a few signs of cooling off — just a bit.
While the pace of sales continues to increase and the median price for a home in the Austin metro area are still up, year-over-year, the rate of that growth has slowed slightly.
The pace of sales in the Austin metro area increased by only 2.8 percent in the first half of 2017, compared to the 6.1 percent increase in sales activity recorded in the first half of last year.
Meanwhile, the median price of a home increased 6.4 percent in the first half of this year, reaching $300,000. Last year, median prices increased 7 percent, compared to the first half of 2015, to $282,000.
“While this is less than the double-digit home price increases experienced over the last few years, the impact on housing affordability for the typical Central Texas homebuyer is still significant,” said Brandy Guthrie, president of the Austin Board of Realtors. “In the City of Austin, for example, the median price for single-family homes in the first half of 2017 was more than $26,000 higher than the same time period in 2016.”
More homes were listed in the metro during the first half of 2017 than the year prior, with active listings climbing by 15 percent to 6,153.
“Homes are spending more time on the market and housing inventory levels have slowly increased throughout the year,” Guthrie said. “While it could take years for the region’s housing market to achieve balance between home buying and selling activity, these trends indicate that the Central Texas housing market could finally be moving in that direction.”
Recent analysis by the Federal Reserve shows slowing economic growth in Central Texas. And that’s somewhat troubling because housing costs continue to rise.
“Housing affordability is more than just one’s ability to buy a home where one lives and works — it’s also one’s ability to be a participant in their local economy,” Guthrie said. “This ability is increasingly strained as rising home prices push more and more Austin residents into surrounding areas to find an affordable home, increasing distances between housing, workplaces and essential services.”
Here are a few other key stats from the Austin Board of Realtor’s housing report on the Austin metro area in the month of June.
- Median Price for Single-Family Homes in the Austin Area — $314,000
Single-Family Homes Sold in the Austin Area — 3,415
Average Number of Days on the Market — 45
Total Dollar Volume of Homes Sold in the Area — $1.35 billion
Months of Housing Inventory Available — 3.1
New Listings — 4,335
Active Listings — 7,672
Pending Sales — 3,148