San Antonio Real Estate Market Update 11/17/21

[Cassie Villela]

Welcome back! Let’s take a look at the latest San Antonio Real Estate Market data trends. Read on or watch the video to see what’s been happening.

COVID-19 Update

As usual I will start off with the San Antinio COVID-19 trends. I’m very happy to report that San Antonio has steadily low covid rates. We have fewer people on ventilators and no new deaths. Let’s hope this trend continues through the holiday season!

Local Market Data

This first chart is the Single Family Home Showings Per Week. Keep in mind that this chart shows the starter homes in the range of $125k-225k for this year. We saw a slight dip in the first week of November, which is not something I’d be worried about as that week includes October 31st, Halloween, a weekend with expectedly lower showings as opposed to most other weekends. The showings rebounded the following week, so not something to worry about.

Rental Showings are almost exactly the same as they were this time last year.

Weekly Home Sales are almost exactly where we were last year, which is a good sign.

The Weekly Median Price, just like it’s been all year, is much higher than this time last year. Prices seemed to rise more in October, and during the last few weeks in San Antonio, the average home price has been $315,000. This number seems crazy to me, but this is our new normal. We were surprised in the summer when prices passed $300,000, and they are continuing to climb.

Moving on to the Median Sale Price, you may recall from my Market Updates in September and October the data indicated that these were slowing down, not decreasing, but slower compared to the summer rush. As you can here, the Median Sale Prices climbed a lot in October. So, keep in mind that we’ve had several months of steady prices and then a jump again in October. I don’t know that this trend will continue through November, and I have no other reason for that except that the market is still in high demand. People are still buying and looking for homes. I do know that a lot of buyers decided to take a break in looking because the market was so competitive. A reason for this rise may be that these buyers have decided to jump back into the market after seeing the market stabilize for a couple of months.

With New Listings, we can see that over the last several months, in August and September, there had been a decline in the new number of listings, but this month things seem to have leveled out. I hope that this means we are reaching a more balanced and predictable market. New Listings seem to have balanced out as have the homes for sale.

New Listings seem to have balanced out as have the Homes for Sale, so this is the total homes on the market. You can see that over the last several months now, this trend has been consistent. This is a great sign in my opinion.

Pending Sales decreased slightly and then leveled out in the last month. So again, I hope all of these signs indicate a market plateau or a more balanced and predictable market.

Close Sales did decline in October, but I think that if we look back to the New Listings from a couple of slides ago, over the last couple of months the New Listings were dropping. So, in my mind, it makes sense that Close Sales would follow because there are fewer homes for people to buy. I don’t believe that this decline over the last couple of months means that the market is slowing down. I think that as we are reaching some kind of equilibrium, we are seeing things even out. I fully expect now that New Listings plateaued and even increased some, Close Sales will follow the same trend next month.

Days on Market are still on the rise. I say this with a caveat because in the summer Days on Market were less than 20. We were in the teens, so they are climbing, but to like 22 Days on Market, which is phenomenal by any measure. So, this isn’t something I’d use as a sign that the market is slowing down, as 22 days is still fantastic.

Price Per Square Foot is also plateauing. You can see that especially in these mid ranges, like the starter homes and the next level up, prices have plateaued over the last three months. Luxury homes over $325,000 have gone up slightly, but everything has leveled out in terms of Price Per Square Foot, which is a great thing. So Total Price Per Square Foot in San Antonio is climbing to $160 per square foot, which is very high. You can see that back in January 2020, prices were at $120 per square foot. If we look at it year to year we are seeing the increase, but over the last several months, things are stable.

You can see that Percent of Last List Price, there was a bubble the summer, where buyers were paying well over list price. This pushed that percent of list price over 100%, over 101% of list price. A few months ago we saw this drop back down to 100%, which is still fantastic. It indicates that this market is still hot, it’s still a seller’s market, and as a buyer, you will still need to be prepared to offer list price or possibly a bit more. I don’t want you to think that prices are falling, it’s just that the summer rush is over and we are getting back to normalcy. I mean normal for the last couple of years, this is still very not normal for San Antonio compared to the last five years by any stretch of the imagination. I usually don’t point this out, but the dark blue line, homes under $164,000 or less, is kinda all over the place because this includes homes with significant issues, such as foundation problems, for them to be so low in a market where the median price is $315,000. These are investor specials and are expected to be all over the place. The lines I’d pay attention to are the aqua and orange lines; these are the more average home range and are better indicators of the health of the market.

We saw month supply creeping up over the last few months, but now it seems stable. I feel like I keep saying the same thing over and over, but once again, I think several months of stability indicates that the market is finding a new equilibrium for San Antonio. I don’t think the market is going up or down but just holding steady, at least for the immediate future.

Below, I’ve included some charts from Independence Title. Check out their website, especially the tools and resources section. I’ve only included a few charts, but they even have information on neighborhoods as well as other resources that will be very useful if you are new to San Antonio or are buying from out of state. Most of my slides focus on one year of data because I’m looking for slight fluctuations to gain insights into as a seller how am I supposed to act, or as a buyer, how do I need to price my home? But, these slides from Independence Title have 5 years of data and we can look at what the market has been historically in San Antonio. You can see that in 2021 we are following almost the same trajectory as 2020. It’s interesting to me that in 2017-2019, all three of those years, there was a significant dip from August to September and then through October. 2020 and 2021 did not have that dip, it was only slight and not as pronounced as the other lines. What this tells me is that even though in those three years we thought those were really hot markets, we are entering unprecedented times. In a normal year, we would expect to have a pretty pronounced dip in November and December and they would slowly climb over January, February, and, march, but I think that this year we are going to have a less pronounced dip if we follow the trends set in 2020.

The Median Sales Price, you can see is plateauing and staying consistent. It will be interesting to see that if in October these numbers begin to rise. Based on the other data we can see a fairly significant increase in October. However, we don’t have that yet because I believe Independence Title gets their data from the San Antonio Board of Realtors, and they release a monthly market statistics report, which is not out yet for this month. We can see that over the last three months, we’ve had consistent prices, and if we compare to 2020 there looks to be a solid trajectory through the end of the year. Prices held through the winter before climbing in the spring. I think we can probably expect something similar to happen this year.

The Average Sales Price is pretty much the same story.

I want to mention that the Sales Volume is the total dollar amount bought and sold in the market. So you can see like $1.6 billion. The difference in the lines from 2020 and 2021 could represent the exact number of homes sold, but because the Median Price has risen so dramatically, the 2021 line will of course be a lot higher. I believe that this Sales Volume isn’t indicating that more homes are being sold, but that they are being sold at a higher price.

Months of Inventory is so much lower than it has been in the past few years. I always like to mention that 6 months is considered a balanced market, not a seller’s or a buyer’s market. We are still under two months, so I’m sorry buyers, it’s a seller’s market and it looks to remain that way for a while. At least it’s a little better than it was in the summer of this year. I hope this data shows we are headed toward a more stable and predictable market because I, personally, want people to be able to find a home and settle here in San Antonio.

Conclusion

That’s all the data I have for today. It seems like a new normal is ahead. if you have any questions or insights into the market that I didn’t include, please mention those in the comments. Please stay tuned and follow for more!