April 2022 Austin Market Update

[David Ivy]

Inflation is sitting around 8.3%:

Mortgage rates are the highest they’ve been in well over a decade, with a 30-year fixed sitting around 5.25% for prime borrowers:

The median single-family home in Austin is now selling in the $650k range, roughly 42% higher then the 2020 median:

As the Federal Reserve takes action to combat inflation, the pandemic bull run in US equity markets stumbled significantly, with the S&P 500 currently down 17-18% on the year:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to create geopolitical uncertainty:

Against this backdrop, the April 2022 market report from the Austin Board of Realtors shows a strong sellers market that is mostly holding steady from an inventory and sales volume perspective. Though, median prices show double digit gains compared to this time last year. You can see the numbers below for the City of Austin and the Austin-Round Rock MSA:

While the Austin market is facing the multiple headwinds above, the economic and employment outlook for the area continues to be one of the top in the US.

Inventory ticked up slightly to around 0.8 months in the metro for April 2022. That is a very extreme seller’s market. Even if 5%+ mortgage rates, 8%+ inflation, and historically high median home prices cause buyer demand in 2022 to ultimately be lower than in 2021, we are so extremely far in the hole with inventory, that even adding 4 months of inventory would still leave us in a seller’s market. All signs point to prices in Austin continuing to rise for the foreseeable future.