April 2019 Austin Market Report

[David Ivy]

The April 2019 Central Texas Housing Market Report is out from the Austin Board of REALTORS® (ABoR). The strength of the Austin area economy, including unemployment around 3%, continues to create strong demand for area housing. Despite incredibly low inventory, home sales jumped 15% year over year in the Austin-Round Rock MSA. The median single-family home in the City of Austin sold for $394,450, which is up just 1% over last year. This continues a trend of flat price growth over recent quarters. It appears as though prices are stabilizing in the face of continued affordability and inventory challenges.

ABoR president, Kevin P. Scanlan, sums it up: “In the first quarter of the year, the median price of a single-family home in the Austin-Round Rock MSA increased by just 0.2%, which is a much smaller margin compared to previous years. Between 2012 and 2015, we saw price increases as high as 9%. These narrower margins are a strong indication that market prices are starting to stabilize.”

Here are basic stats on single-family home sales for April 2019 for the City of Austin and the greater Austin area:

Area residents are still finding more plentiful and affordable housing options in the suburbs, especially in Williamson County. April single-family home sales there increased 22.6%, and sales dollar volume rose by 22.3%. Builders are incredibly active along the eastern crescent from Georgetown to the north all the way down south to Buda. According to Metrostudy, “In the last five years, annual home starts have more than doubled in this area. At the end of March this year, nearly a quarter of new homes were on lots smaller than 50 feet wide. This is the direction our market is going —smaller homes on smaller lots and price points closer to $250,000—and explains stabilizing prices.”

The City of Austin continues forward on the renewed attempt to rewrite its land use and development code to address the city’s housing affordability and inventory challenges. The previous effort, dubbed CodeNEXT, failed to win support from major stakeholders and fell apart last summer.