Austin housing market returning to pre-pandemic levels, report shows
AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Austin-area housing market is “decelerating” and beginning to return to how it was before the pandemic, a new mid-year report from the Austin Board of Realtors shows.
This is due to a few factors within the Austin-Round Rock MSA, ABoR said:
- Housing inventory rising over two months for the first time since November 2019
- Dip in residential home sales
- Slowed pace of home price growth in June
“The trajectory of our market over the last two years was unsustainable and it was in no way going to last,” said ABoR President Cord Shiflet said in a news release.
Shiflet explained while the market still favors sellers, buyers have more bargaining power now than at any point during the pandemic. On average, homes still sold for over 100% of the list price last month, but Shiflet said ABoR is seeing lower list prices to start with, making way for lower sale prices in the last few weeks.
Across the area, which includes five counties in Central Texas, home sales went down 20.3% year over year to 3,441 closed sales in June 2022. The median price rose 13%, setting a record of $537,475 for the month of June.
The number of homes on the market increased 217.8% to 7,090 active listings, causing housing inventory to jump to 2.1 months of inventory in June 2022, which is up 1.5 months from June 2021.
Shiflet said while home prices are still increasing at a faster rate than what’s historically normal, the market now is still much better than this time in 2021, when the median price went up 43% year over year compared to June 2020.
He encouraged buyers to “take advantage of this increased bargaining power and influx of homes on the market.”
Here are some stats from across the area for June 2022, taken from ABoR’s new data.
City of Austin
- Home sales: Dropped 22.9% year over year to 1,048 sales
- Median price: Increased 7.9% year over year to $615,000 (record for June month)
- Active listings: Increased 144.9% year over year to 1,935 active listings
Travis County
- Home sales: Dropped 24.7% year over year to 1,576 sales
- Median price: Increased 10.2% year over year to $611,500 (record for June month)
- Active listings: Increased 159.2% year over year to 3,292 active listings
Williamson County
- Home sales: Decreased 21.8% year over year to 1,179 sales
- Median price: Climbed 14.6% year over year to $510,000
- Active listings: Skyrocketed 279.8% year over year to 2,294 listings
Hays County
- Home sales: Decreased 4.1% year over year to 490 sales
- Median price: Climbed 18.1% year over year to $452,727
- Active listings: Skyrocketed 338.6% year over year to 1,035 listings
