By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News
The Austin area closes out the decade with a record-breaking $13 billion in home sales. Central Texas real estate agents sold more homes in 2019 than any year on record, according to the latest Austin Board of Realtors analysis.
The Year-End 2019 Central Texas Housing Market Report reflects a record-breaking 33,084 home sales and $13,158,737,333 in sales volume.
Austin continued to rank high on “Best of U.S.” lists which have helped in home sales volumes.
“Austin’s unprecedented population growth during the past decade has heavily impacted the real estate market. Compared to 2010, home sales in 2019 increased by 84 percent,” said Romeo Manzanilla, 2020 ABoR president. “That type of exponential growth has put enormous pressure on the market, raising the median home price from $193,520 in 2010 to $318,000 in 2019. As we look forward to this year, the market is not showing signs of slowing down anytime soon.”
Austin is one of only eight U.S. metro areas to have fully recovered in the last 10 years
to pre recession values, said Mark Sprague, state director of information capital at Independence Title.
“Austin’s GDP, which grew 117 percent over the last 20 years, helped the real estate market recover from the recession,” Sprague said. Gross Domestic Product is the monetary value of all finished goods and services made within the area during a specific period. “The closest metro out of the top 50 in the U.S. to see this type of growth was Silicon Valley, which grew its GDP by 99 percent during the same period.”
FOUR POINTS STATS
In the Four Points area over the past year, the median price for single-family homes declined by 1.2 percent to $548,000 for 2019 vs. 2018 — still considerably higher than the surrounding counties — while price per square foot increased from $169 to $177 over the past year, said Tom Radack, owner Bartlett Real Estate, Keller Williams Realty.
Overall sales declined 9.6 percent from 395 in 2018 to 357 in 2019, according to the Multiple Listing Service data.
“2019 vs. 2018 had Steiner Ranch and River Place experiencing declines in sales of 8.6 percent and 24 percent, respectively,” Radack said.
The median price in Steiner declined to $480,000 or 4.3 percent, while River Place increased to $718,000 or 6.4 percent, he added.
Grandview Hills/The Parke and Westminster Glen experienced a nice gain in sales of 22 percent and 55 percent, respectively, he said.
The median sold price declined to $475,000 or 4 percent for Grandview Hills/The Parke and Westminster increased to $1,350,000 or 23 percent, Radack said.
Four Points has a large range in home values depending on acreage, views and lake access.
“Inventory is at an all-time low,” Radack said.
For the Four Points area, new listings overall declined 6 percent.
“As is the case in the Austin-Round Rock MSA, we (in Four Points) are in a classic ‘seller’s market’, for us even more so,” Radack said. Looking ahead he sees that “the lack of new construction and limited available building sites, very low resale inventory, high and rising median sale prices, low interest rates and a large influx of new buyers are driving prices up and inventory down. This situation is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.”
AUSTIN – ROUND ROCK MSA
In the Austin-Round Rock MSA — now the 30th largest U.S. metropolitan area which includes Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties — the median price for single-family homes increased by 2.6 percent to $318,000 in 2019. During the same period, sales increased by 7.2 percent to 33,084 sales.
Independence Title’s Sprague said every real estate channel in the Austin metro — from homes to warehouses — is doing well, even though not enough inventory is available.
In December 2019, sales volume in the Greater Austin area increased by 9.2 percent to 2,608 sales, while inventory decreased by 0.5 months to 1.7 months of inventory. Growing demand pushed the median price of a single-family home to $323,000, a 7.1 percent increase from December 2018.
“If we don’t take action to increase housing supply in Austin, we will continue to see exponential increases in home values,” Manzanilla said. “ABoR continues to advocate for an updated land development code in Austin for exactly this reason — so that folks who want to purchase a home in the area can afford to do so.”
CITY OF AUSTIN
In 2019, Austin’s median home price increased by 5.3 percent to $395,000 compared to the previous year. During the same period, sales rose by 1.8 percent to 9,572 homes and sales dollar volume grew 6.9 percent to $4,678,400,967.
TRAVIS COUNTY
In Travis County, the median price for single-family homes grew by 3.6 percent to $372,000 for 2019 vs. 2018 and sales grew similarly — 4.7 percent to 16,042 sales.
For more information on the Year-End 2019 Central Texas Housing Market Report, visit www.abor.com/statsdec19.
