Texas Real Estate Market Reports

Thanks to strong job growth and moderating mortgage rates, Austin’s housing market has been healthy all year. In contrast, markets in are cooling rapidly in many other parts of the country. But Austin and San Antonio remain are having stable growth.

“It seems to be the rest of the nation is doing poorly, and we tend to go against that,” said Mark Sprague, Austin partner with Residential Strategies.

Over the past 12 months, Central Texas builders have cranked out 16,973 homes, up more than 20 percent from a year ago.

The construction pace indicates that builders are confident that there are plenty of buyers either already here or moving in.

The median price in the quarter rose 8.5 percent, to $196,933, as builders shifted their emphasis to higher-priced homes, in part because of an influx of buyers from more expensive markets.

For example, starts of homes costing more than $300,000 have risen 64 percent in the past year, triple the overall increase in starts, according to Residential Strategies.

Starts in the $151,000 to $200,000 price range rose 14.8 percent. Of course there has been an increase in Construction materials which has caused new home prices to go up. Plus there is a influx of wealthy buyers wanting to invest in homes here in the Austin area which is causing more money to flow to more expensive homes.

The market should continue its steady growth as long as the job market maintains is positive picture which it should but you never know. And the investors don’t overhype the market.