By all indications, the Austin-Round Rock metro area’s housing market is quite strong, but that has left very little wiggle room when it comes to housing inventory. The median home sale price for the area held steady at $295,000 for the first quarter of 2019, according to new numbers from the Texas A&M Real Estate Center.
“That shortage of housing on the supply side is having an effect on the demand. People are backing off on the demand because they can’t find what they’re looking for,” says Dr. James Gaines with the A&M Real Estate Center. “So, as a consequence, for example, the rental market has been real strong.”
The report show the average rent for the Austin-area is up by more than 3-percent to $1750 per month.
Homebuilders are now working at a much faster pace to meet the demand.
“That’s proving to be quite difficult given high land prices, a shortage of labor, and increased material costs to bring in new homes in the prices brackets that they’d like. They’d like to be at the $200,000 to $325,000 bracket, and it’s really difficult to bring in a new house into those levels anywhere close in [the city limits],” Gaines says.
Gaines says prices may be lower farther outside of Austin.
“Especially east of Austin, on the east side of I-35. They can go out and acquire a little less expensive land, but now you’re going to then pay the communiting cost of being forced to live farther out from downtown,” he says.
Austin’s median sale price is the highest in the state, topping Dallas-Fort Worth’s median of $260,000 and Houston’s median of $230,000.
