December Real Estate Market Update

Across the major markets in Texas, our December real estate market update shows clear data points that we are ending the year in one of the strongest seller’s markets we have seen in modern history.  

Here is the breakdown across Austin, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth.

Austin

• Median Sales Price: $365,000 (up 19%)
• Closed Sales: 3,397 (up 23%)
• Average Days on Market: 33 (Down 29 days from this time last year)
• 2,842 Active Listings (Down 55%)
• 3,629 Pending Sales (Up 23%)
• 0.9 Months of Inventory (1.2 Months less than this time last year) 

Dallas/Fort Worth

• Median Sales Price: $269,500 (up 12.8%)
• Closed Sales: 31,847 (up 23.4%)
• Average Days on Market: 46 Days (down 11 days from this time last year) 
• Active Listings: 63,515 (Down 35.9% from this time last year)
• 2.0 Months of Inventory (Compared to 3.3 this time last year)

Houston

• Median Sales Price: $270,000 (up 12%)
• Closed Sales: 9,660 (up 28.1%)
• Active Listings: 29,948 (down 27% from this time last year)
• 2.2 Months of Inventory: (down 1.4 months from this time last year)

San Antonio

• Median Sales Price: $260,900: (up 13%)
• Closed Sales (residential): 3,125 (up 27%)
• Average Days on Market: 49 (down 18% from this time last year)
• New Listings:  3,092 (down 9%)
• Active Listings: 6,197 (down 39%)
• Pending Sales: 2,757 (up 21%)

 I can’t understate how perplexing this is in the midst of a global pandemic. 

“In my 50 years in the real estate business, I have never seen a market defy supply and seasonality the way Houston has – amid a pandemic, no less,” said HAR Chairman John Nugent with RE/MAX Space Center. “It’s quite extraordinary to watch consumers take advantage of historically low interest rates and be able to choose their dream homes from among the tightest housing inventory this market has ever experienced.”

What’s driving the strength of our Texas real estate market?

Several factors really, here are few of them:

Pandemic driving sales

For those that have not been significantly affected financially by the pandemic, the word “home” has taken on a new meaning.  They have likely spent more time at home than they ever have before.  Pair that with lots of equity and the ability to “trade-up” to a bigger home which better aligns with their needs, we end up with more demand.

Interest rates

This has been helping the market for years but in 2020 we have seen rates drop even lower.  For the buyers who are looking to buy for the first time or trade up in to a bigger home, historically low rates are pulling them in to the market. The Fed just announced they are not raising rates so we should continue to see favorable interest rates in to 2021.

Extreme shortage of homes

Builders can’t build fast enough and we don’t have resale listings flooding the market so we are battling an extreme shortage of homes.  This creates massive demand and pushes prices upward at a staggering rate

People want to be in Texas

Unless you have been living under a rock, you have seen the news that a flood of companies and new jobs are moving to Texas in droves.  Our strong economy, relatively reasonable home prices (compared to the markets they are leaving) and favorable tax structure is too enticing to pass up.  

Here is a list of some of the companies moving to Texas

• Tesla (Construction underway in Austin)
• Hewlett Packard Enterprises (Expanding it Spring TX operations to move more jobs from California)
• Oracle (Moving the majority of it’s operations from Redwood Calif to Austin)
• 8VC (Silicon Valley VC firm moving to Austin)
• FileTrail (Moving to Austin)
• DZS Inc (Moving from Oakland to Plano)
• QuestionPro (Relocating from the Bay area to Austin)

For Texas, this is all great news for our housing market.  We should all still be aware that we have some volatility on the horizon due to lingering issues caused by the pandemic.  There are still moratoriums on foreclosures in place which will be lifted at the end of 2020. So we can expect some type of wave of foreclosures to hit the market.  The commercial real estate market has been severely affected, we don’t yet know how that will trickle down to the residential markets. 

The good news is, home owners have more equity, homes are rapidly appreciating in value, we have an extreme shortage in homes.  This all points to us being able to withstand market volatility without the same type of crash that happened in 2008. 

 If you are thinking about selling, ListingSpark would love to help and save you thousands of dollars on listing commissions in the process.