Austin Real Estate Update | May 2020 I truly hope this finds you healthy and in good spirits. Please think of me should you or your friends/associates have any real estate needs or questions, I'm never too busy to help. This edition features the most recent market updates as well as Austin news and events - Enjoy!
Local shelter-in-place orders that went into effect on March 24 had little impact on March home sales, according to the Austin Board of REALTORS® (ABoR) latest Central Texas Housing Market Report.In March, residential sales in the five-county Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) increased 2.2% year over year to 3,042 sales and median price jumped 11.7% year over year to $335,200. Monthly housing inventory declined 0.7 months year over year to 1.6 months of inventory, and average days on market decreased from 65 days to 54 days.
Personal take - Although real estate was declared essential business by Governor Abbott, and I have been working, a large majority of folks were required to shelter-in-place. In turn, this simply means there weren't as many buyers actually going to look at homes and sellers were pulling their listings or adding layers into how a property could be shown. It's a safe bet that when we get in April's numbers we'll begin to see the true impact of covid-19 on the local real estate market.
Last month, new listings decreased 12.7% to 3,770 listings; active listings dropped 26.6% to 4,908 listings; and pending sales decreased 19.2% to 2,852 pending sales.
In March, the median price for residential homes in the city of Austin rose 14% year over year to $415,000, an all-time high for any month on record. Residential home sales remained flat at 985 sales, while total sales dollar volume experienced a double-digit increase of 11.2% year over year to $503,132,316 last month. During the same period, new listings decreased 7.5% to 1,299 listings; active listings dropped 27.8% to 1,237 listings; and pending sales dipped 18.3% to 922 pending sales. Monthly housing inventory decreased 0.5 months year over year to 1.2 months of inventory.
At the county level, residential home sales slightly increased 0.4% to 1,545 sales and sales dollar volume increased 11.8% to $783,614,704. The median price for residential homes jumped 15.1% year over year to $397,250. During the same period, new listings decreased 12.6% to 2,004 listings; active listings decreased 30.5% to 2,277 listings; and pending sales decreased 22.6% to 1,393 pending sales. Monthly housing inventory decreased 0.7 months year over year to 1.4 months of inventory.
(information courtesy of ACTRIS)
National Market Update Sales of existing homes fell 8.5% in March, although the 5.270 million annual rate is still 0.8% ahead of a year ago. Tight inventories kept demand high, as 52% of the homes sold were less than a month on the market. New Home Sales fared worse, down 15.4% for the month, the 627,000 annual rate off 9.5% from a year ago, the largest monthly drop since 2013. In a new Gallup survey, only 21% of Americans think stocks or mutual funds are the best long-term investments; real estate came in as the most favored long-term investment, a position it's held since 2013. No substantive changes are expected with regard to the Fed rate, with current Fed Funds Rate still at 0%-0.25%. This week I saw interest rates being advertised for both 30 and 15 year mortgages at under 3% with 0-0.5 points. If the interest rate on your home is about 1% greater than that then you may consider refinancing. If you need a couple names of lenders just shoot me a message. This isn't everyone's cup of tea but if you enjoy understanding more about what is going on in geopolitics and how this changing world may impact our economics, but also appreciate acerbic wit and humor, I highly recommend signing up on Peter Zeihan's mail list. Additionally, you can find some of the archives of his posts here: Zeihan on Geopolitics
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