Bill Morris on Austin Real Estate

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More on market velocity

In Market pace during Covid I discussed the overall pace of sales in the Austin area this year. That post covered the entire resale market in our five-county metropolitan area — all sizes, ages, styles, and prices. It’s worth pointing out that fast-paced sales are common across virtually all market segments.

As a starting point, this chart summarizes median and average Days to Sell from January 2011 through September 2020:

In case you’re tempted to say, “Yeah, that’s probably just the middle of the market,” here’s how market velocity looked over the first nine months of 2020, now shown segmented by sale prices:

I left out sales below $100,000 because the number of sales is very small and property condition can and does lead to long market times in that very low-priced segment. In every other price segment from $100,000 to $1,000,000 the median Days to Sell was less than 20 days! The half of sales above the medians can range to much longer times, so the averages are higher.

Another comparison is interesting, in case you’re tempted to say the trend likely changed as we moved beyond the summer selling season with very limited inventory:

In every price range from $100,000 to $900,000, median Days to Sell was the same or lower in September than for the entire year, and even up to $1,000,000, the median was less than 20 days. (And are you surprised that even over $1,000,000 half of all sales took 30 days or less?)

Comparing average Days to Sell shows much the same change in September versus the entire year so far:

The challenge of being a home buyer in the Greater Austin area is something that affects virtually our entire market. Take some encouragement in the fact that average sale times are much longer than the medians, but you will almost certainly be competing for the home you want. For some help in targeting your search, refer to Austin-area Home Prices. That post will guide you to the cities and zip codes in our area where you are likely to find the price range you want or need.