Home Prices in Austin

It’s no secret that home prices in the Austin metropolitan area have been increasing over the past several years.  Although the pace of price appreciation has slowed (Market moving toward “normal”?), it is still a very real part of our market environment and will likely continue for at least another year or two.  As part of my look back at our real estate market, it’s worth seeing how home price distribution has changed in the Austin metro area over the past eight years:

Notice that the $150,000 to $200,000 price range fell below 10% of our market for the first time in 2018, and that even the $200,000 to $250,000 range declined slightly last year.

But look at what has happened from $250,000 to $750,000. 52% of all home sales last year were above $300,000, and even the share of homes priced above $750,000 doubled since 2012, when we began our return from the last market bottom.

On paper, median income in the area has largely kept up with those changes, but well-paid, mostly tech employees are a different population than more traditional middle class workers. Affordable workforce housing is a growing challenge. I’ll have more to say about that as the year proceeds.