If you follow media reports about residential real estate in the Greater Austin area you know that we are still in a very “unusual” market environment. “Crazy,” some might say. 2019 was the seventh full year of significant imbalance between housing demand and housing supply. Compare this market cycle to others over the past thirty years. Continue reading
A few weeks ago I promised to update my market dashboard through June. I’ll add some comments later about the dashboard and about what how our market behaved January-June 2019. To start, here are the primary metrics I have watched for many years: The first chart isn’t as complicated as it looks. The orange line … Continue reading
Demand is not the problem. We have a lot of new jobs being created and steady population growth. We simply don’t have enough homes to meet the demand, and the perceived price vs. value equation for many buyers got out of hand as a result. Continue reading
There is no sign now of the kind of disruption we saw in 2007-2008. We are simply being held back at this point by a shortage of housing available for sale. Continue reading
2018 finished strong, and with low inventory conditions continuing 2019 looks like another fast-paced year in Austin-area real estate. I continue to believe we’ll see slower year-over-year price increases than in recent years, but I’ll keep you informed. Continue reading
I have written recently that we might be seeing some signs of movement in the direction of more normal market conditions. The latest local data seems to reinforce that opinion. Continue reading
I have heard recent comments from a few real estate agents that the market seems slower this year. I have “felt” something different in recent weeks myself, but I trust data so I decided to check on that from 30,000 feet … Continue reading
Actually, we’ve had much more than three calendar quarters of HOT market conditions in Central Texas, but I really want to comment on January – September 2014 here. Since it has been a long time since I made time to write, though, I’ll remind readers that are new to my market dashboard, that the Greater … Continue reading
No cooling off for Austin’s apartment market.
Low inventory will keep things challenging for home buyers, but not as frustrating and frantic as our market was in the Spring and Summer of 2013. Going into next year’s traditional selling season, builders will help more with supply, but demand will remain very strong as well. Continue reading
