Smart Austin Realty Group tracks the Austin, TX housing market in-depth and periodically analyzes the market based on trends we observe. Watch along as we recap the 2020 Austin Texas housing market. In this video we touch on key housing metrics, compare 2020 year to 2019 year, and share tips & strategies in navigating our competitive marketplace.
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2020 Austin Texas Housing Market Recap Video Transcript:
Austin Housing Market Summary
Que Paso! This is Tyler Shelton with Smart Austin Realty and we’re here to give you guys a market update and kind of breakdown what 2020 looked like and what we can expect in 2021. As everybody knows it’s been a crazy year, its been an even crazier year here in the real estate market in Austin, Texas.
So first thing I’d like to do is compare what’s going on right now with what things looked like at this time last year. Some of the big stats that I’m focusing on are median sales price which is up 20% from last year at $365,000 and that’s for the Greater Austin area, we’ve seen a 20% increase. New listings are actually up 5% from this time last year, but active listings are down 50%, meaning even though new listings are hitting the market they’re not staying on the market. This is because we have a crazy high buyer pool, the demand is so high, it’s resulted in our inventory dropping to below one month.
If you’re not familiar with that, basically we gauge whether it’s a seller’s market or buyer’s market in terms of how many months of inventory we have, so if no new listings were added to the market that means in less than 1 month there would be no listings. 0.9 months of inventory is what we’re currently at right now, very high demand.
In the next portion is video I’d like to walk you through WHY and give you a little bit more background and what happened in 2020 so you guys can understand what market movement looks like at this point
Austin Housing Market Factors
2020 was a very interesting year for the real estate market here in Austin. It started out very slow as a pandemic started, and then we saw basically our inventory and our pending sales skyrocket around May, and June.
There are a few factors behind this and a few conditions that have created the market we’re in right now where we have a high buyer pool and low inventory.
Some of my theories on that are first interest rates, interest rates are historically low, most people can secure a conventional loan with interest rates below 3% so money is cheap which has brought a lot of buyers into the market.
The second is based on the pandemic, the pandemic has created a demand for space, when people aren’t having to commute 10 times a week to downtown they’re not so concerned about anything other than their space and their living situation so basically in the satellite and the suburbs of Austin we’ve seen appreciation and demand skyrocket in the satellites in suburbs of Austin.
And the third factor that’s kind of created this seller’s market is we’ve had some major Tech Giants decide to headquarter out of Austin. With Oracle coming this way and Tesla coming this was there has been an injection of cash rich buyers that are soft of culminating the 300k to 500k price range which has created a very competitive atmosphere.
In the next video I’d like going to tell you what we plan to do in 2021, and walk you through how you can navigate this market as both a buyer and a seller.
Looking at the 2021 Austin Housing Market
So what’s going to happen in 2021? Well in 2020 Smart Austin Realty helped a tremendous amount of people navigate this Market. We helped a lot of buyers in multiple-offer situations and we helped a lot of sellers get great offers on their home.
We’re gonna do it again in 2021. There are some things that we want to keep in mind while we navigate 2021. We were in a strong seller’s market we encourage our buyers to do a few things, keep down payment in mind. Right now the market is very competitive, sellers are asking for things like appraisal waivers. Meaning that if the home doesn’t appraise at contract price the buyer is responsible to make up that difference. So making sure that you have some money on hand for a down payment is going to go a long way when you get into a multiple-offer situation.
Other things is being flexible in terms of option period. Right now it’s not uncommon for the sellers to ask for very little option. Which I know can be scary but you can still get a lot of our due diligence done in a short period of time. So if you’re a buyer and you’re thinking about buying in 2021, we can definitely do it and we can definitely help you navigate this market.
If you are not looking to get into multiple-offer situations, I highly encourage my buyers in the $300k to $500k range to look at new builds. The advantages to new builds are prices are set, you’re not in competition with 10, 20, 30 other people on the home and get a home that is brand new, under warranty for up to 10 and in some great communities. Look out in the next coming weeks we’re going to showcasing some of these communities to see what they offer.
If you’re thinking about selling this year, this is a great time to sell. Obviously if you’re thinking about buying, you want to get into this market, you want to get planted and get invested into this market so you can see that equity. But if you’re already in this market if you’re a sell this is a great time to capitalize on it. People are paying 20% over asking price, people are putting their homes on the market on Friday and by Sunday they’ve collected a massive amount of offers. We want to help you sell your home this year, and if you work with us, we have a proven system that will help you get the most money possible for your home.
We are professionals here at Smart Austin Realty, we’ve been doing this for a very long time and in 2021 as we see how it plays out after a crazy 2020 we’re hoping for more inventory we’re hoping for a busy year we’re hoping for a lot of pending sales. And if you are trying to navigate this market, we are going to be here to help you.
Contact us, get onto our website, we have some very exciting tools, our market analysis tools that are on our website can allow you to dive deep into the data of the market. It’s something that we think is very unique and something that we offer our clients.
If you’re thinking about buying, if you think about selling, if you’re thinking about leasing, give us a call! Thank you guys for tuning in, I’m Tyler Shelton I hope you’re having a great and fantastic day!
