August 06, 2010

Austin Real Estate Statistics for June

The June statistics are out for the Austin real estate market. In a word sales were down. This is lowest number of sales we have seen in June for the Austin market since 2003. This is also the first time I have seen sales decline from May to June. All that being true I was actually surprised sales were not lower. With the tax credit ending it was assumed sales were going to go down. Most people that were thinking of buying bought while the tax credit was available. One factor that made the drop in sales less than what we expected was mortgage rates.

The rest of the data is pointing in different directions. Compared to last year sales are down 4 percent and compared to two years ago sales are down 11 percent. Considering the effect of tax credit ending I would say that overall the market is doing better than it was this time last year.

One factor that at first glance seems positive is that the average sales price is up 11 percent compared to last year and the median price is up 4 percent. I think these numbers are a little misleading. Properties for the most part seem to be selling for slightly less than they were last year. The statistics is probably influenced by the fact that less expensive houses were affected more by the tax credit. A 6,500 tax credit is a relatively bigger benefit when buying a 120k house vs. buying a 500k house. And homes over 800k were not eligible for the tax credit.

Inventory in the Austin real estate market is up 16% compared to this time last year. What we have seen happening is a lot of people put their houses on the market hoping that their houses would sell while the tax credit was in effect.

So what is the big picture? Compared to last year we are experiencing an extremely weak recovery. And at the same time it’s not a certainty the market will continue to recovery. Although we are still seeing life in the Austin real estate market after the end of the tax credit we are by no means out of the woods yet. If the economy starts to falter the real estate market is going to falter. Additionally, although the tax credit had a larger effect on the market than mortgage rates once rates move up off their current historically low values we are going to see a drop in sales numbers.

So let’s look at some different segments of the market.

The Austin commercial real estate is up 18% compared to this time last year. One thing to keep in mind is that most commercial sales are not reported so the sales numbers are usually somewhat unrealistic. Overall the commercial has a bumpy read ahead. A lot of balloons are coming due and banks still seem hesitant about giving out commercial loans. So a lot of balloon loans coming due and an unfriendly lending environment means we are going to see a decent number of foreclosures ahead in the commercial market.

The condo market has seen a 53 increase in sales compared to last year. Part of that has to do with the fact that 2009 was an extremely weak year for the condo market. But it’s still nice to see some life in the condo market. I still don't see condos as an attractive investment. They rarely cash flow and in general don't see to appreciate as fast as homes.

The multifamily market is up 14%. Lenders are still taking a dim view of investors. We are seeing a lot of people interested in buying investment properties but they are simply having a hard time getting loans. The multifamily market seems attractive. With extremely low rates and low prices we are seeing more properties with positive cash flow than we have seen in the last few years.

If you have any questions about the market in general or a property in particular, feel free to contact us. If you want to search for properties on the market, here is our search of the Austin MLS.

Posted by escapeso at 08:23 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 22, 2010

May Statistics for the Austin Real Estate Market

May Statistics are out for the Austin real estate market. The numbers at first glace are pretty impressive. We had 2,074 sales in May this is up 24% from this time last year. The tax credit ended in April so at first glance it seems that the ending of the tax credit will not have too large an effect on the real estate market. The trick is that although the tax credit ended in April. Most contracts written up in the month of April actually close in May. So the May statistics are still heavily influenced by the Tax Credit. So we had a strong sales month in May but a lot of that strength was influenced by the tax credit. Here are the numbers for the last 3 years

Yr Month Sales % 1 Yr Change % 2 Yr Change Average Price % Price Change Median Price % Price Change Active Listings % Change Pending Sales Sold to List Price Months of Inventory
08 Jan 1,312 $245,305 $187,000 8,727 1,935 95.4% 6.651
08 Feb 1,547 $233,945 $180,090 9,127 1,803 96.1% 5.899
08 Mar 1,829 $239,777 $188,000 9,638 2,063 95.9% 5.269
08 Apr 1,944 $240,592 $186,950 10,034 2,109 96.5% 5.161
08 May 2,108 $261,580 $195,000 10,577 2,146 96.9% 5.017
08 Jun 2,222 $259,114 $199,940 10,886 1,996 96.4% 4.899
08 Jul 2,068 $256,526 $195,000 10,913 2,032 96.7% 5.277
08 Aug 1,994 $256,345 $196,740 10,348 1,792 96.2% 5.189
08 Sep 1,673 $241,881 $182,000 10,217 1,520 96.2% 6.106
08 Oct 1,322 $243,364 $192,460 9,944 1,234 95.4% 7.521
08 Nov 997 $234,444 $182,000 9,243 1,147 94.9% 9.27
08 Dec 1,305 $247,025 $182,500 8,520 1,114 94.2% 6.528
09 Jan 840 -0.36 $231,006 -0.06 $176,750 -0.05 8,738 0 1,327 94.3% 10.402
09 Feb 1,106 -0.29 $241,262 0.03 $189,900 0.05 9,373 0.03 1,406 94.7% 8.474
09 Mar 1,404 -0.23 $230,931 -0.04 $180,000 -0.04 9,704 0.01 1,846 95.1% 6.911
09 Apr 1,561 -0.2 $233,868 -0.03 $190,000 0.02 9,889 -0.01 1,919 95.6% 6.335
09 May 1,675 -0.21 $253,691 -0.03 $195,000 0 9,939 -0.06 2,132 95.7% 5.933
09 Jun 2,072 -0.07 $251,920 -0.03 $199,920 0 10,107 -0.07 2,084 95.9% 4.877
09 Jul 2,034 -0.02 $246,026 -0.04 $193,250 -0.01 9,988 -0.08 1,996 96.3% 4.91
09 Aug 1,757 -0.12 $244,666 -0.05 $190,000 -0.03 9,555 -0.08 1,980 96.2% 5.438
09 Sep 1,738 0.04 $242,432 0 $188,190 0.03 9,148 -0.1 1,886 95.7% 5.263
09 Oct 1,778 0.34 $237,778 -0.02 $180,000 -0.06 8,948 -0.1 1,811 95.8% 5.032
09 Nov 1,556 0.56 $238,563 0.02 $178,000 -0.02 8,551 -0.07 1,232 95.8% 5.495
09 Dec 1,356 0.04 $259,128 0.05 $192,000 0.05 8,079 -0.05 1,073 95.6% 5.957
10 Jan 856 0.02 -0.35 $244,574 0.06 $179,590 0.02 8,569 -0.02 1,417 95.4% 10.01
10 Feb 1,113 0.01 -0.28 $244,132 0.01 $190,000 0 9,335 0 1,738 95.3% 8.387
10 Mar 1,754 0.25 -0.04 $236,961 0.03 $181,000 0.01 10,300 0.06 2,421 96.3% 5.872
10 Apr 1,998 0.28 0.03 $236,055 0.01 $190,000 0 10,749 0.09 2,813 96.6% 5.379
10 May 2,074 0.24 -0.02 $244,953 -0.03 $192,000 -0.02 11,230 0.13 1,405 96.8% 5.414
Yr Month Sales % 1 Yr Change % 2 Yr Change Average Price % Price Change Median Price % Price Change Active Listings % Change Pending Sales Sold to List Price Months of Inventory

What worries me is the number 11,230. That is the number of homes currently on the market. This is up 13% from a year ago. It’s the highest number of homes on the market in the last 3 years.

The reason that is concerning is one would expect that due to the high volume of sales we saw the last few months that inventory levels would have gone down.

Instead inventory levels have increased as sellers have started to put their homes on the market.

There are two ways to look at this.
If we see the expected drop off in sales with the tax credit expiring and the usual increase in inventory in the summer we could see a glut of homes on the market. On the other hand possibly people that would have usually listed in the summer listed earlier in an attempt to target the tax credit buyers. We will know one way or another in the next few months.

Median and Average prices were both down (2 and 3 percent). We are seeing steeper drops with fix up properties for 2 reasons. Banks are more likely to turn down loans for fixer upper houses. Additionally, investors that buy and flip homes have become an endangered species. That said, it’s probably not a bad time to buy a fixer upper since the price differential between rough houses and fixed up houses is higher than it’s been in a long time.


So let’s look at the different segments of the Austin real estate market.

Single Family is up 24% and condos are up 28%. The multifamily had a down month and was down 10% from last year. The commercial market remains pretty dead. We have started to see some more activity in the market for vacant lots.

If you have any questions about the market in general or a property in particular, feel free to contact us. If you want to search for properties on the market, here is our search of the Austin MLS.

Posted by escapeso at 10:48 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 02, 2010

Austin Real Estate March Statistics

As we predicted last month we saw a pretty large increase in sales for the Austin real estate market this month. The tax credit is ending so we had a lot of buyers hurrying to purchase before it ended. Sales from this time last year were up 27 percent. Average prices were up 3 percent and median prices were flat from this time last year. This kind of conflicts with what I have been seeing in the market with houses in certain neighborhoods that are much cheaper than what I have seen in the past. For instance I saw a house come up in hyde park recently for 215k. So why are average prices up? I think this is a combination of 2 factors. The lower end of the market is not moving. Additionally, houses with needed repairs are selling for substantially less. Before there were a lot of flippers looking for "rough properties" they have been pretty much flushed out of the market at this point so properties with needed repairs are selling for a substantial discount. Below are the statistics for the last few years.

Yr Month Sales % 1 Yr Change % 2 Yr Change Average Price % Price Change Median Price % Price Change Active Listings % Change Pending Sales Sold to List Price Months of Inventory
08 Jan 1,312 $245,305 $187,000 8,727 1,935 95.4% 6.651
08 Feb 1,547 $233,945 $180,090 9,127 1,803 96.1% 5.899
08 Mar 1,829 $239,777 $188,000 9,638 2,063 95.9% 5.269
08 Apr 1,944 $240,592 $186,950 10,034 2,109 96.5% 5.161
08 May 2,108 $261,580 $195,000 10,577 2,146 96.9% 5.017
08 Jun 2,222 $259,114 $199,940 10,886 1,996 96.4% 4.899
08 Jul 2,068 $256,526 $195,000 10,913 2,032 96.7% 5.277
08 Aug 1,994 $256,345 $196,740 10,348 1,792 96.2% 5.189
08 Sep 1,673 $241,881 $182,000 10,217 1,520 96.2% 6.106
08 Oct 1,322 $243,364 $192,460 9,944 1,234 95.4% 7.521
08 Nov 997 $234,444 $182,000 9,243 1,147 94.9% 9.27
08 Dec 1,305 $247,025 $182,500 8,520 1,114 94.2% 6.528
09 Jan 840 -0.36 $231,006 -0.06 $176,750 -0.05 8,738 0 1,327 94.3% 10.402
09 Feb 1,106 -0.29 $241,262 0.03 $189,900 0.05 9,373 0.03 1,406 94.7% 8.474
09 Mar 1,404 -0.23 $230,931 -0.04 $180,000 -0.04 9,704 0.01 1,846 95.1% 6.911
09 Apr 1,577 -0.19 $232,569 -0.03 $189,900 0.02 9,889 -0.01 1,919 95.6% 6.27
09 May 1,689 -0.2 $252,524 -0.03 $193,000 -0.01 9,939 -0.06 2,132 95.7% 5.884
09 Jun 2,085 -0.06 $251,066 -0.03 $199,500 0 10,107 -0.07 2,084 95.9% 4.847
09 Jul 2,050 -0.01 $245,004 -0.04 $192,740 -0.01 9,988 -0.08 1,996 96.3% 4.872
09 Aug 1,770 -0.11 $243,505 -0.05 $189,000 -0.04 9,555 -0.08 1,980 96.2% 5.398
09 Sep 1,759 0.05 $240,694 0 $186,550 0.02 9,148 -0.1 1,886 95.7% 5.2
09 Oct 1,787 0.35 $237,074 -0.03 $180,000 -0.06 8,948 -0.1 1,811 95.8% 5.007
09 Nov 1,568 0.57 $237,484 0.01 $176,950 -0.03 8,551 -0.07 1,232 95.8% 5.453
09 Dec 1,364 0.05 $258,162 0.05 $191,500 0.05 8,079 -0.05 1,073 95.6% 5.923
10 Jan 857 0.02 -0.35 $243,042 0.05 $178,000 0.01 8,569 -0.02 1,417 95.4% 9.998
10 Feb 1,108 0 -0.28 $243,066 0.01 $189,500 0 9,335 0 1,738 95.3% 8.425
10 Mar 1,784 0.27 -0.02 $236,860 0.03 $180,000 0 10,300 0.06 2,421 96.2% 5.773
Yr Month Sales % 1 Yr Change % 2 Yr Change Average Price % Price Change Median Price % Price Change Active Listings % Change Pending Sales Sold to List Price Months of Inventory

There were 10,300 houses on the market for an increase of 6 percent compared to this time last year. And compared to last month we had a bigger increase than usual. This is probably simply due to people rushing to list while the tax credit was still in effect.

The condo market is showing some more activity. This month we saw an increase of 129%. While part of that is because of the tax credit we have been seeing more activity in the for the last few months. We also saw a 21% increase in the multifamily market. This is a little more interesting. Why? The tax credit is not affecting sales in the multifamily market. So this is a somewhat positive sign for the multifamily market. The commercial market stats were a little mixed. We saw an 11 percent increase in sales but the average price decreased 54%. Basically what is happening is smaller properties are selling in many cases for cash. But larger properties that need financing are not selling simply because getting loans for commercial properties is incredibly tight right now.

I am still not all that hot for the commercial market. With a commercial loan you can typically only lock in your rate for 5-7 years. With rates near all time lows one of the main benefits of buying now is locking into rates that are very low by historical standards for 30 years.

The market for Austin luxury homes seems to be strong this year. Here is a chart show sales for the first 3 months of the year.

What’s interesting if we look at the 5th column we see there is a 45% increase in homes over 1 million compared to the same time period last year. We also saw a 37% increase in homes from 800k-1 million.

Here are the stats broken down by Austin MLS area.

If you have any questions about the market in general or a property in particular, feel free to contact us. If you want to search for properties on the market, here is our search of the Austin MLS.

Posted by escapeso at 01:16 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 01, 2010

Austin Real Estate Statistics for February

The stats are out for February for the Austin real estate market. Let’s get two things out of the way first, because you might see this in the paper or with developers touting the market. Sales are up and average prices are up. So is the Austin market doing well? In a word no. January and February of 2009 were absolutely horrible. They were two of the worst months in over 10 years. This February we only saw slightly more sales than February 2009 (1145 in Feb 2010 vs 1106 in Feb 2009). So all in all sales numbers are pretty low. Below are the sales stats for the last few years

Yr Month Sales % 1 Yr Change % 2 Yr Change Average Price % Price Change Median Price % Price Change Active Listings % Change Pending Sales Sold to List Price Months of Inventory
08 Jan 1,312 $245,305 $187,000 8,727 1,935 95.4% 6.651
08 Feb 1,547 $233,945 $180,090 9,127 1,803 96.1% 5.899
08 Mar 1,829 $239,777 $188,000 9,638 2,063 95.9% 5.269
08 Apr 1,944 $240,592 $186,950 10,034 2,109 96.5% 5.161
08 May 2,108 $261,580 $195,000 10,577 2,146 96.9% 5.017
08 Jun 2,222 $259,114 $199,940 10,886 1,996 96.4% 4.899
08 Jul 2,068 $256,526 $195,000 10,913 2,032 96.7% 5.277
08 Aug 1,994 $256,345 $196,740 10,348 1,792 96.2% 5.189
08 Sep 1,673 $241,881 $182,000 10,217 1,520 96.2% 6.106
08 Oct 1,322 $243,364 $192,460 9,944 1,234 95.4% 7.521
08 Nov 997 $234,444 $182,000 9,243 1,147 94.9% 9.27
08 Dec 1,305 $247,025 $182,500 8,520 1,114 94.2% 6.528
09 Jan 840 -0.36 $231,006 -0.06 $176,750 -0.05 8,738 0 1,327 94.3% 10.402
09 Feb 1,106 -0.29 $241,262 0.03 $189,900 0.05 9,373 0.03 1,406 94.7% 8.474
09 Mar 1,404 -0.23 $230,931 -0.04 $180,000 -0.04 9,704 0.01 1,846 95.1% 6.911
09 Apr 1,577 -0.19 $232,569 -0.03 $189,900 0.02 9,889 -0.01 1,919 95.6% 6.27
09 May 1,689 -0.2 $252,524 -0.03 $193,000 -0.01 9,939 -0.06 2,132 95.7% 5.884
09 Jun 2,085 -0.06 $251,066 -0.03 $199,500 0 10,107 -0.07 2,084 95.9% 4.847
09 Jul 2,050 -0.01 $245,004 -0.04 $192,740 -0.01 9,988 -0.08 1,996 96.3% 4.872
09 Aug 1,770 -0.11 $243,505 -0.05 $189,000 -0.04 9,555 -0.08 1,980 96.2% 5.398
09 Sep 1,758 0.05 $240,728 0 $186,780 0.03 9,148 -0.1 1,886 95.7% 5.203
09 Oct 1,787 0.35 $237,126 -0.03 $180,000 -0.06 8,948 -0.1 1,811 95.9% 5.007
09 Nov 1,567 0.57 $237,207 0.01 $176,910 -0.03 8,551 -0.07 1,232 95.8% 5.456
09 Dec 1,360 0.04 $258,505 0.05 $191,500 0.05 8,079 -0.05 1,073 95.6% 5.94
10 Jan 853 0.02 -0.35 $243,465 0.05 $178,000 0.01 8,569 -0.02 1,417 95.4% 10.045
10 Feb 1,145 0.04 -0.26 $244,348 0.01 $189,500 0 9,335 0 1,738 95.3% 8.152
Yr Month Sales % 1 Yr Change % 2 Yr Change Average Price % Price Change Median Price % Price Change Active Listings % Change Pending Sales Sold to List Price Months of Inventory

So where does that leave the Austin market. In October, November, and December, we were seeing signs of steady improvement. Then starting in January the market has pulled back. The question of course is the market steadily improving and January and February were bumps in the road, or is the recovery off track. At this point it seems we are somewhat in a holding pattern. February seems slightly better than January but overall the market is certainly not improving but it doesn’t seem to be actively getting worse. It’s almost like it’s uncertain of which way to turn.

Enough about the general market. Let's dive into some more details and Austin real estate submarkets. The commercial market continues to be very weak. I had lunch with someone a few weeks ago who had a job recruiting commercial lenders. They said it was almost like they had a year long vacation because the commercial market was a ghost town. It’s extremely difficult to get commercial loans which has put the skids on commercial activity not just in Austin but most of the country. The commercial deals we are seeing are smaller in size as well.

The market for multifamily properties has been very very weak for the last 2 years. Not much has changed. Loans continue to be difficult for investors. Additionally, most of the recent government programs are targeted for individuals looking to buy and live in single family homes not people looking to buy and rent out multifamily properties. One thing that is interesting with the multifamily market is that although sales are down, listings are down as well.

The market for vacant lots is starting to improve. For the last 4 months we have seen 20+ more sales when compared to this time a year ago. Now the market for lots was probably the worst of the different Austin submarkets this time last year, but still it’s without a doubt showing signs of improvement.

So for a preview of next month I imagine we are going to see an increased number of sales for March. Now you might see some ink from realtors that the market is recovering and offer March sales number as proof. Basically what is happening is the tax credit is ending and so buyers are rushing to buy before it ends. We are going to have to wait until April numbers are released to see whether the market is going up or down.

As always if you have any questions about the market in general or a property in particular, feel free to contact us. If you want to search for properties on the market, here is our Austin MLS search.

Posted by escapeso at 11:50 PM | | Comments (0)