AUSTIN, Texas — New data released by the Austin Board of Realtors (ABoR) indicates that the real estate market is calming down.
According to ABoR's May market report, housing inventory in the Austin-Round Rock MSA is improving. Active listings skyrocketed 146% compared to last May. That's a total of 4,173 listings.
"It's kind of exciting because for the first time in a long time, we've actually seen triple-digit growth and active listings are on the market," said Cord Shiflet, the president of ABoR.
The rise in listings has caused the housing inventory to more than double to 1.2 months of inventory, up from 0.7 months last May.
"We've been in a really inflated market over the last two years, and we're just seeing a little bit of that pressure valve released. So it's, I would say, trending towards normalizing," Shiflet said.
ABoR reported that, last month, residential home sales declined 6.7% year over year as the median price rose 19.6%, maintaining the all-time record of $550,000 set in April 2022. Sales dollar volume grew 9% while new listings also increased by 18.8%. Homes also spent an average of 15 days on the market, a day less than in May 2021.
In the City of Austin specifically, home sales decreased by 10% in May. The median price of a home rose 18.1% setting a record of $667,000 for the city. Monthly housing inventory increased 0.5 months year over year to one month of inventory, per the report.
In Travis County, home sales decreased 12.3% while the median home price rose by 21.1% year over year to $659,000. Housing inventory in the county also increased from last year. The median home price in Williamson County was at $509,000 and $477,000 in Hays County.
Adam Perdue, a research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, said that with more listings and inventory, the market is starting to normalize.
“The Austin region saw dangerously low levels of inventory, as low as 0.4 months of inventory in January 2021, so this slight increase in inventory and active listings point to the market beginning to normalize," he said. "While year-over-year price increases will continue to remain high, we project them to fall slightly lower than the long-term trend we’ve monitored over the past two years.”
More homes are also up for sale in Round Rock, Pflugerville and Hutto. ABoR said the three cities had a total of nearly 500 listings last month. That's about 155 more homes than the month before.
While inventory and median home prices continue to rise, so does rent, making it harder for residents to afford the area.
According to Realtor.com, the average rent hit more than $1,800 a month across the country. In Austin, the median rent is more than $2,700. That's according to a report by Redfin.
Check out the full ABoR report here.
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