Austin Apartment rents rise as supply tightens

Apartment Rent Rises 2005

The article below appeared last saturday in the Austin American Statesman. It’s good news, but I want to point out a big difference in Austin’s Apartment market and the single family rental home market in Austin.

While new supply of apartments has slowed, creating a tighter supply (the article quotes the 1819 units added this year as the lowest number since 1993), single family homes for rent in Austin continue to be supplied in ample amounts by new investors, which is holding the rents down. Each time an investor buys a home that was previously owner/occupied, or a new home that would otherwise be purchased by an owner/occupant, that adds more supply to the rental home market and gives renters more to pick from. Currently, landlords are still competing for fewer renters than there are homs for rent, which is holding rents down. (October 2005 average single family home rents actually fell from Oct 2004)

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Austin home market surges; November median is an all-time high

Austin Home sale statistcs

Home market surges even as supply drops; November median price hits an all-time high

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Central Texas home buyers shrugged off rising interest rates in November, sending sales up 24 percent and the median price to an all-time high of $170,000, up 15 percent. But the supply of homes fell sharply, to a four-year low, and homes in some areas are selling within days, sometimes with multiple offers.

The hot markets include Southwest Austin, close-in East Austin, and South and Northwest neighborhoods. In East Austin, the number of sales is up 146 percent so far this year, and the median price is up more than 40 percent, to $155,000.

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HOT RESIDENTIAL MARKETS RESIDE IN TEXAS

San Antonio is a Hot Market

SAN ANTONIO (mysanantonio.com, fortune.com)
Texas metropolitan areas are some of the country’s hottest residential markets in terms of projected home price appreciation rates for 2006, according to Fortune Magazine. Fortune worked with Moody’s Economy.com and Fiserv CSW on the analysis of home sales data for the country’s 100 largest metro regions. Three Texas markets ranked in the top ten.

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October Austin Sales and Leasing Market Update

Sales and Leasing Market Update October 2005

Here is a belated posting of my regular monthly Austin Sales and Rental Market Update. I was unable to log into my blog for a couple of weeks and finally determined it was because of a new firewall I installed on my computer. That’s another story entirely…

On to the update:
Homes in Austin are now leasing below the prices of a year ago. Too much inventory is being created by investors. Sales continue to improve and the outlook moving forward is promising. See the graphs below.

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