The Austin Rental Market continues to show steady improvement for landlords. Average and Median rents for single family homes are up about 5% from Feb of last year. Median Days on Market dropped 7.8% to 47 days, meaning half of all homes leased through the Austin MLS took longer than 47 days, and half took less than 47 days to lease.
I do suspect, however, that good Austin Property Managers and Landlords achieve better results than what my stats show. For example, Sylvia and I purchased another investment home last month in Oak Hill (built in 1973, none of our investors wanted it so we jumped on it ourselves). I stuck a sign in the yard and Sylvia showed the first person who called that day and we leased it before it even got entered into the MLS.
The overall stats I report don’t have the benefit of that favorable outcome included, since the home leased immediately from the first sign call. And I’m sure this happens with other well priced homes in good locations as well. On the other hand, many homes that lease through the Austin MLS are represented by inexpeienced Realtors who don’t really know how to lease homes, and those listings (which are often the ones showing 90+ days on market) skew the rest of the stats to make things look worse as well. Of the Austin Property Managers I stay in touch with, all are raising rents on renewal and, for the most part, leasing their homes quickly – especially in the closer in areas that we recommend to investors.
I’m still not including Year-to-Date stats since we’re too early in the year for those to be meaningful, but I have once again republished the 2006/2005 year end stats.
Jan 2007
|
Feb 2007
|
Feb 2006
|
Yr % Change
|
|
# Leased |
594
|
606
|
601
|
1%
|
Avg List Price |
$1239
|
$1262
|
$1207
|
4.6%
|
Median List Price |
$1150
|
$1150
|
$1100
|
4.5%
|
Avg Leased Price |
$1235
|
$1250
|
$1194
|
4.7%
|
Med Leased Price |
$1145
|
$1150
|
$1095
|
5.0%
|
Avg Size SQFT |
1876
|
1834
|
1818
|
1%
|
Median SQFT |
1771
|
1766
|
1732
|
2%
|
Avg $ per SQFT |
$0.66
|
$0.68
|
$0.66
|
3%
|
Avg Days on Mkt |
61
|
61
|
60
|
1.7%
|
Median Days on Mkt |
50
|
47
|
51
|
-7.8%
|
Below are the previous years charts and graph.
All 2006
|
All 2005
|
Yr % Change
|
|
# Leased |
8042
|
5949
|
35%
|
Avg List Price |
$1268
|
$1249
|
1.4%
|
Median List Price |
$1150
|
$1150
|
0
|
Avg Leased Price |
$1256
|
$1237
|
1.4%
|
Med Leased Price |
$1150
|
$1150
|
0
|
Avg Size SQFT |
1850
|
1806
|
2.4%
|
Median SQFT |
1750
|
1701
|
2.9%
|
Avg $ per SQFT |
$0.68
|
$0.68
|
0
|
Avg Days on Mkt |
54
|
60
|
-10%
|
Median Days on Mkt |
43
|
48
|
-10%
|