Average and Median Sales Prices are up 6% and 6.6% in April from a year ago. Average price per square foot is up 4% from $126 last April to $131 April 2007. The Austin market keeps chugging along at a happy pace, refusing to overheat but still outperforming most other parts of the country.
There are 18 MLS Areas that have YTD appreciation better than 10%. Most of those are closer in areas, as usual. 11 MLS Areas underperformed, showing YTD appreciation of less than 5%. Most of these areas are further out and/or East of Austin. There were a few areas that we generally consider to be very strong, such as Area W (SW Austin) and 1N (Northwest Austin) that were in the underperforming group. More on area breakdowns further below.
|
Mar 2007
|
Apr 2007
|
Apr 2006
|
Yr % Change
|
|
| # Sold |
2161
|
2149
|
2015
|
6.7%
|
| Avg List Price |
$254,093
|
$261,624
|
$247,121
|
5.9%
|
| Median List Price |
$182,900
|
$189,900
|
$179,900
|
5.6%
|
| Avg Sold Price |
$246,685
|
$255,708
|
$241,346
|
6.0%
|
| Med Sold Price |
$179,500
|
$189,000
|
$177,320
|
6.6%
|
| Avg Size SQFT |
2099
|
2123
|
2123
|
0%
|
| Median SQFT |
1891
|
1954
|
1920
|
1.8%
|
| Avg $ per SQFT |
$118
|
$131
|
$126
|
4.0%
|
| Avg Days on Mkt |
65
|
57
|
59
|
-3.4%
|
| Median Days on Mkt |
35
|
28
|
32
|
-12.5%
|
Below is the Year to Date Jan-April 2006/2007 comparisons for the entire Austin market.
|
Jan-Apr 2006
|
Jan-Apr 2007
|
Yr % Change
|
|
| # Sold |
7149
|
7420
|
3.8%
|
| Avg List Price |
$243,430
|
$255,183
|
4.8%
|
| Median List Price |
$175,000
|
$185,000
|
5.7%
|
| Avg Sold Price |
$236,746
|
$248,113
|
4.8%
|
| Med Sold Price |
$172,000
|
$182,000
|
5.8%
|
| Avg Size SQFT |
2103
|
2104
|
0%
|
| Median SQFT |
1910
|
1912
|
0%
|
| Avg $ per SQFT |
$113
|
$118
|
4.4%
|
| Avg Days on Mkt |
68
|
65
|
-4.4%
|
| Median Days on Mkt |
42
|
38
|
-9.5%
|
Below are the same stats as above, but with new home sales filtered out. I do this to see if new homes skew the true appreciation rate of resale homes either up or down. In this case, there is a slight difference, indicating that the new homes sold through the Austin MLS somewhat pull down the overall appreciation numbers.
|
Jan-Apr 2006
|
Jan-Apr 2007
|
Yr % Change
|
|
| # Sold |
5903
|
6105
|
3.4%
|
| Avg List Price |
$233,411
|
$245,877
|
5.3%
|
| Median List Price |
$169,900
|
$179,900
|
5.9%
|
| Avg Sold Price |
$227,507
|
$239,801
|
5.4%
|
| Med Sold Price |
$167,500
|
$177,500
|
6.0%
|
| Avg Size SQFT |
2040
|
2038
|
0%
|
| Median SQFT |
1856
|
1858
|
0%
|
| Avg $ per SQFT |
$112
|
$118
|
5.4%
|
| Avg Days on Mkt |
62
|
57
|
-8.1%
|
| Median Days on Mkt |
36
|
32
|
-11.1%
|
Austin MLS Area Home Sales Stats Breakdowns
Click this link to see April 2007 year to date Austin real estate sales stats.
On thing to note when looking at the stats is that several factors can cause swings in different areas. For example, on the chart you’ll notice that MLS Area HD (Hays County-Dripping Springs) is showing a 43% appreciation rate. I promise you that a typical Dripping Springs home, in Belterra for example, does not sell for 43% more this year than it did last year. These swings can be caused by several things, including a few high dollar sales on large pieces of land, where the land was a substantial portion of the sales price. Small sample sizes can skew the numbers also. A large number of new homes being built in an area in a higher or lower price range than the average can also swing the numbers. So, the reason we look at stats is to notice trends over time to assist in understanding where the market is heading and which areas appear to be attracting buyers. This is why the chart I constructed for reviewing appreciation has several different metrics to look at in relationship to one another. No single piece of data tells the entire story for what a market is doing.
I wonder why area W and 1N’s sale declined. Maybe because those area became too expensive? W is such a vest area, I bet the area is highly diversified and filled with both million dollar homes and rundown shakes.
It seems like you are missing the “DT” MLS area in your pdf? Or are you waiting a year to have yoy comparisons?
Area DT (Downtown) only has 2 sales for single family homes so far this year. There were only 3 all of last year. There just isn’t enough data to be meaningful.
Areas W and 1N are anomolies. Just like with my HD example, this goes the other way. I know specific homes in those areas have gone up, especially the section of 1N that attends Round Rock schools, but I’d have to dig into the data to see why the macro data doesn’t reflect that.
This is the nature of “stats”. They are important to track and follow, but unless I seek out and eliminate outliers from the data, we’ll have swings that seem counter-intuitive sometimes. I’ve thought about filtering out the outliers, but I don’t think I should be messing with the data like that, so I just report what the data says.
Thanks for your comments.
Steve