Austin Rental Market Update – September 2007

Austin Rental MarketThe rental market in Austin remains strong, helped further by the fact that there are in fact some qualified buyers who are electing to rent instead of buy because they fear that there is an Austin Real Estate bubble, and they don’t want to buy into that bubble. I’m not going to go into several paragraphs of “there isn’t a bubble” commentary, but there is not a real estate bubble in Austin TX.

To those buyers voluntarily taking yourselves out of the purchase market, the rest of the buyers thank you, as do all of us who own rental property. You’re helping create better purchase opportunities for the buyers who are smart enough to recognize this as a great time to buy a home in Austin, and you’re creating more demand for rental homes, which helps drives up rent prices. If you are qualified and ready to buy a home in Austin, and you know you will live there at least 2 years, there is absolutely no reason not to purchase a home in Austin TX today.

For September in Austin, average rents are up 6.7% over Sept 2006, from $1269/mo. a year ago to $1354 this September. Like the sales market, our number of homes rented is down over a year ago. The average and median days on market for rental homes is substantially better than a year ago at 43 days average, and 31 days median. This means half of all rental homes leased through the Austin MLS found a tenant in 31 days or less. Not bad.

September stats and year to date stats are below. I haven’t had time to do my area breakdowns, so I’m posting what I can and will try to catch up on the quarterly area breakdowns later this week.

Austin Rental Market Stats September 2007
Previous Month and Year Comparison
All MLS Areas - Houses Only

 

Aug 2007

Sep 2007

Sep 2006

Yr % Change
# Leased
765
570
650
-12%
Avg List Price
$1394
$1368
$1285
6.5%
Median List Price
$1225
$1207
$1195
1.0%
Avg Leased Price
$1384
$1354
$1269
6.7%
Med Leased Price
$1225
$1200
$1185
1.3%
Avg Size SQFT
1871
1837
1844
0.3%
Median SQFT
1766
1734
1731
0.2%
Avg $ per SQFT
$0.74
$0.74
$0.69
7.2%
Avg Days on Mkt
37
43
51
-16%
Median Days on Mkt
31
31
42
-26%

Year to date stats are below.

Austin Rental Market Jan-Sep 2006/2007 YTD Comparison
All MLS Areas - Houses Only

 
Jan-Sep 2006
Jan-Sep 2007
Yr % Change
# Leased
6329
6132
-3.1%
Avg List Price
$1272
$1344
5.6%
Median List Price
$1150
$1200
4.3%
Avg Leased Price
$1260
$1341
6.4%
Med Leased Price
$1150
$1200
4.3%
Avg Size SQFT
1844
1873
1.6%
Median SQFT
1750
1772
1.3%
Avg $ per SQFT
$0.68
$0.72
5.9%
Avg Days on Mkt
51
46
-9.8%
Median Days on Mkt
42
34
-19%

1 thought on “Austin Rental Market Update – September 2007”

  1. Steve,

    I have to agree with the numbers you’ve posted. Our inventory is much more stable than it has been in years, percentage of leases renewed is better than last year , lease rates have increased in most all areas and DOM is decreasing. As always, the owners that have properly maintained their investments have faired the best. Even though we’re into our slower season, we’re anticipating and planning for the trend to continue into the foreseeable future.

    Reply

Leave a Comment