JBGoodwin REALTORS® - Austin & San Antonio Real Estate Blog

Did you hear that BOOM?  No, that wasn’t a transformer blowing.  That was Balcones Woods crashing through another price barrier.  We are into the $200/sqft arena now and, in my opinion, any house in our neighborhood could sell for over $300,000, many closer to $400,000 and above.  The Austin real estate market is booming all over and with our neighborhood's great schools, access to 183 and MoPac, proximity to the Domain and lots of new employers like Apple, we are smack dab in the middle of a high demand area.

So why all the craziness in the housing market? 

It really is quite simple.  Demand is significantly exceeding supply.  For the past decade, the Austin Chamber of Commerce has been actively recruiting businesses to move to Austin, focusing primarily on those in California, the Upper Midwest, and the Northeastern states.  These efforts combined with our business friendly environment and relatively affordable cost of living have made Austin a hot spot for real estate.  In the past decade, over 300 companies have moved to Austin and for the past 4 years, Austin has topped FORBES’ annual list of America’s Fastest-Growing Cities.  More than 80,000 people have moved here just in the last two years.  All these new people have bought up all of Austin's excess housing inventory.  2013 was the highest sales year on record for the Austin area. 

Although all of this demand has driven home prices higher, Austin is still more affordable than many other large cities.  The median price for a home in Austin currently is around $226,300 which may seem high to us but is less than half what a house costs in Los Angeles or New York.

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So how long can we expect the housing market craziness to continue?

To predict real estate growth, you look at population growth which, in turn, is driven by job growth.  There's no sign of either slowing down.  Texas is projecting more than 30,000 new jobs coming in 2014 and another 30,000 in 2015.  110 people are moving to the Austin metro area every day and the inventory of available homes is at a 13 year low. 

Builders are working fast and furious, but they are only projected to build about 10,500 homes this year and, of course, none of those new homes will be in Balcones Woods.  So for at least the next year or two, we can expect that housing in our neighborhood to remain in a seller's market, driving prices possibly even higher.  So although you might be grimacing as you read your property tax bill while waiting in bumper to bumper traffic, enjoy the fact that your home equity wealth is significantly increasing on a daily basis. 

If anyone would like to receive more info on this data or a free market analysis of their home I would be happy to help.    

Dan Burstain, Realtor®
JB Goodwin REALTORS
Dan@JBGoodwin.com
Cell: (512) 588-3260
Fax: (512) 588-1717

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