Monthly Texas Housing Insight

The Texas housing market remained strong in Texas in January 2019, fueled by a healthy labor market, population growth, and economic expansion, according to the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University’s March 2019 Texas Housing Insight report.

Housing sales increased 1.2 percent, led by a rebound of home sales under $200k, which accounted to 41 percent of total sales. The Real Estate Center says that homes from $200k-$400k account for about half of Texas MLS sales.

Austin home sales increased 4.3 percent overall, with “strong gains for homes priced more than $300,000.” In San Antonio, homes under this amount experienced 6.5 percent growth. North Texas sales fell for the third month in a row, with a 2.4 percent decrease in Dallas and a 2.6 percent decrease in Fort Worth. Houston also experienced its third straight monthly decline with a decrease of three percent in home sales.

Austin’s homeownership rate remained the lowest in the state among the large metros, with 59.2 percent. However, this was the highest rate in Austin since 2014. “The economic boom in Central Texas” resulted in the homeownership rate rising to 65.6 percent in San Antonio. Dallas-Fort Worth had a 61 percent rate, and Houston had a 61.4 percent rate. Overall, the state of Texas homeownership rate was around 63 percent.

Texas housing inventory remained below 3.9 months, over two months short of a balanced supply, while new listings increased 5.2 percent. Austin’s housing inventory was at a 2.9 month supply.

The median home price in Texas was 1.9 percent higher than one year ago, yet remained steady at $234,500 for the second straight month. Austin remained the highest among median price, with a median home price of $306,200.