October real estate stats for the Austin Metro are in! Here's what you need to know.
We ran first-look statistics for the month of October, which are available below. Prices dipped on both a Year Over Year (YOY) and Month Over Month (MOM) basis due to seasonality and another ~0.5% increase in mortgage rates. Rates have since dropped ~0.5% in November, but demand remains sluggish.
Key Highlights:
Months of Inventory (MOI) crept up to 4.3 in the Metro and 4.5 in the city, which remains a balanced market.
Total sales remain relatively unchanged, a sign that the market has stabilized on a YOY basis.
Pending units increased +11.4%, a sign the market is marginally improving on a YOY basis.
Average and median sold prices declined -5.8% and -7.5% on a YOY basis, which is an improvement over the summer months.
Median & Average Price Declines Marginally Month Over Month
Both median and average sold prices declined marginally on a MOM basis; -3.8% and -3.7% respectively. This is likely due to seasonality and mortgage rates increasing again in November.
Pending Units Remain Seasonally Normal
The 2023 Pending Unit (demand) curve remains almost identical to 2019, which is the last normal market Austin experienced. While demand is certainly more sluggish than 2019, buyers seem to have settled back into pre-pandemic behavior. This means fewer buyers (and sellers) during the holiday season and predicts a return to the market in late Q1 / early Q2 2024.
Indeed Job Data Improves
YOY job postings on Indeed.com improved to the best levels since May 2023, which is a very early indication that hiring might return soon. It’s important to remember that one month is not a trend, but this is hopeful. There’s chatter that Meta is hiring and staffing up in order to hire. If true, that could start other major tech employers to begin staffing up for the coming AI boom.
What do we need?
For the market to begin recovering, we need more hiring or lower rates. We will inevitably get more jobs and lower mortgage rates, but one will likely come before the other. It’s critical to monitor the Fed since it heavily influences jobs and mortgage rates. The CME FedWatch Tool is phenomenal to cut through the noise and see what the experts predict will happen with the Fed rate. FedWatch improved slightly and it’s now a toss-up whether the Fed will begin lowering rates in May or June 2024.
If you’re a buyer:
Happy Holidays! There will likely be Black Friday deals on real estate. A normal market is sluggish over the holidays and we expect that to be the case this year. There’s no guarantee that the house that you love is on sale, but you can likely find better pricing at this time of the year.
If you’re a seller:
Happy Holidays! It’s difficult to sell properties over the holidays. Most buyers are focused on family and festivities, not on moving. If you must sell, it’s critical to do everything right and price aggressively. This can be stressful, but a great strategy will help alleviate that stress.
Our goal as your trusted real estate advisors is to provide you with the information you need to help you reach your investment goals.
As always, real estate is hyperlocal and hyper-situational, so please reach out to us to discuss your specific situation. We’d love to help you and strategize what’s in your best interest.
Cheers!
Jen
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