Texas Real Estate Market Moving in the Right Direction
Posted by Eric Bramlett on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 10:46am.  |
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The Texas Association of Realtors has released its Texas Quarterly Housing Report and the news is good for the state of Texas: the median home price has increased throughout the state by an average of 2.4 percent when comparing the fourth quarter of 2008 to the fourth quarter of 2009. As such, the median home price now sits at $143,400.
While 2.4 percent may seem like a very small figure, any increases achieved during these turbulent economic times are cause for celebration. The increase in housing prices isn't the only positive news for the Texas housing market. In fact, the Texas Association of Realtors has also announced that housing inventory has fallen from having 6.6 months worth of inventory to 6.5 months. Sales volumes increased as well, with more than 53,000 homes being sold in the last three months of 2009 for an overall increase of 16%.
"The state was more or less flat, which was good. By and large the state of Texas did very well," said James Gaines, who is a research economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A & M University. "Even when we were down, we were down much less than the rest of the country."
Of course, the news isn't the same across the board throughout the state. In San Antonio, for example, the median home price fell by 1 percent to $147,600. In Houston and Dallas, the median home price held steady at $152,100 in Houston and $155,400 in Dallas. In Fort Worth, prices dropped by 3 percent to $113,300, while Austin prices fell by 1 percent to $185,600.
According to Gaines, the federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers is likely to be one of the reasons why sales have be bolstered in the state of Texas. Thanks to the tax credit, which was originally slated to end in November of last year but was extended to June of this year, those who haven't owned a home in the past three years can receive an $8,000 tax credit from the federal government.
"We don't have any way to really count it," said Gaines when addressing the potential effects of the tax credit on house sales. "My belief is that on the aggregate level it might have made a difference of as much as 10 percent. Most of those sales happened in October or November."
With the tax credit having been extended through until June, real estate experts are hopeful that home sales will continue to receive a boost through the first half of 2010.
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Eric Bramlett is the broker & co-owner of One Source Realty, a boutique Austin Texas real estate company. Eric works with select buyers & sellers & specializes in downtown Austin condos as well as Steiner Ranch homes.
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Share2 Responses to "Texas Real Estate Market Moving in the Right Direction"
It'll be interesting to see what home sales look like after the summer months. We may have pulled a lot of the summer demand forward to the beginning of the year because of the tax credits.
Posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 11:20 PM.
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Today the ranchland real estate market appears to be doing better than the residential market. There are different features to ranchland that make it sometimes more desirable as an investment during varying economic times. It appears that many of the properties are not being marketed, but rather are being held off the market until seller's can sell for a better price.
Posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 at 6:04 PM.