Here are the October/2016 MLS single-family statistics for Austin, TX:
Our Austin home sales market continued to cool off in October with lower numbers than 12 months ago. This marks 5 months in a row of declines for pending sales (ie-have contract but not closed) and 4 months in a row for home sales. In fact, our YTD average for sales is a slight decrease of .9% over 2015’s numbers….one--that if it holds for the year--would be our first negative year in this category since 2011 (interestingly, sales inside Austin’s city limits were UP 7.5% so the decrease in sales was for the suburbs of the Austin metro area). I believe this reflects a more normal pace of Austin home sales activity rather than the peak of the seller’s market we’ve been in the past 5.5 years. As you can see from the “U.S. housing market starting to show signs of a cool-down” article below, the country is seeing a cool-down, too. The difference is the strength our our Austin economy and job market which has placed at or near the top of the nation for a long time. This should mitigate our Austin slow down to more of a plateau than a real downturn toward a buyer’s market in my opinion.