How's the Market in Steiner Ranch - 2017 Year End

In this installment of “How’s the Market in Steiner Ranch,” I review the annual sales statistics for Steiner Ranch, see if my prediction from last January were accurate, and make a guess as to how 2018 will unfold.  Below the video, you can find the same information in chart and text formats.

Extra sales statistics mentioned in the video can be found here:

Price changes for each Steiner Ranch neighborhood.
Complete set of graphs with 5-year comparison data.

To view summary and detailed sales information for all Steiner Ranch neighborhoods, check out the Neighborhood Home Sale Data section of my website. If you are looking to buy or sell a home in Steiner Ranch, contact me via email or at 512-650-7300. Previous editions of How’s the Market in Steiner Ranch are also available.  If you prefer to read instead of watch, here are the chart and transcript.
Greetings!  I'm Craig Smyser with RE/MAX Capital City.  Welcome to the 2017 Year End edition of "How's the Market in Steiner Ranch."  It was another good year for real estate in Steiner Ranch, so let’s get started.

First, I want to remind you that all of these figures are for resale homes only.  There are still a few new construction homes in Steiner Ranch, but I am not including them in these statistics.  In 2017, 329 homes closed in Steiner Ranch which was down 2.4% from 2016.  The median price of a resale home increased 8.6% to $495,000, the average price increased 6.9% to $548,246, and the average price per square foot increased 4.6% to $164.30.  These are strong numbers.   In real estate, the most widely used measure of home values is the median price.  This year’s 8.6% jump is the strongest number since 2012.  It is also the first time since 2011 that the rate of increase was higher than the prior year.

But was the year as strong as these numbers indicate?  I don’t think so.  Though we sold fewer homes in 2017 compared to 2016, the distribution of homes sold makes a big difference in pricing.  There were fewer entry level homes offered for sale in 2017 and more higher-priced homes offered for sale.  As a result, more higher-end homes sold thus skewing both the median and average prices a bit higher than they would otherwise.  Because homes increased in value across Steiner, it is hard to actually quantify this, but I did give it a try.  I examined the numbers for all 53 neighborhoods in Steiner Ranch.  When looking at the neighborhoods for which the median price is below $500,000, the number of homes that sold in 2017 was down 10.5%.  That is a sizable drop and it was something clearly evident all year in that we just didn’t have a whole lot of entry level homes for sale. The median price for these neighborhoods was up only 2.1%.  Now, for those neighborhoods with a median price above $500,000, the number of homes sold was up 9.5% with the median price up 4.9%.  So while prices certainly increased, you can see that because we sold more high-end homes and fewer lower-end homes, it really moved the needle this year.  It may seem like I’m nitpicking, but it is important to understand.  For example, if you own a $400,000 home, you might think, based upon the overall median increase, that it is now worth almost $435,000 just one year later.  Unfortunately, though it is worth more, I don’t believe it is worth $35,000 more.

Those who follow these number closely may recall that in 2016 we had a low number of homes sell for over $1 million.  2017 was back to a normal pace with 11 homes selling over $1 million including one home for over $5 million.  If we drop the million dollar plus homes from the numbers, the median increase was still a very healthy 4.6% compared to 8.6% with them included.  The impact on the average price is similar, increasing 2.4% instead to 6.9%.  Finally, the price per square foot changed from a 4.6% increase to a 3.9% increase.

I do want to point out that prices do not rise at the same level across all of Steiner Ranch.  Some neighborhoods were up and some were down.  If you would like to see a list of each Steiner neighborhood and its annual price change, visit here.

Throughout much of the year, the inventory was higher than in 2016.  In fact, once we rolled into March, the 2017 inventory levels were higher for the duration of the year.  The number of homes offered for sale was 12.3% higher than 2016.  The number of times a home was taken off the market without selling in 2017 was 111 which is up 34% from 2016.  It is definitely a misconception that all homes sell in a strong market.  There are many reasons for it, but it you are one of these folks, please contact me so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Last year, the sale prices in Steiner ranged from a low of $265,000 to a high of $5,400,000.  The average sales price to list price ratio was 98.2%.  For homes that closed in 2017, the average days on market was 50,  up 11.1% from 2016.  Both of these figures are likely a result of the higher inventory.

As always, my website allows you to look at summary and detailed data for each home that sold in Steiner Ranch.  Simply go to RealEstateInAustin.com and click on the big red ‘Search Sold Data’ button which is found towards the bottom of the page.

So it’s time to make 2018 predictions.  But first, let’s see how I did with my 2017 prognostications.  About a year ago, I predicted that prices would rise by 2.3%.  Well, I was way off the mark as the median price was up 8.6%.  I also missed on the number of homes that would sell.  I predicted a 3.6% increase, but the actual number decreased 2.4% With a track record like that, you’d think I would stop making predictions.  Nope, I will march forward and try again.  For 2018, I predict that the number of resale homes sold in Steiner Ranch will increase by 0.5% and that prices will increase by 1.1%, mainly because we will have more homes under $500,000 offered for sale in 2018.

If you would like to see more detailed statistics and graphs, you will find them here.

If you are thinking of buying or selling in Steiner Ranch in 2018, I would love the opportunity to earn your business.  To find out why I am consistently one of the top real estate agents serving Steiner Ranch and how you can use that to your advantage, call me at 512-650-7300 or email me at [email protected].  Thanks for reading “How’s The Market in Steiner Ranch.”

Statistics based upon information from ACTRIS for the periods cited.