Steiner Ranch Housing Report - August 2022

The monthly sales figures look very strong, but based on what I'm seeing across the market today, they're rather misleading. The stats for the Steiner Ranch real estate market can be found in text and chart formats below the video.

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 1835 Realty.  Welcome to the August 2022 edition of "How's the Market in Steiner Ranch.”  The buyers continue to shy away and the prices are coming down.

In July, 11 resale homes closed in Steiner Ranch which was down 59% from July 2021.  This is an extremely low number for July.  If we look at 2020 when 47 homes closed, the drop is 77%.  As for prices, let me say up front, they aren’t what they seem.  The median price in July increased year-over-year by 51% to $1,315,750.  The average price of a home increased 40% to $1,395,977.  The average price per square foot increased by 29% to $375.61.  These numbers are high because while sales have declined a lot, the decline is biggest in the homes priced under $1 million.  Of the 11 that sold in July, 8 were over $1 million, including two over $2 million.  That’s why the numbers look so strong, but I can assure you, the median price in Steiner right now isn’t $1.3M.  This is one reason I like to look at a longer timeframe – so we can get a smoother picture.  Looking at the first seven months of 2022, the number of resale homes sold is 111, down 36% from the same time frame last year.  The median price of a home has increased 40% to $1,140,000. The average price increased by 27% to $1,201,638.  The average price per square foot increased 25 % to $354.66.  But even these numbers overstate prices because we are including homes from when the market was stronger.  To give you an idea of the difference, the median price of the homes currently available in Steiner is $955,000.  I believe that we are looking at an approximate pullback of 10% from the peak prices we saw in Steiner a few months ago. I think we’ll see the median price statistically drop below $1M with the August sales.

The number of available resale homes at the end of July was 63, up from 19 last July.  There were 32 new listings put on the market during the month, just one less than last year  Obviously, the big difference is the drop in number of contracts written.  During July, only 10 homes went under contract and are still under contract as I record this.  In July of 2021, that number was 37.  If no new homes came to the market in Steiner Ranch, if the pace of 10 contracts a month held, it would take us more than six months to sell all the homes currently on the market.  Statistically, that’s a buyer’s market.

The average sales price to list price ratio was 101.2%.  I expected that to drop below 100% this month so it was surprising to me.  As I looked closer, I noticed that 4 of the 11 homes sold above list price.  Of those, three went under contract during May when the market was much stronger.  I’m pretty confident next month will see this number below 100%.  For homes that closed in July, the average days on market was 12, up from 10 last year.  It's also up from 9 days in June.  I thought it would be higher, but I’m very confident the number will be notably higher next month.  Across Steiner, the July sales ranged from a low of $682,000 to a high of $2,655,000. 

Let’s look again this month at the number of price reductions as it really shows how this market has changed.  During July, there were 70 price reductions on homes in Steiner.  Compare that with just 16 in July 202.  Even just the prior month of June, there were 39.  Again, lower prices are not just coming, they’re already here.

I still firmly believe the Austin economy is strong and the outlook for housing in the medium and long term is great.  Many buyers are ready and able to purchase a home right now, but are holding back because the prices are declining.  They’re waiting for the bottom of the market.  I really think we have a herd mentality in the real estate market right now, reminiscent of the meme stocks of 2021.  If you’ve seen Finding Nemo, you know that the school of fish move in a coordinated manner.  The buyers of the past few years moved together all wanting to buy houses at the same time, thrusting the market higher very quickly.  Well, the school of fish has turned around and they aren’t buying homes right now.  They’re moving together and pushing prices down.  They’re ready and able to buy, but they’re waiting for the bottom of the market.  I don’t know when we will hit the bottom either in terms of time or percent decline.  But at some point the fish, I mean buyers, will decide they think we’ve hit bottom and they’ll all swim the other way to buy homes.  Maybe it’s in two months or maybe it’s next year, but it will happen.  I’m curious to see if all the buyers will move quickly, thus causing another frenzied ride up or if it will be slower this time.  As for me, I’ll just keep swimming so when you’re ready to buy or sell, don’t hesitate to call or text me at 512-650-7300 or email me at [email protected]

If you have any real estate related questions, please don’t hesitate to call or text me at 512-650-7300 or email me at [email protected].  Thanks for watching “How’s The Market in Steiner Ranch.”