Steiner Ranch Housing Report - July 2023

We're half way through the year so let's find out how the market is doing.

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.

In June, 15 resale homes closed in Steiner Ranch which was down 17% from June 2022.  This was the lowest number of resale closings in Steiner in June in 20 years – and think of how many fewer homes were in Steiner at the time.  The median price decreased 20% to $895,000.  The average price of a home decreased 13% to $1,023,560.  The average price per square foot decreased by 10% to $317.45.  Because one month of data doesn’t always give us a full picture, let’s look a longer period of time. The number of resale homes sold during first half of the year is 83, down 17% from this same time last year.  The median price of a home has decreased 27% to $795,000.  The average price decreased by 20% to $940,457.  The average price per square foot decreased 16% to $297.39.  So the June stats are the first ones to compare back to the point last year when market activity and prices started to decline.  If you’ll recall, it was a very abrupt halt to the market at the time.  So when we compare back to then, the June median price is much lower, but so are the year-to-date numbers.  But, if we compare month-to-month prices, prices are up slightly and we have bounced off the lows from a few months ago.

The number of available resale homes at the end of June was 38, up 22% from last June.  The number of homes put on the market in June was 22, down 56% from last year.  So the market continues to be sluggish in a variety of ways. First, few homes are being listed for sale – down 56% in June and down 27% so far this year.  I’ve mentioned this numerous times, but I’ll quickly reiterate that with so many owners having a 2.5 to 3.5% interest rate on their mortgage, there must be a very compelling reason to move and end up with a 7% interest rate (yes, rates are back up to 7%).  Second, for those with a homestead exemption in place since 2020 or earlier, those owners are paying property taxes on a below market value appraisal so a move to a new home will end up paying taxes on a market value appraisal.  Third, we simply don’t have the demand we had over the past few years.  Fewer people are moving to the Austin area right now.  Of those already here, fewer are out looking to buy a home.  So while there are fewer homes listed for sale, fewer are getting purchased, so the number of homes available is higher.

Across Steiner, the June sales ranged from a low of $575,500 to a high of $1,772,500.   The average sales price to list price ratio was 96.9% and for homes that closed in June, the average days on market was 20 up from 9 last June.  What that 20 days on market stat tells us is that for the homes that are getting contracts, they are priced correctly at the start and not taking long to sell.  But many others are just sitting.  If we look at the average days on market for the homes currently available, that number is 79 days.

Last month, a total of 19 homes went under contract compared to 11 in 2022.  This is definitely good news when compared to last year, but it’s consistent with what we’ve seen over the past few months so it isn’t an improvement from that perspective.

Overall, we’re not out of the woods yet.  Since we’re back at 7% for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, I believe activity will slow down again.  However, at some point, we’ll drop below 6%.  That’s probably at least a year away, but whenever we do get there, the buyers will come flying out of the woodwork and I expect we’ll see a fast turnaround.

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].  If you are thinking of buying or selling soon, let’s get the conversation started.  Thanks for reading “How’s The Market in Steiner Ranch.”