Steiner Ranch Housing Report - March 2016

In this edition of “How’s the Market in Steiner Ranch,” I talk about the February stats and explain why the median price is used when discussing real estate statistics. Below the video, you can find the same information in chart and text formats.

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.  Welcome to the March 2016 edition of “How’s the Market in Steiner Ranch.”  This month gives us a great example of why the most commonly cited real estate sales figure is the median price instead of the average price.  So let’s get going…

In February, 16 resale homes closed in Steiner Ranch which was down 27.3% from February 2015.  The median price decreased 3.1% to $410,750.  The average price of a home decreased 1.8% to $448,217.  The average price per square foot increased by 6.9% to $160.84.  I’m not concerned about the one-month drop – there were definitely few higher end homes that sold this month.  Given the number of high-end homes under contract right now, that will change in the next month or two.  It is also the reason why I like to compare prices using longer periods of time.  If we look at the past six months and compare it to the same six month period a year prior, we get a different picture of the market.  First of all, the number of homes that sold was 129, up 17.3%.  During all of 2015, when we compared six-month rolling periods, we sold fewer homes each period.  This is a pleasant change of pace.  As for pricing, the median price increased 6.9% to $432,500.  The average price of a home decreased 5.5% to $507,104.  The average price per square foot decreased by 1.3% to $152.34.  So why the big diversion between the median price increasing 6.9% and the average price decreasing 5.5%?  It has to do with the high-end homes.  Over the past six months, there were 3 homes at or above $1 million.  In the same six-month period a year ago, there were 6 homes at or above $1 million including one at almost $5 million.  If I remove the $1 million plus sales for both periods and calculate the numbers without them, the average price changes a lot.  In fact, instead of dropping by 5.5%, it increases by 7.4%.  This is why, in real estate, we use the median price instead of the average price.  2016 is starting out stronger than I expected it would.  Looking at the homes under contract right now, I expect that to continue for at least the next few months.

The number of available resale homes at the beginning of February was 57, up 46% from last February.  To be clear, that does not include homes that are under contract.  More owners are listing their homes earlier in the year.  However, the market seems to be doing a great job of absorbing them.  If you plan to sell this spring, you need to contact me today.

Across Steiner, the February sales ranged from a low of $340,000 to a high of $980,000.   The average sales price to list price ratio was 98.0%.  For homes that closed in February, the average days on market was 34, down 48% from last February.

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