By now the secret is out. If you have lived in the Austin area for any length of time you already know how fast the area has grown. Normally I’ll write about our roof repair service. But since housing starts impact the roofing business, I couldn’t pass up passing along this great article.
The median list price for a home in 2012 was about $220K per Zillow. This number has grown to $370K by 2016. And there are numbers being thrown around for the number of people moving to Austin everyday. Williamson County and Hays County alternate as either the fastest growing county in the US, or third fastest growing, or something. It’s crazy.
If you are trying to buy a home you have seen the impact first hand. Home starts have reached their second highest in history. You’ll have to go back to the heady times of 2006 when home starts were 17,784. Last year those numbers were 16,058. The numbers are staggering as the local newspaper reports.
Austin-area home starts hit second-highest level on record
By Shonda Novak – American-Statesman Staff January 26 2018
In the fourth quarter, builders started construction on 3,456 houses, a 16.8 percent drop from the final quarter of 2016, Metrostudy found. The decline is in line with a typical Austin winter season, said Vaike O’Grady, Metrostudy’s regional director in Austin, but she also noted that the last quarter of 2016 was particularly strong by comparison.
Despite challenges in the local market — including home prices that are outpacing incomes and anticipated rising mortgage interest rates that will hurt affordability — Metrostudy said “Austin is poised for a robust housing market in the first half of 2018,” barring “a significant geopolitical threat or substantial inflation.”
“Demand for housing in Austin should continue to be strong well into the spring,” O’Grady said. “Many of our builder members reported record sales in 2017. We estimate nearly 20,000 new homes were sold in the Austin area last year.”
So expect continued growth providing we don’t see interest rates creep up to fast.
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