Austin’s red-hot housing market may have reached an inflection point.
Home sales in the Austin-Round Rock metro area declined 20 percent year-over-year in June, marking a steep downward turn compared to relatively small slides of 7 percent in May and 6.2 percent in April, according to the Austin Board of Realtors’ June 2022 housing report.
Housing inventory nearly doubled as well, reaching 2.1 months in June, up from 1.2 months in May. Active listings were up 218 percent over June 2021, skyrocketing even higher than the 147 percent increase in May.
These figures come on the heels of a Realtor.com report that showed Austin’s June listings surge topped the nation.
Pending sales were down 32 percent in June from the previous year, after just a 12 percent decline in May and a 5 percent drop in April. Trajectory suggests a growing slowdown in one of the nation’s most overheated housing markets.
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Recent stats also show a similar cooling off in Houston. In June, the number of active listings in the Bayou City was 27.4 percent higher than at the same time last year, while sales were down 8.6 percent year on year — the third month in a row that 2022 sales failed to keep pace with 2021.
Deeper chill is likely in the coming months, as the Federal Reserve imposed the biggest rate hike in 30 years in the middle of June, further boosting mortgage rates and making home buying even more expensive. And with inflation still high, more rate hikes are looming.
Austin’s drop in sales may be starting to show up in the median home price, which slipped to $537,475 in June — down from its all-time high of $550,000, where it hovered through April and May.
“When we look at the data across the Austin housing market, it reinforces what we see on a national scale,” Realtor.com economist George Ratiu said in the Central Texas housing report. “This increase in supply combined with cooling demand indicates the beginning of a more sustainable housing market.”