Is this a new construction market?

Median sales price continues to keep relatively stable with a decline of 4.4% compared to last year. This is mostly driven by Hays County (-5.5%) and Williamson County (-3.3%) while City of Austin keeps the market more level with +1.8%.

With over 12,000 active listings, inventory is still high with almost half of them in Travis County (6,016), closely followed by City of Austin (4,541) and Williamson County (3,643).

For the overall Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos area, it looks like new construction single family homes are having a stronger year compared to 2023. Year to date, closed sales have increased by 3.1%, coming at the cost of a 2.8% decrease in dollar volume. The median sales price is at $414.990, 6.7% lower than YTD 2023.

For existing homes, the picture looks slightly different: while there is a 2% decrease in YTD closed sales volume, the corresponding dollar volume has decreased by only 1.7% and the median price has remained stable with +0.1% compared to YTD 2023 ($479,500).

This could indicate a harder push by new constructions to sell inventory. Add on that builders have been offering incentives and rate buy-downs that are hard to match by private home sales and new construction homes may look like a good option if you are in the market to buy right now.

The Federal Reserve is expected to reduce rates for the first time since 2020 in their meeting next week. Depending on the extent of the decrease, this is expected to make homes more affordable and drive more demand. According to the Washington Post, mortgage rates already fell to the lowest level since April 2023 in anticipation of the decision next week.

See listings priced around $440,000

Full builder inventory isn’t always easy to find. If you are curious about new construction communities, incentives and floor plans, please reach out to us - we are happy to share what we are seeing across the area right now!

Making your house a home

It can sometimes feel a little overwhelming to move into a new construction home or a freshly renovated home with all white walls and little personalization.

There are a lot of simple things you can do to start turning your house into your home that don’t require ripping out walls or breaking the bank with custom cabinets. We came across this article that listed a lot of great things like changing out light fixtures and upgrading hardware (on doors but also on cabinets).

Things that you can do over time and things that are easy to do yourself!