Texas housing prices: An overview of recent market fluctuations

In recent years, Texas has seen a substantial surge in housing prices. As per the data released by Zillow, a residence in Austin, which would have cost an average of $295,000 in January 2015, was valued at approximately $570,000 by April 2023.

The same pattern of rising real estate prices can be observed across numerous Texan cities. In January 2015, a Dallas home buyer could have expected to spend roughly $130,000, according to Zillow's statistics. In contrast, as of recent times, the cost to purchase a home has more than doubled to approximately $309,000.

This escalation of property prices poses significant obstacles for the Texas working class. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts states, "The cost and availability of affordable housing can determine a family’s access to work, education, shopping and more. It also affects employers’ ability to hire and retain qualified workers, which in turn can influence where companies choose to locate and expand."

The situation has provoked speculation regarding the potential of an impending housing crash. Hence, this article seeks to examine trends across several metropolitan regions to assess the likelihood of a real estate downturn in the near future.

Texas Real Estate Prices Exhibit a Downward Trend

In April 2023, Dallas witnessed a decrease of 5.3% in home prices from the previous year, with a median price of $412,000, according to Redfin. It's noteworthy that the duration of Dallas properties on the market has increased by 10 days from the previous year, now standing at 25 days. With 933 properties sold in April 2023, compared to 1,175 sold in April 2022, concerns around the state of the housing market are well-founded.

Austin is experiencing a similar scenario. After a period of soaring real estate prices in 2020 & 2021, the local housing market shows signs of cooling off. The median sale price for a home has seen a year-over-year decrease of 12.7%, settling at $570,000. The volume of home sales in Austin has likewise decreased, by a significant 32.6%.

"Buyers are not competing as hard for a home," Ashley Jackson from the Austin Board of Realtors commented in The Texas Tribune. "In the past few years where we saw perhaps a buyer had to go 10% or 20% over asking price. Maybe now they can get a house at asking price or perhaps even under asking price.”