Housing Market in Austin Continues Upward
"For sale" signs are turning to "sold" signs in Austin. Photo by KUT NewsAustin saw a big jump in home sales last month, according to a report today from the Austin Board of Realtors.
Home sales were up 10 percent last month from January 2011.
Eldon Rude with the real estate tracking firm Metrostudy says the numbers are part of an ongoing recovery of Austin’s housing market.
“That is driven by continued increases in population and household in the region over the last several years, and people beginning to react to increasing rents in the apartment market, and so they’re moving toward the for sale housing market,” Rude said.
Statewide forecasts are suggesting a similar trend. Housing market economist Jim Gaines at Texas A&M University expects home sales across the state to increase 5 percent this year.
“Austin and San Antonio are going to be doing very, very well,” Gaines said. “People want to live in these areas, and they’re going to first rent in other cases and then buy in other cases. This is sort of the beginning of what might be a very slow total market recovery back to what we would call normal situations.”
We’ll get a national picture on the housing market tomorrow. The National Association of Realtors will release data on existing-home sales at 9 a.m. Central time.
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