Over the past decade, home prices around the Austin metro area have nearly doubled and in some areas even more.  Still, people worry and want to know what happens now?

The proverbial and most often asked question  "How is the Real Estate Market"? is now supplemented with how is COVID-19 affecting the market?


The good news for most is that despite the current situation, the Real Estate market is staying very strong! Especially for residential single-family homes.  The Average Days on the market for home Sellers is less than a month in most cases and has only increased slightly in the last year.  Even though there have been fewer total sales, average sales prices continue to be on a rise.

Regardless of any slowing in total sales, there is still strong stability ahead for this segment of the market. I believe there are many reasons for this which are likely to continue for the next several months if not longer. 

Economic sectors hit hardest by lack of employment fall mostly in the category of those that would have been least likely to purchase a home and with interest rates at an all-time low and continued job growth, there is still a large supply of qualified Buyer and a low supply of homes. New Home Builders in our area have been following a demand-based building protocol for the last 10 or more years so there is no oversupply in New Homes like there has been in the past.

Coming into the Pandemic we were in the middle of the strongest economy in decades and as evidenced by a robust stock market, massive job growth, and lowest unemployment in history. Now, even in the face of recent unemployment spikes from the pandemic, the first waves of loosened restrictions have shown an immediate bounce back in new jobs and stock market recovery, which all happened very quickly.

What does this mean for the local housing market? The renewed focus on people staying at home more and moving out of multi-family settings makes the prospect of ownership in a single-family home look very bright!

Despite Agents and Clients having to adapt toward working more in the virtual space, using virtual home tours, better online promotion and marketing, limited physical showings, handling the paperwork on digital platforms, and having to follow heightened precautions whenever a person to person contact is required, we are experiencing rapid sales, price increases in most of the inventory, especially in suburban and rural areas and proportionately strong Buyer demand because of the lowest mortgage interest rates in history.

Who will benefit most from this? 

Investors capturing entry-level homes for investments (either to build their holdings portfolio or buy and rehab for future resale),

Sellers who are interested in making a move-up on their personal residence,

Sellers that are looking to Sell and relocate out of the area or,

Buyers exiting the rental market wanting to secure their own investment and take advantage of historically low-interest rates.

If you or anyone you know fits into these categories it is a great time to take action!