Tag Archives: housing activity

Blog, Circle C Ranch, Market Statistics

Circle C Housing Market Update February 2019

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Circle C Housing Market Update February 14, 2019

Hey neighbors, Happy Valentine’s Day!  Hopefully you’ve picked up something special for your Valentine and can relax the rest of the day.  Me, I’m thinking about the housing market in good old Circle C.  If you have a few minutes, let’s go over the numbers for the past 6 months and January specifically.  It’s a new year and people are thinking about moving again.

The past six months and January totals

Between August 2018 and January 2019, we recorded 150 sales in Circle C.  Average size was 2806 Square Foot, average price was $512k or $182/Square Foot.  Those numbers were slightly down from last month.  Only nine homes closed in Circle C during the month of January!  That’s amazing.  We typically average about 30 home closings in a month, but January was SLOW.  Remember, January closings are the result of December contracts… so really December was a slow month.  Last year we saw 16 homes close in January 2018.    The minimum sale recorded in January 2019 was a 1,690 Square Foot home for $379,500.  The average home in January was 2,621 SQUARE FOOT and closed at $453k.  The highest recorded sale in MLS for January was a 2,750 square foot home that closed at $465k.

When I think about the market now, I notice a few very interesting things.  First, the lack of homes on the market – it’s amazing to me that a community the size of Circle C (approx. 5500 homes) that only 30 homes are currently ACTIVE and for sale.  Of those 30, nearly half (14) are new construction.  That means there are only 16 resale homes available. Wow.  Using the National Association of REALTORS© months of inventory measurement, NAR would say that Circle C currently has only 1 month of inventory!  That is what we would call a giant Seller’s market.  Now there are more new construction homes available in various stages of build, but they may not be listed in the MLS.  Still, this is a tough environment for Buyers.

See table below to see the January stats year over year.

 

  Jan 2018 Jan 2019 % Change
Homes Sold 16 9 Down 44%
Minimum price $370,100 $372,500 Up 1%
Average price $454,521 $446,389 Down 2%
Median price $439,500 $464,000 Up 6%
High price $601,490 $525,000 Down 13%

 

The Take Away

It’s only been one month for 2019, but given our lack of resale home inventory I am not going to forecast a huge 2019 in terms of home sales.  After all, some of the current inventory is not actually ready to move into (new construction) yet.  I did notice a change from our two builders in the area – Cal Atlantic / Village Builders who have homes going up in Hillside Estates, Greyrock and Avana.  Looks like they are still going strong and I expect that Greyrock will be built out in early 2020.  Avana and Hillside Estates similarly.  Homes By AVI moved their sales office away but are building a few 3 story townhomes as specs, and fielding inquiries by phone.

It’s going to be an interesting year folks.  Here’s to your Valentine’s Day – we hope you have a wonderful day and an even greater year!

For More Information

For more information about the Circle C housing market and your particular neighborhood click here to view the updated Market Stats report on MoveToCircleC.com or AustinRealEstatePartners.com.  There you’ll see a google map with specific values for each neighborhood and if you scroll down a little two tabs with more information – one for the prior six months and one for the annual growth rate.

Still have questions about the market or what your home value could be today?  Call me directly at (512) 288-8088 and I’ll do my best to provide an answer and there is no obligation.

Circle C Ranch

Circle C Housing Market Update January 2019

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Circle C Housing Market Update January 5, 2019

Hey neighbor, got a few minutes?  Let’s take a quick look at Circle C’s last six months of home sales and as an added year-end bonus: the 1-year, 5-year and 10-year average price per square foot numbers across the 18 distinct communities within Circle C.

The past six months and annual totals

First, from July through December, we recorded 178 homes sold in Circle C.  The average sold price was $516k or $183/sf.  23 of those sales were closed in December.  Median price for December was $465k. As predicted, we recorded just under 370 homes closed for Circle C for the year, 367 to be precise, with prices ranging from a low of $349,500… a high of $1,190,170… an average of $512,854… and a median sold price of $483,235.  Remember not all sales are captured in the MLS – most off market homes are new construction and never reported through the MLS.

As a point of reference, in 2017… we saw 353 homes close.  So, the number of homes that sold year over year increased by 4% (14 units).  See Table 1 below to see the high-level year over year stats.

 

  2017 2018 % Change
Homes Sold 353 367 Up 4%
Minimum price $306,500 $349,500 Up 14%
Average price $497,969 $512,854 Up 3%
Median price $474,130 $483,235 Up 2%
High price $1,450,000 $1,190,000 Down 18%

Table 1: Year over Year comparison

CAGR versus Appreciation Rate

Before we dig into the longer time range changes, it’s important to clarify the measurement to not mislead.  The following numbers are called CAGR or compound annual growth rate.  CAGR is a measurement that smooths that annual rate of change over a specific time period.  At first glance, one might say CAGR is like an annual appreciation rate… but, true appreciation rate also considers currency inflation or deflation. CAGR does not.  Nevertheless, it is a fair representation of the direction of an asset – in this case the asset is a neighborhood average or median sales price, which we project on the value of a specific property.  The bottom line is this is an academic exercise performed at a fairly high-level and may or may not hold true at the individual home level.

The 1-year, 5-year and 10-year rate of change

We’ve been tracking home values in Circle C since 2003… but, we are only going to talk about the 1, 5 and 10 year values today.  That’s comparing the average sold price per square foot (S$/SF), for 2018 versus 2017, 2014 and 2009.  It’s also important to note that the economy was significantly different in 2009 (remember the great recession?).  Due to limited space, we will talk briefly at the entire subdivision level (Circle C) but for more details, you may want to see how your particular ‘neighborhood’ faired over the same time period… you’ll see how to do that in the final paragraph.

Ready?  Good.  Year over year the average sold price per square foot in Circle C rose from 177/sf to 184/sf.  That represents a 4.3% increase in average sold price / sf.  If we look back to 2014… the average sold price / sf was $151/sf…. So, a 6.6% increase compounded per year gets us to the same $184/sf in 2018.   Now, lets reach back to 2009 when the average sold price per square foot was $115/sf.  Wow, that’s a (184-115)/115 = 60% increase in average sold price / sf in ten short years.  The CAGR (annual growth rate) required to achieve that increase is 5.54% per year.  See Table 2 below for a quick summary of CAGR and Increase (decrease) in average sold price / sf for Circle C.

Measure 1 Year 5 Year 10 Year
CAGR 4.3% 6.6% 5.4%
Increase (Decrease) Percent (184-177)/177= 4% (184-151)/151= 22% (184-115)/115= 60%

Table 2: CAGR and Increase in Average Sold Price / SF

The Take Away

Any way we look at it we see home values on the increase.  But are they rising too fast?  Maybe.  Home values have increased faster than wages and with the rising interest rates (projected to end in the 5.5% to 5.8% by the end of 2019), I would guess that while the market in Circle C (and just about everywhere in Central Texas) would still be considered a seller’s market… I don’t think we’ll see the big growth year over year that we experienced back in 2014 (that year values rose 10.1%).

For More Information

For more information about the Circle C housing market and your particular neighborhood click here to view the updated Market Stats report on MoveToCircleC.com or AustinRealEstatePartners.com.  There you’ll see a google map with specific values for each neighborhood and if you scroll down a little two tabs with more information – one for the prior six months and one for the annual growth rate.

Still have questions about the market or what your home value could be today?  Call me directly at (512) 288-8088 and I’ll do my best to provide an answer and there is no obligation.