Austin Housing Market Price and Inventory Back to Normal

For the third month in a row, the Austin Board of Realtors reports that the local housing market is returning to normal. Following the unprecedented price growth experienced in early 2022, the market is shifting back to a normal pace, fueled by skyrocketing inventory and normalized home price appreciation.

The latest monthly report shows that in August 2022, the metro's median home price jumped 5.5 percent year over year, to $496,038. While a record high for the month of August, ABOR says the growth "[indicates] a normalization of home price appreciation that economists say is consistent with historical norms."

In the city of Austin, the median price grew 3.6 percent year over year to $555,000; Travis County's median priced surpassed the city's, growing 8.6 percent to $570,000. Both are records for the month of August.

The five-county Austin-Round Rock metro now boasts 2.9 months of housing inventory — the highest level since September 2018, and an increase of two months from August 2021. The city's housing inventory now sits at 2.4 months, with Travis County at 2.7 months.

Despite the growth in listings, Mark Sprague of Independent Title says biggest challenge in 2023 will continue to be housing inventory. "We are just now getting up to three months of housing inventory, which is still short of the 6 to 6.5 months of inventory needed to be considered a healthy market," he says.

An August forecast from real estate platform Knock says Austin is poised for the biggest market shift in 2023. Knock predicts Austin will see the most dramatic shift from a seller's market to a buyer's market next year.

“I want to be very clear—market shift does not mean that we are in a downturn, and it doesn’t mean that Central Texas home values have been overvalued,” says Cord Shiflet, 2022 ABoR president. “Home prices are still appreciating, just at a more reasonable rate, that’s more in-line with what we have seen historically. Homes are still selling close to list price, which is great news for buyers and healthy for our housing market.“