Austin January 2008 Market Stats - A Weaker Market

The Austin market for single family homes looks weaker than it has been. January always looks weaker than the rest of the year, but this is more than the usual weakness. Compared to the market in the rest of the country, however, our market is a pillar of strength.

Here are the stats & charts below:
Sales for the month: down to lowest since Feb'04.
Prices: average and median both down around 1% for the month, but up from Jan'07.
Days on the market: seriously and grievously up. It's taking a lot longer to sell the average home.
No. of listings: there are a lot of homes on the market, but not as many as a couple of months ago.
Pending sales: a bounce up in January, though still only 17% of active listings.
Summary: you can't avoid the evidence that there's a slower market now, but it's no catastrophe.

Market strong above $180K, weak below $180K

The average and median prices of homes sold in Austin rose in 2007, but numbers of sales declined. Here's the catch: sales of homes below $180,000 were weaker and homes above $180,000 were generally stronger from December 2006 to December 2007. Fewer sales in lower price categories pushed up the median and average, so it's impossible to say whether prices of individual homes rose, fell or stayed the same.