Austin Housing Market Still Holding Strong

Although the housing market has slowed down a bit in Austin when compared to last year’s market, the city still continues to go strong when compared to other cities around the country.  In fact, according to the Austin Business Journal, the construction of new homes in the area actually went up by 22% when comparing the first and second quarters of 2008.

According to Residential Strategies Inc, which is located in Dallas, area builders started construction on 2,814 homes during the second quarter this year.  Despite being 19% less than the number of homes started in the first quarter of 2007, that is still significantly more than the 2,303 homes that were started during the first quarter of 2008.  In addition, while the annual number of new home constructions have dropped by 30%, it is still far better than the 57% drop that is being seen around the country.

Builders are still selling an awful lot of homes in Austin as well.  In fact, during the second quarter, they sold 2,728 homes.  While this is down from the 3,110 sold during the first quarter, builders are still managing to move homes quite effectively.

“Interestingly, builders started a few more houses than they closed,” said Mark Sprague, who is an Austin partner with Residential Strategies.  “Builders have done a good job in monitoring housing inventory levels, so there is not the surplus of unsold houses in Austin like there is in other parts of the U.S.”

In fact, there were only 2,654 vacant homes in the Austin market at the end of the second quarter, which is an 11% drop when compared to the first quarter.