Stats on Seasonality in Austin?

Question

I'm in the Bay Area, and looking to educate myself about buy and hold opportunities in Austin -- where I have family.

Can I ask how investors can get clean historical data on Austin's real estate market? I'm mainly trying to get a sense of seasonality. Is data on metrics like sales volume, or $/sq ft, by month and year readily available? If so, how granular does that data get. Can you slice by the ZIP and property type?

Thanks for any guidance you can share with a newbie!

Ethan

David Ivy · Answer

@Ethan Anderson

The best way to get clean historical data on Austin's real estate market is though the Austin MLS. However, you need to be a member of the Austin Board of Realtors to access it. I'm happy to pull whatever stats you'd like. The stats available are just about as fine-grained as you could want. Let me know what you'd like to see in particular.

You asked about seasonality. As an example, here is a chart of SFR sales volume by month over the past 5 years in Austin:

Here's the raw data for the above chart:

Let me know what else you'd like to see.

Jason R. · Answer

Keep in mind the lag time that it takes for a sale to close. For instance, you shouldn't decide to purchase in January because you see the lowest sales prices during that time. You would want to get a property under contract in early December.

Likewise, you shouldn't decide to sell during the month with the highest sales price. That is the month when the properties are closing for the highest sales price, meaning they went under contract before then so you would want to put properties on the market about 60 days ahead of your identified month of highest sales price (depending on market factors such as expected DOM).

Common sense but it's been overlooked plenty of times.

Jacob Pereira · Answer

wow, thanks @David Ivy.

It looks like there's a legitimate difference in sales price depending on the season, which I find a bit surprising. Looks like we should all be gearing up for acquisitions now.

David Ivy · Answer

@Jacob Pereira @Ethan Anderson

Here is the monthly median SFR sales price over the past 5 years:

Here's the data:

Jacob Pereira · Answer

Nice chart @David Ivy!

Does the pricing data show a similar tend? I'd expect it to be much flatter, but is there at least a slight bump in pricing in the spring and summer months?

Ethan Anderson · Answer

Thanks @David Ivy! You really went above and beyond!

It looks like things really start to slow down after August for SFRs, and Jan and Feb are particularly quiet. Just anecdotally, I've noticed a lot of Austin SFRs with price reductions on Zillow & Redfin recently. I wonder if sellers will start to feel the window closing, if they are looking to sell yet in 2016.

Canisius Rozario · Answer

This is really good information :). Interesting to see the spike in Dec, I guess people want to move into a new home before Christmas/New Year.

Stats on Seasonality in Austin?

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