AUSTIN – (By Dale King, Realty News Report) — Condominium and townhome sales across Texas exceeded $5.4 billion and showed notable gains in sales volume between August 2016 and July 2017, according to a new Texas condominium sales report released by the Texas Association of Realtors.
During that 12-month period, the combined dollar volume for condos and townhomes sold in Texas totaled $5,411,886,686. Condo buyers accounted for $3,329,759,930 of that figure, while townhome purchasers spent $2,082,126,756 on their properties.
Any impact from Hurricane Harvey is not yet fully reflected in these figures, said Jim Gaines, chief economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.
“The impact of Hurricane Harvey and subsequent flooding is not fully captured in this data,” he said. “The short- and long-term effects of the disaster and recovery process may lead to data revisions in future reports.”
Gaines noted that “the Texas housing market was disrupted as Harvey shut down the Houston economy for nearly a week. The dramatic 26.7% year-over-year decline in Houston housing sales illustrates the scale of those disruptions.”
“On the supply side,” he added, “a 21.2% year-over-year decline in Houston housing permits removed Texas from the list of states with the highest monthly permits per capita. Outside of Houston, market fundamentals remained relatively steady, with ongoing supply constraints in the resale market that continued to drive price pressure and slow some sales activity.”
Commenting on the statewide condo and townhome market, TAR Chair Vicki Fullerton said this segment has been “one of the fastest-growing segments of the housing market this year.”
According to TAR, condominium sales in Texas rose 8.6% to 14,656 units, while townhome sales grew 5.1% to 8,134 units over the same period, making condos and townhomes among the faster-growing segments of the Texas housing market in 2017.
Prices also rose for both property types through 2016 and into 2017. Statewide, the year-to-date median sales price as of July 2017 was $179,900 for condominiums and $226,675 for townhomes, reflecting annual increases of 9.0% and 8.5%, respectively. The average price per square foot during this period was $178 for condos and $136 for townhomes in Texas.
Inventory for Texas condominiums and townhomes increased to 4.9 months as of July 2017, marking a 0.1-month rise for condominiums and a 0.6-month increase for townhomes. During the first seven months of the year, condos and townhomes averaged 61 and 54 days on the market, respectively.
“Rapid population growth across the state has turned cities surrounding our major metropolitan areas into job and development centers, creating demand for condominium and townhome development beyond urban cores that did not exist before,” Gaines said. “As this growth continues over the next decade, higher-density housing options like condominiums and townhomes will be essential to preserving affordability in our cities.”
Data for the Texas Condominium Sales Report is supplied by the Data Relevance Project, a collaboration between the Texas Association of Realtors and local Realtor associations across the state. The Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University provided the data analysis.
The report reviews condominium and townhome sales from July 2016 through July 2017 in the Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio metropolitan statistical areas.