It looks like Hays County is growing faster than the surrounding areas, with single-family home sales jumping 23.2 percent year-over-year to 377 homes for the month of August 2016. The Austin Board of Realtors (ABoR) recently released their market statistics, which states that this jump in home sales activity was driven mostly by home sales in Buda and San Marcos. Home sales jumped as much as 67.9 percent in San Marcos, and 45.8 percent in Buda!

This may be because homes for sale in Hays County have a median price of $253,250, which is about $100,000 less than the median price in the City of Austin. That being said, home price still rose 7.8 percent year-over-year in Hays County. Housing inventory in the area increased .4 months to 3.3 months of inventory, which still indicates an incredibly hot market.

A couple months ago Williamson County lead Central Texas in home sales, but in August 2016 home sales have fallen flat. Increasing less than one percent year-over-year (0.7 percent) homes sales actually decreased in many Williamson County cities. The median price for single-family homes increased 6.6 percent to $261,250 while housing inventory rose to 2.5 months.

The City of Austin is actually seeing a leveling out of the market as well, with home sales increasing only .8 percent year over year to 868 homes sold. Home prices in the city are still rising, however, 10.3 percent to be exact to $356,276. While this is out of budget range for many homeowners hoping to enter the market, it’s still very reasonably priced compared to many of the more popular places to live in the country .

Inventory in the City of Austin remains low, increasing only .2 months in August 2016 to 2.3 months. This is still well below the 6.5 months that the Texas A&M Real Estate Center cites as a balanced market. Single-family homes spent an average of 35 days on the market, which is two days more than this time last year.

Across the Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) home sales rose a total of 5.3 percent. This encompasses the entire region, including all areas already mentioned. The median home price across the MSA increased 9.4 percent to $289,990. As we’ve seen for the last couple years, houses have been selling very rapidly with housing inventory sitting at around 2.8 months. Homes are spending the same amount of time on the market as they were this time last year at 42 days.

No matter where you’re living in Central Texas, the housing market is extremely hot. As long as jobs continue to be created, it doesn’t look like people are going to stop moving here anytime soon. While some folks are capitalizing on this by selling their home for top dollar, many are looking to transition from renting to owning, or move up. These people will need to move quickly if they’re going to take advantage of the low-interest rates mortgage companies are offering right now. As always, enlisting the help of a professional real estate agent is incredibly helpful in navigating this competitive market.