The Texas real estate market has seen a significant shift in recent months, with the state's supply of homes for sale increasing by nearly 30 percent from June to July, according to data from the Texas A&M University Real Estate Research Center. This has caused home sales in Texas to drop by more than 5% in the three months between April and June compared to the same period last year. The six-month home offer is considered a healthy balance between buyers and sellers, but this change has made homeownership much more difficult for first-time buyers. The Real Deal reported on signs that the situation was changing in the growing Texas housing market, from a doubling of inventory in Austin from May to June, until Houston home sellers reduced prices and the fall in home sales in North Texas. The real estate group was quick to refute the idea that the Texas housing market was headed for a decline, and characterized the market change as a “normalization from an all-time high to a scenario more consistent with historical norms.” However, experts don't expect home prices to fall anytime soon because Texas continues to gain thousands of residents and its labor market continues to grow, but they do anticipate prices to grow more slowly than in the last two years. The cost of building a house, labor, construction materials and land, among other factors, increased this year, reducing the number of permits. According to the National Association of Realtors, the national inventory of existing unsold homes is 3.3 months of supply, even above Austin's 2.9 months of slack. Ashley Jackson, elected president of the Austin Board of Realtors, said that a house she put up for sale in the suburb of Pflugerville could have immediately received multiple offers if it had been on the market earlier this year. It is clear that there has been a shift in the Texas real estate market.
While it is too soon to tell if this shift will lead to a decline in real estate prices, it is important for potential buyers and sellers to be aware of these changes and how they may affect their decisions.
