Ask anyone who has lived in Austin for more than a few years — the cost of living in the Capital City has changed a lot.
At the center of it all has been Austin’s housing market, which has been on a roller coaster for the past several years. So, we dug through the numbers so you don’t have to.
Let’s take a dive into five years of data.
Graphic by ATXtoday
We compiled data from 2019-2023 — focusing on January, December, and the most expensive months in between — to show how much Austin’s housing market has changed in the last half decade.
All of these statistics come from the Austin Board of Realtors and focus on Travis County. Let’s take a deeper look into these numbers from the last five years.
2019
Look at that inventory — Austin was in-demand well before the pandemic began.
Graphic by ATXtoday
While the inventory in 2019 was much healthier than that of 2021 and 2020, it is still far from a healthy housing market inventory, which is six months.
January
- Median price for a single family home: $334,400
- Average time spent on the market: 64 days
- Available inventory: 2 months
June
- Median price for a single family home: $400,000
- Average time spent on the market: 40 days
- Available inventory: 2.5 months
December
- Median price for a single family home: $369,000
- Average time spent on the market: 51 days
- Available inventory: 1.4 months
2020
During 2020, inventory really began to suffer across the city.
Graphic by ATXtoday
Median home prices didn’t start to jump substantially until months after the COVID-19 pandemic began, breaking the $400,000 mark in July. Plus, inventory stayed at 1.9 months or lower throughout the entire year.
January
- Median price for a single family home: $351,000
- Average time spent on the market: 56 days
- Available inventory: 1.4 months
October
- Median price for a single family home: $430,000
- Average time spent on the market: 32 days
- Available inventory: 1.2 months
December
- Median price for a single family home: $435,000
- Average time spent on the market: 36 days
- Available inventory: 0.6 months
2021
2021 was a very difficult year to buy a house due to rising prices, extremely low inventory, and very low time on the market.
Graphic by ATXtoday
Home prices saw a rapid rise in 2021, breaking the $500,000 mark in April. Year-over-year, the growth in price stayed above 20% or more. During this year, homes rarely stayed on the market for more than three weeks.
January
- Median price for a single family home: $427,750
- Average time spent on the market: 32 days
- Available inventory: 0.5 months
June
- Median price for a single family home: $560,000
- Average time spent on the market: 13 days
- Available inventory: 0.7 months
December
- Median price for a single family home: $545,000
- Average time spent on the market: 26 days
- Available inventory: 0.5 months
2022
Inventory struggled and prices hit an all-time high in 2022.
Graphic by ATXtoday
The most expensive year to date to buy a house in Austin, 2022 saw homes break a median price of $600,000 for five straight months. Although the first two months of the year only had 0.3 months of inventory, that number began to rise toward the end of the year.
January
- Median price for a single family home: $550,000
- Average time spent on the market: 30 days
- Available inventory: 0.3 months
May
- Median price for a single family home: $659,000
- Average time spent on the market: 13 days
- Available inventory: 1.2 months
December
- Median price for a single family home: $520,000
- Average time spent on the market: 61 days
- Available inventory: 2.4 months
2023
After a chaotic few years, the housing market in Austin began to stabilize in 2023.
Graphic by ATXtoday
After hitting historic highs, 2023 was the year the housing market started to stabilize.
January
- Median price for a single family home: $499,274
- Average time spent on the market: 67 days
- Available inventory: 2.4 months
June
- Median price for a single family home: $550,000
- Average time spent on the market: 52 days
- Available inventory: 4 months
December
- Median price for a single family home: $527,500
- Average time spent on the market: 80 days
- Available inventory: 3.1 months
2024
This year, experts predict that 2024 will continue along the recovery process. Inventory has reached heights that haven’t been seen in at least five years and home prices cooled for the first time in the same time frame. ABoR has yet to release any data for 2024, so only time will tell.