AUSTIN, Texas — Throughout the year, Austin's hot housing market has been a major story and a focus of KVUE's Boomtown coverage. Significantly higher home prices have become more commonplace. Now, a new report shows that demand is contributing to increasing land prices.
According to the latest numbers from the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University, the average price per acre in the Austin-Waco-Hill Country market reached $5,290 in the third quarter, up 30% year-over-year, the Austin Business Journal reported. The ABJ said nearly 60% more acreage was sold last quarter than in Q3 2020.
In October, the median home sales price grew 24.7% year-over-year to $455,000, which set a record for the month, according to the Austin Board of Realtors.
Texas A&M research economist Charles Gilliland told ABJ he’s never seen annual price appreciation quite like we're seeing this year. He speculated that many land buyers don't have plans just yet but want to close on deals while Austin's market is hot.
“That's typical for those kinds of land investors,” Gilliland told ABJ. “They try to buy land in the path of progress, to get it a couple of years before the demand for it is ripe, then reap the benefits when they actually sell it.”
KVUE spoke to Gilliand about Texas land prices in July. At the time, land prices were up nearly 17%.
For the full ABJ report, click here.
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