Will home prices in Austin increase faster than home prices in Houston?

Are you investing from out of state or country?

 

how much do you want to spend on a house? that will be the main factor in where you can go. you are not getting within 5 miles of downtown for less than $250...even a shitty east-side tear-down will be pushing $300.

year-to-year, austin home construction is up almost 25%. they can not build fast enough here to meet the demand. prices are not increasing as rapidly as they had been for the last few years, but it is still a ridiculously strong market. tech industry is booming and lots of young, educated people are moving here and wanting to buy a house. my south-central house has doubled in value in 9 years, but i bought when my neighborhood was still kind of hood-y.

the biggest areas of growth right now are the places developers and homebuilders have traditionally avoided like the plague. east, southeast and manor. lots of new communities popping up. it is about two things...location (10-15 minutes from downtown) and affordability.

austin is all about location so the closer you are to town the more you will get out of your investment. that being said, even buying in manor or round rock is a good long-term investment.

 

If I had the money I would buy around Rockdale. Austin is moving in that direction.

 

It is very difficult to compare the entire city for house price increases. You have to compare specific neighborhoods. For example, prices in the Hilshire Village area of Houston have increased dramatically more than the average Austin housing increase over the last 10 years, however, there may be specific neighborhoods in Austin with similar or greater housing increases.

I think people are also underestimating the housing costs rising in the suburbs of Houston. Katy, The Woodlands, Champions/Klein, etc. have seen dramatic price increases in the last 10 years...it is just that prices started pretty low in some of those neighborhoods.

 

Stark sisters in Austin