Texas housing prices continue to trend higher

Housing continues to be a bright spot during an otherwise challenging economic time for many U.S. households.

Austin saw the largest September home price gains among major metros in Texas. Austin-area home prices were up 8.7 percent from September 2019 levels, according to the latest report from CoreLogic.

Prices rose 4.1 percent in Houston and were up 5.1 percent in the San Antonio area. Dallas and Fort

Worth-area prices rose by 5.3 percent during the same period.

And nationwide home prices were 6.7 percent ahead of where they were the year before — the largest such gain in six years.

Core Logic analysts predict that the pace of home appreciation will slow next year if more houses come on the market.

“COVID has contributed to the acute shortage of inventory as the pace of new construction slowed and older prospective sellers postponed listing their homes until after the pandemic,” Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at Core-

Logic, said in the report. “Once the pandemic passes or a vaccine is widely administered, we should see a noticeable pick-up in forsale homes. And if the economy’s recovery is sluggish next year, distressed sales also may add to market inventory.”

With an 11 percent increase, Phoenix had the largest annual home price increase.

“(Households) in sectors that weathered the transition to remote work successfully are now able to take advantage of low mortgage rates to purchase a home for the first time or to tradeup to a larger home,” said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic.

CoreLogic is forecasting basically flat home prices in the year ahead.

Houston, Las Vegas and Boston are all forecast to have declines in prices.

The median sales price of single-family homes sold by local real estate agents was 10 percent higher in September than a year earlier. Through the first nine months of 2020, prices are ahead by 6 percent compared with the same period last year.