On Tuesday, February 18, the San Antonio Board of Realtors released its monthly report on the city's latest real estate activity. Despite the traditional winter slowdown, the local housing market continued its 2019 momentum into 2020 with a 16 percent year-over-year surge in sales in January.

A total of 2,078 homes were sold during January 2020, according to SABOR, the largest professional trade association in the Alamo City, which reports on the nine county-coverage contained within the report.

“While it’s typical to see a drop-off in sales in the winter months, the San Antonio area continues to attract buyers at all times of the year,” said Kim Bragman, SABOR’s chairman of the board, in a release.

January ended with a total of 2,554 sales still pending and just 3.3 months of available inventory, a key metric in determining a healthy real estate market.

This growth was accompanied by increases in both the average and median prices, which increased 8 percent to $267,792 and 6 percent to $229,400, respectively. In January, 36.6 percent of the homes sold were priced under $199,000 while 57.2 percent were priced between $200,000 and $499,000. The remaining 6.2 percent were homes sold over $500,000.
Zeroing in on Bexar County, reported sales in the county increased 14 percent over last January for a total of 1,504 homes sold and an average sales price of $249,022. Months of inventory in the county remained low at 2.8 months while the price per square foot rose 4.9 percent to $120. (If inventory is low and prices are going up, this indicates that the industry is more of a sellers’ market.)

These increases were not exclusive to the San Antonio area. Texas as a whole experienced significant increases year-over-year with nearly 15 percent more homes sold in January 2020 than the year before. In fact, a total of 19,323 homes sold in just the first month of the year. The average price statewide rose 6 percent to $282,296 while the median grew 5.4 percent to $235,000. Texas does indeed have great winter weather.

“Even as we see increases in these numbers, we remain fortunate that San Antonio has stayed more affordable than other major cities in Texas,” said Gilbert S. Gonzalez, SABOR’s president and CEO. “This affordability means buyers can achieve their dreams of homeownership while still getting to live in a major metro area.”

The numbers over the past three years that reflect these increases are worth mentioning. Total month sales in January 2018 were 1,760 at a 4 percent increase, January 2019 sales were at 1,793 with a 2 percent increase whiles last month’s total sales were 2,078, which was a whopping 16 percent increase.

“With so much to offer like great schools, a stable economy, and a booming job market, it’s easy to see why we keep thriving,” said Bragman.