Real Estate Rumblings
San Antonio real estate shows signs of rebounding despite pandemic
San Antonio's real estate market is continuing to see effects from the global pandemic, but the city is faring better than most U.S. metros.
On June 10, the San Antonio Board of Realtors released its May Housing Trends Report, a compilation of all homes sold in San Antonio and Bexar County over the last 30 days. This month's report, the second since the COVID-19 shutdown began, unsurprisingly showed a dramatic, 20 percent drop in the number of homes sold.
Despite that decline, home prices continue to rise. In May, the average sale price for a San Antonio home was 281,353 (3 percent increase) while the median price was $242,400, an increase of 2 percent. In 2020, the Alamo City's average home price is up 5 percent over 2019, at $274,645.
And while county-wide home sales saw a double-digit dip, Bexar County's 20 percent drop was still the lowest among Texas' four biggest metro areas. Last month, Travis County (Austin) had the biggest drop in home sales at 33 percent, followed by Dallas County (32.9 percent) and Harris County (Houston) at 24.9 percent.
“While we saw a little downward trend this month compared to May 2019, if we're looking at total numbers for the year, the sales numbers are only at 0.3 percent decrease, so we're near par for year-to-date home sales,” said Kim Bragman, SABOR's 2020 chairman of the board, in a release. “Also, we are entering into June with total number of pending sales up by 20 percent, which is promising for an upward trajectory to round out the year, as we move into summer buying months."
As Bragman notes, San Antonio curiously had 3,745 sales pending as it entered June — a good indicator of the strength of San Antonio's residential real estate market. According to SABOR, there have been 18,676 active listings, and 13,032 total home sales in the city this year.
