Real Estate Rumblings
San Antonio homeownership rate stays steady amid pandemic, report says
San Antonio real estate is on track for a record-breaking year, and its homeownership rate continues to hold steady, even amid the pandemic.
In the third quarter of this year, the San Antonio homeownership rate stood at 66.3 percent, remaining relatively unchanged from the second quarter, according to a report released November 17 by the Texas A&M University Real Estate Center.
The rate represents a 5.2 percent increase from the third quarter of 2019, when the local homeownership rate was only 61.1 percent. San Antonio’s data goes back to 1996, and the area saw a record high of 76 percent in the fourth quarter of 2004, according to the center.
Things may be steady in San Antonio, but Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth are basking in record-high homeownership rates.
In the third quarter of this year, the homeownership rate in the Austin metro area skyrocketed to 74.7 percent. That’s the highest rate since U.S. Census Bureau data about homeownership in the Austin area first became available in 1996.
For the second quarter of this year, Austin’s homeownership rate stood at 65.8 percent, almost 9 percentage points below its level just one quarter later, according to the A&M Real Estate Center. In the third quarter of 2019, it was 60.3 percent. The Real Estate Center also notes that Austin’s homeownership rate is the highest among the state's four major metro areas for the first time in 12 years.
In Dallas-Fort Worth, the homeownership rate reached a record-high 69 percent in the third quarter of this year, according to the Real Estate Center’s report. That compares with 64.9 percent in the second quarter of this year and 61.5 percent in the third quarter of 2019. Federal homeownership data for DFW dates back to 2005.
Jim Gaines, the TAMU Real Estate Center’s chief economist, warns that homeownership rates could slide next year as pandemic-era protections against home foreclosures expire.
Houston, which has been battered by the pandemic recession and a downturn in the oil industry, saw the regional homeownership rate drop from the second quarter of this year (67.9 percent, a record high) to the third quarter (65.5 percent), the report says. In the third quarter of last year, the rate sat at 61.9 percent. Houston’s data dates back to 2005.
