Home prices most affordable in areas with land
CNN Money’s article “What Housing Bust?” covers what areas of the nation have done well in the housing market, and why. According to writer Les Christie, areas with plenty of available developable land have smaller swings between home price highs and lows. This is because, when the demand for housing spikes, home builders are able to build more homes and keep the housing prices in check. Speed is also of the essence here, home builders need to be able to build quickly, thus, the need for available land.
“Elasticity of supply,” this is called, according to Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American CoreLogic. And Christie says, it is the definition of Texas real estate, and similar throughout all the metro areas.
“Texas is the poster child for these ‘steady Eddie’ states. House prices during the past three years rose in all 26 metro areas with gains ranging from 2.8% for Dallas, the second largest metro area, to 9.7% in Houston, the largest, to a whopping 32.5% in Odessa.”
This is part of what is causing the metro areas in Texas, including Austin, to grow so rapidly. Landowners in the Austin area should continue to see their investments in high demand for buyers and developers.
Tags: Austin, available land, developers, home prices, housing market, investment, land, Texas
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 9:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.





November 16th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Dale Baker says:Howdy there y’all
That sure is a mighty fine thing for the Grand State of Texas. The builders don’t want to be building to quickly. Haste makes waste, in some cases.
God Bless Texas!!
November 16th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Carl and Ceil Winters says:We have seen many family ranches sold in our area. Developers are putting in some fantastic subdivisions with nice acreage. The Canyon Lake, Blanco and Bulverde areas are growing.