Austin home prices might be fluctuating a bit right now, but for a variety of reasons (low inventory, a massive population boom, a few tech and real estate busts here and there), they've been too high for many local would-be homebuyers for years, if not decades. In fact, a new study from Point2 — one of those Yardi-affiliated listings sites/blogs that crunches a lot of data and issues a lot of reports — finds that Austin is, indeed, on of the nation's 20 largest and most expensive cities for home-buying. The report puts the median home price in the city of Austin at $536,000, or $320 per square foot.
In a lot of nearby suburbs (many of which readers might describe more as "small towns"), however, Point2 finds the sticker shock a little less devastating. Its researchers looked at suburbs within a 30-mile driving distance from the city center and compared the net and percentage differences between price per square foot for homes in the city limits to that in the specific suburb.
The data on the Austin suburbs analyzed shows that in 17 of those suburbs, the price per square foot of living space is lower than in the city. — an 89 percent share of nearby affordable suburbs, which brought Austin in the top 10 of the study's largest and most expensive U.S. cities with the highest shares of affordable suburbs.
The site found Manor to be the most affordable Austin suburb, with the price per square foot 42 percent lower than in the city proper. Lockhart, Kyle, Hutto, and Elgin follow in descending order, with median prices 40 percent to 41 percent lower than those within city limits.
Two Austin suburbs (guess which ones!) bucked the trend: West Lake Hills and Rollingwood show costs per square foot of living space that exceed those in the city by 211 percent and 212 percent, respectively.
