Thought Austin was expensive? Check out some parts of North Texas. According to DFW Urban Realty, the average home price for Collin County increased 37 percent this March year-on-year. That means the county's median price is now $540,000—that's a $65,000 increase.
To put things into context, the average home price in Austin for the same time period was $521,000.
It's not only in Collin County where home prices have jumped. As DFW Urban Realty notes, they’ve increased by 19 percent in Dallas County and 25 percent in Denton.
As Local Profile readers know, Collin County is home to some of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. According to the United States Census Bureau, Frisco has seen the biggest increase in the country, growing 71 percent between 2010 and 2019. McKinney came in at number four, with nearly a 52 percent increase. The growth isn't limited to North Texas: Cedar Park, outside Austin, was number seven, while Conroe, outside Houston, was number nine.
The increasing population is not only helped by companies moving their headquarters to North Texas, but also by new businesses. According to the Dallas Business Journal, the DFW area tops the U.S. in venture capital growth, surpassing cities like Atlanta and Portland.
But it's not just business that's fueling the demand. According to NBC News, it's generational: Millennial homebuyers have entered the market.
"What I think is so important for everybody to realize is this demand is not from COVID,” Stacy Esser with Stacy Esser Group Realty, told NBC News. “This is not because we had this supply or people were racing out of cities and they wanted suburban. This is demand because of our demographic. We have the largest ready buyer pool demographically than we've ever had in U.S. history."
Prices might be going up, but inventory is going down. According to the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University (via NBC News), there was an 88 percent decrease in the number of DFW homes listed for sale in March 2022 compared with the previous year.
