SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio is regaining some of the ground it lost on the home affordability front as median home prices slip below a critical $300,000 benchmark.
In November, the San Antonio Board of Realtors, which is fed data by participating agents in the city, reported that median home price slipped below $300,000 for the first time since 2022, to $295,000. Much of that price decline was driven by new homebuilders who have been employing pricing strategies to maintain sales momentum. In fact, San Antonio boasts the highest rate of new homes below the $300,000 mark in the nation, according to housing data firm Zonda.
But in January 2024, SABOR reported that the existing homes market, where prices have remained sticky, slipped just below the $300,000 benchmark to $299,000.
“Sellers cut their prices at the end of 2023 in order to compete with each other for the buyers who were still in the market during the holidays, and those contracts are what we see reflected in the numbers for January 2024,” said Danny Charbel, a real estate agent with Keller Williams City View.
Because sellers in the median home price market are in similar price points as new build neighborhoods, they’re competing against homebuilders who are able to do more to incentivize sales at those prices. Charbel reiterated a point echoed by many of his colleagues since the interest rates rose in the back half of 2022: Correctly pricing a home means that price cuts down the line aren’t likely to be necessary.
A more granular look at the data also shows a resurgence back above the $300,000 mark in December before plummeting even lower to the current figure. Based on current activity, Charbel expects a similar trend.
“We’ve started seeing more buyers in the market after the new year, so I’m expecting February to organically look better than January,” he said. “We’re seeing the spring buying season already starting to ramp up.”
Read the full the story and see more images of the development in the San Antonio Business Journal.
Editor’s note: This story was published through a partnership between KSAT and the San Antonio Business Journal.