Big Comeback
Only one city outranks Austin on list of most recovered real estate markets
As a testament to the region’s healthy economy, the Austin housing market has fully recovered — and then some — from the price declines it sustained during the Great Recession.
A new indexfrom mortgage website HSH.com shows Austin ranks second among the 100 biggest U.S. metro areas for the level of home price recovery since the recession.
In the second quarter of 2017, home prices in the Capital City were 60.6 percent above their peak in the mid-2000s, just before the recession.
Elsewhere in Texas, Dallas-Plano-Irving ranks third (56.7 percent above peak value), Houston is fourth (47.8 percent), and Fort Worth-Arlington ranks fifth (47.5 percent). San Antonio isn’t far behind at No. 8, with home prices 37.2 percent above their peak.
Topping the HSH.com list is the Denver metro area, where home prices in the second quarter of 2017 were 69.6 percent above their mid-2000s peak.
The HSH.com index crunches data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency as a basis to determine which housing markets have fully recovered — or even more — since the recession and which still lag behind the housing recovery.
In April, TenX, an online marketplace for real estate transactions included Texas' main markets on its list of the healthiest U.S. markets for single-family homes. Dallas was No. 2, followed by San Antonio (No. 11), Fort Worth (No. 12), Austin (No. 13), and Houston (No. 35).
In releasing the list, TenX noted single-family homes in the Dallas area remain inexpensive relative to household income.
However, a June report from insurance giant Nationwide identified Dallas-Plano-Irving as one of the 10 most troubled housing markets in the U.S. during the first quarter of this year. The area ranked 396th among 400 metro areas for the health of U.S. housing markets.
Nationwide says the report’s negative ranking for the Dallas market was “mainly due to worsening affordability.”
The San Antonio market earned a positive ranking in the Nationwide report, while the rankings for Austin, Fort Worth, and Houston were neutral.