Record-breaking milestones continue for the Austin real estate market, according to the Austin Board of Realtors' latest data. ABoR's April 2021 report, released May 18, details new all-time highs and unprecedented growth at the city, county, and metro levels.

Home sales in the city of Austin skyrocketed 51.4 percent in April 2021 compared to April 2020, ABoR says. And while the city was under shelter-in-place orders last year that essentially put the market on hold, last month's home sales figure (1,167 sales) was an all-time high for any April on record, the report notes.

With that jump in sales came a very significant jump in price. The median home price in Austin soared 31.7 percent last month to $550,562 — the highest price ever recorded. By comparison, in February 2021 — just two months prior — the city's median price made waves as it neared the $500,000 mark for the very first time.

Travis County was also home to significant growth last month, with home sales up 46.8 percent year-over-year and the median home price up a whopping 37.8 percent to $537,500. And at the metro level, Austin-Round Rock's median sale price clocked in at $460,000 in April 2021, up 42 percent from the previous year, with sales up 37 percent.

“One year ago, shelter-in-place orders effectively ground real estate transactions to a halt, leaving uncertainty in the market,” Susan Horton, 2021 ABoR president, said in a release. “Although striking at face value, last month’s housing market activity demonstrates not only a strong recovery since last spring, but significant growth beyond that recovery.”

That growth has led to an increasingly competitive Central Texas housing market, with very little inventory and homes flying off the market in mere days. In Austin proper, homes spent only seven days on the market last month, and across the five-county metro area, homes were on the market for just 17 days.

Still, Horton remains optimistic about the market in the months to come, noting that "housing inventory was slightly higher in April than in March, and the pace of home price appreciation month to month is slowing, indicating that the rush on the housing market at the beginning of the year could be easing."