From Staff Reports
This story has been updated with corrected figures from Texas Realtors.
In Texas, luxury real estate is as big of a market as the state is sizable, but for the purposes of statistics and all that, let’s say that luxury homes in the Lone Star State are those priced at $1 million or more.
In that case, in the Great State of Texas, homes that sold for $1 million and upwards from Nov. 2019 to Oct. 2020 increased 23.5 percent to 6,347 sales, according to the 2020 Texas Luxury Home Sales Report from Texas Realtors.
So … care to guess where all these new luxury homebuyers are coming from and why they’re here? Incoming chairman of Texas Realtors, Marvin Jolly answers:
“One reason we’ve seen strong growth in luxury home sales despite the pandemic is that mortgage rates are so low. Buyers of high-end properties are finding they can buy more for their money, particularly when compared to many real estate markets in New York, California, and other pricier areas.”
The annual report examining housing statistics for luxury homes in the Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio metropolitan areas also showed total sales of million-dollar and higher homes reached $10.3 billion, a 23.8 percent increase from the previous year. That total accounted for 8.8 percent of all sales dollar volume.
The median price for luxury homes in Texas for the first 10 months of 2020 was $1.36 million, 0.7 percent less than the previous year. The average price per square foot for luxury homes increased by 3.5 percent to $361, which is substantially more than the $139 average price per square foot for all residential Texas homes.
In Dallas-Fort Worth in particular, the volume of luxury home sales went up by 20.1 percent, accounting for $3.5 billion in sales. That’s 2,130 luxury properties in the region, making the average price for a luxury home in the Metroplex approximately $1.64 million.
From January to October 2020, luxury homes in Texas spent an average of 86 days on the market, a decrease of one day from the same time frame in 2019. In D-FW, the average DOM was 79 days. And as of October of this year, there were 10.3 months of luxury inventory.
Jolly concluded, “Buyers in the market for homes priced at $1 million and above will continue to have a good selection in most areas of Texas. The features of luxury homes vary considerably from one property to another, though—from luxury condominiums and waterfront properties to homes with large acreage and guest quarters. Realtors have seen every type of home and can help homebuyers and sellers weigh all their options to make the best real estate decisions for them.”