Judging by the average numbers, November was a rough month for resales of downtown Austin condos. Conversely, luxury condos continue to post strong numbers for the second month in a row. Back in October, I was surprised by the large number of closings we observed in the downtown Austin’s top-tier condo buildings. The ABJ followed up with a story saying “Verdict’s in: Austin condos did work.”
Top-tier (new buildings)
While the high-end market continues to show good numbers, it’s not clear to me how many of these closings are from original reservations, rather than new purchase contracts (within the past 120 days).
-Four Seasons shows 49 closed units, six closed in November.
–Austonian shows 32 closed units, two closed in November.
-Spring shows ~165-170 closed units closed, nine closed in November. It should be noted that these were, in fact, all new contracts.
Resales
Using data available on Nov 30th, 11 downtown austin condos closed at an average $252 per square foot. That’s the lowest average price since August of 2009, and is 19.5% lower than the average resale price compared to November of last year. Compared to downtown condo sales in October, prices were down 14%. Also interesting, average days-on-market (DOM) was 118 days – not surprising to see closing prices averaging 12% less than original asking prices.
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December and January should continue the trend as all the contracts from the W will start to close. I know I’m planning on closing the first week of January or so.