You Can’t Always Get What You Want….
by Rebecca Wolfe Spratlin
March 2016

…But you get pretty darn close! Pricing a property appropriately in this neighborhood is always a complex endeavor. There are SO many homes in Highland Park West, Balcones Park, and area neighborhoods of various sizes, ages, degree of updates, quality of updates and types and sizes of lots. Some are on the river, some have breathtaking views of downtown Austin and Lake Austin, while others have views of Bright Leaf Preserve, Mount Bonnell and green spaces. There is no such thing as a “cookie cutter” house or lot in these neighborhoods.

I thought it would be important for all of us to better understand how close to list prices our neighbors are getting when selling their homes. I pulled statistics from MLS and conducted a study with very encouraging results. Refer to the graphs, below. The ratios of Average Sale Price per Square Foot to Average Original List Price per Square Foot have been steadily climbing from a low of 92.6% in 2011 to 94.7% in 2015. Just for illustration purposes, that is an average of $21,000 additional revenue per $1,000,000 home sold, not including the incredible increase in sold price per average square foot from $225 in 2011 to $320 in 2015…a 42% increase.

As with any analysis, it is important to understand that these statistics are AVERAGES, not absolutes. Not all homes will sell for 94.7% of their list prices. The range of sale price to list price per square foot during 2015 ranged from 64.5% to 104.5%, a rather huge range. Even with this wide range, the steadily climbing statistics during the past five years indicate a very positive trend.