San Antonio Housing Market

If you are in the market for buying a home in the San Antonio area, or most major metropolitan areas in Texas, you probably have found yourself in multiple bidding wars ending up disappointed and losing the house you were hoping to buy! There is a high demand and the supply is having a hard time keeping up. This equals our current situation: very few homes, an abundance of buyers, and a lot of headaches. Continued population growth into the greater San Antonio area will further the supply problem as well.
According to the SA Tomorrow Comprehensive plan, “Projected growth for Bexar County is expected to add up to 1.1 million new residents, with 500,000 new jobs, and 500,000 new dwelling units by 2040.” In Bexar County alone they are expecting another 500,000 dwelling units in the next 20 years. In 2016 the greater San Antonio area issued 12,241 building permits (texas a&m real estate center) at that rate it would take around 40 years for 500,000 units to become available, we only have 23 years.
So how do we know the supply of houses is so low right now, besides how hard it is to buy a home? It is a number referred to as “Months of Inventory.” When speaking of housing they use months of inventory because it refers to how many months it would take to sell all available houses if all production stopped and the selling rate continued at the current pace. That number right now according to Texas A&M’s real estate center is 3.6. Meaning, that if no more homes were built and people continued to buy houses at the rate they are today there would be no houses on the market in 3.6 months.