"It’s not a national housing bubble," we’ve heard. "All real estate is local." and "Only formerly hot markets such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and Florida will be affected." Although not as dramatically as in other more "bubbly" areas, cities in less overheated areas are also beginning to show signs of cooling. One such "baby bubble" city is San Antonio.
San Antonio was a market experiencing modest growth until, according to the Research Center at Texas A&M:
The new home market party started when Fortune magazine anointed San Antonio the nation’s strongest housing market, predicting an 8.3 percent home price appreciation in 2006. Out-of-town investors flooding into San Antonio this year have glutted the market with rental homes, and the average rent has dropped $202 a month since this time last year, from $1,301 to $1,099, according to the San Antonio Board of Realtors. At the end of October, renters had their pick of more than 2,000 homes. So far this year, more than 10,650 homes have gone onto the rental market, 22 percent more homes than last year. [Look for many of these rentals to make their way back into the resale market.]
Here’s what that little "party" did to year-over-year median price appreciation in San Antonio: [Data from the Research Center at Texas A&M]
