Rents Are Sky High in Austin, But Everyone is Buying in Dallas

Word comes from Austinist that the rental market in Austin is incredibly brisk. If you can find an apartment in the greater Austin area, consider yourself lucky. Or unlucky, as it seems you’ll be paying out the nose for it.

Rents are averaging about $1.15 per square foot, according to a KUT report.

More people are moving to Austin and there hasn’t been a lot of new apartments constructed, although that is changing. But many of the new apartments being constructed are centrally located and aren’t cheap.

“A lot of these units average a much higher price, $1.39 a square foot, with at least a third of these units being in the 78704 zip code or in the Central Business District, which averages $1.70 up to $2.50 a square foot,” said Robin Davis with Austin Investor Interest. “These new units will raise average rents fairly significantly, but rents are also rising on average 5 percent anyway without these units.”

I’m not sure I want to blame an uptick in renting on rising mortgage rates, as the KUT story does. They’ve barely gone up from historic lows. For people looking to buy? Well, there are lots of looky-loos, but the market isn’t nearly so fast-paced. Could be because of prices that are just plain ridiculous and an incredibly high cost of living for the Texas capitol. Compare that to Dallas right now, where rentals aren’t moving nearly as fast as single family homes are flying off of MLS. I guess if you want to rent, move to Austin. Want to buy? Move to Dallas!