Housing prices remain high despite study ranking College Station cheapest city to live
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – There’s a new study where College Station is ranked #1 as the cheapest and safest city to live.
This study by GOBankingRates ranks College Station more affordable when looking at things like average mortgage cost, property crime rate, and the estimated monthly cost of living for married couples with kids.
However, even though this study deems College Station as the cheapest place to live, that doesn’t mean housing prices are low. Jay Meador, the Financial Fitness Director with the Brazos Valley Affordable Housing Corporation says homes that are considered affordable housing are not actually affordable.
“Some of our cheapest homes, 3 bedroom, 2 baths, that we’re only selling to lower-income or lower-middle income people, those are running at what we used to be able to build at $179,000, now that same home costs $245,000,” said Meador.
And prices only seem to be increasing.
“Just the materials have been going up, we don’t make much profit at all, off of the homes that we build, we build them as cheaply as we can,” said Meador.
Meador gave an example of the realty one of his clients is dealing with in the housing market today.
”I’ve got a client who has $19,000 saved and her credit score is in the 7s but because of her income, she can’t qualify for more than $200,000 in a mortgage. So in order for her to get into a home she literally would have to come up with another $25,000 to $26,000,” said Meador.
Jeff Ostrowski an analyst at Bankrate said there are more buyers than there are homes for sale, contributing to the price increase.
“Builders haven’t been able and willing to keep up with demand. The other factor is the locked-in effect. So homeowners who locked in their 3% mortgage a few years ago, don’t want to now give up a 3 % mortgage and go out and get a 7% mortgage on a different property so they’re just not selling. For that reason, home sales volumes are pretty low,” said Otrowski. “Then on the demand side of the equation, there are a lot of young people who want to buy homes. There’s plenty of demand for homes, homes are still selling fairly quickly, multiple offers are happening in some markets, and so it’s really a function of supply and demand, even with high mortgage rates there are more buyers than there are sellers and that’s what is keeping prices high.”
But, Ostrowski said the housing market in College Station and Bryan is around 20% lower than other cities in the United States. According to Texas Realtors, pricing in the Bryan and College Station areas is around $305,000 and while that’s well below the national housing median price, it’s much higher than what housing in the area cost just several years ago.
Ostrowski said it’s the land availability among other things in College Station that keeps prices lower compared to its large metropolitan counterparts.
“Most expensive places are places like San Francisco, New York City, and so those are places where there are geographic restraints on building like a coastline, there’s not a lot of available land,” said Ostrowski. “Another factor is wages. High wages support the high prices and even though markets are more expensive, a lot of people are moving into those markets because that’s where the good jobs are, that’s where careers are made, and that’s a big part of the reason why home prices are very high in certain markets.”
For those planting roots here, Sarah Norman with the Bryan-College Station Regional Association of Realtors said the area is a great place to raise a family.
“We’re big enough to have a lot of great things, we have a lot of great restaurants, we’ve got lots of parks and things for kids to do as well and it’s a very friendly atmosphere, and so a lot of folks move here because they want to raise their kids in this atmosphere,” said Norman.
Texas Quartey Housing Report, Q1 2023:
2023_Q1_QuarterlyHousingReport by KBTX
Texas Quartey Housing Report, Q1 2024:
