Staff illustration by Keith Petrus
The inventory of homes and condominiums is “through the roof,” and the number of recent sales is significantly down compared to the same time last year in Port Aransas, according to local real estate agents.
There were 25 sales in June in Port Aransas, which is 30.6 percent down from June 2023, according to Texas A&M Texas Real Estate Center. The months of inventory was 17.3 for June, and it was 9.8 in June 2023. Months of inventory measures the relationship between the number of properties for sale and the rate at which they sell.
Active listings for the month were 464, which is 72.5 percent more than the same time last year. The median price of a home in Port Aransas has dropped some. It was $670,000 in June, which is about 17.5 percent lower than last year.
“There’s just a lot for sale right now, and sales are pretty slow. Part of that is just because interest rates have been so high,” said Keith McMullin, real estate broker and managing partner of Mustang Island Ventures.
The national average 30- year fixed mortgage rate was 6.56 percent on Monday Aug. 12, according to Bankrate. The current rates aren’t “that high,” but they are “so much higher” than the rates of recent years that were as low as 2 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic, McMullin said.
Before the summer, the number of home sales was on track with last year, McMullin said. He said part of the reason could be because sellers haven’t lowered their sale prices by much.
“We’ve kind of got a pricing standoff between buyers and sellers, because it’s supply and demand,” he said. “We have a ton of inventory. Inventory is through roof and but there aren’t buyers coming in to buy it at these prices. But sellers haven’t started really coming off of the pricing just yet.”
The market in Port Aransas is very different from Corpus Christi, because the majority of home sales here are second homes and not primary residences, McMullin said. About 90 percent of homes McMullin sells are vacation homes, he said.
“You have to have a place to live, but you don’t have to have a beach house,” he said.
Although pricing in Port Aransas was down nearly 18 percent in June, the local real estate market upheld its longstanding pattern of achieving the highest median price on the Texas coast, McMullin said. This ongoing trend can be attributed to luxury home sales primarily in the beachfront communities of Cinnamon Shore and Palmilla Beach Resort and Golf Community, he said.
Another contributing factor to the slow market could be that 2024 is an election year. Election years are “notoriously a little slow,” McMullin said.
Things could turn around by the end of the year, he said. The Federal Reserve is considering lowering interest rates starting in September, and after the election is over in November, people might be more inclined to buy, McMullin said.
“The stage is kind of going to be set for buyers to have a huge selection and lower interest rates here pretty soon,” he said.
Marnie Pate, real estate broker and owner of Coldwell Banker Island Escapes, agreed with McMullin’s analysis. She said Port Aransas experienced a real estate market this slow before back in 2008 and 2009.
“What might be different this time is that the inventory is very high, and prices are, of course, higher than they’ve ever been,” she said. “So maybe it might take a little bit longer this time for things to kind of correct themselves.”
Overall, in June and July, real estate agents in Port Aransas closed about half as many sales as they did in the same months last year, she said.
“We are hopeful, though, that things will turn around, but we have seen a soft market before, so we know that it’ll go back up,” Pate said.
After Hurricane Harvey struck in August 2017, the housing market was hot because there were a lot of opportunities for new construction, Pate said. And during the pandemic, when many people could work remotely, they were doing it on the beach. Mortgage rates were historically low, and people “were investing down here and paying the highest prices we’d ever sold anything for,” she said.
“Now that might be trying to correct itself, and maybe some of those people are trying to sell (after buying) three years ago,” Pate said.
The vacation rental market could also be contributing to slow home sales, she said. Many people bought houses as investment properties, and vacation rental prices are lower than what they were three years ago due to competition.
“All of those people who bought three years ago to make money off of an investment property probably aren’t making the money that they made three years ago because there’s new construction, new vacation rentals every day for competition,” Pate said.
Jana Snow, broker with Mark Grosse Real Estate, agreed with McMullin that the housing market in Port Aransas is unique.
“For most of our buyers, it is a ‘want to have’ market rather than a ‘need to have’ market. Most buyers do not have to have a beach property,” she said.
She also said that when economic events such as election cycles and/or interest rate hikes occur, their buyers tend to hesitate.
“As we are currently in an election year, and as rates have not made meaningful downward movement, and because of factors residual from the COVID-inspired market, inventory is high and days on the market are longer than they have been in several years,” she said.
Local seller
Marisa and Grady Tomczyszyn of Tomball have been buying and selling homes in Port Aransas for the past 10 years. They enjoy buying real estate, remodeling it and then selling it, Marisa said.
They are currently selling a two-bedroom-two-bath condo at Sunflower Beach Resort for $765,000 and a three-bedroom two-and-a-half-bath home on Rockport Channel for $850,000. Both homes have been on the market for about two months.
“It’s very slow,” Marisa said. “It’s like crickets right now.”
They furnished both the homes and remodeled the upstairs of the Rockport Channel home.
When the couple put the homes on the market, it was “good,” Marisa said.
“We were hoping that the market would bear that, but it did not. So, it’s scary right now, but hopefully it will get better,” she said.
The Tomczyszyns have reduced the prices of the homes “a good amount” since then to try and attract buyers.
“It doesn’t seem to have helped, because no one has even come to look,” Marisa said. “So, right now, the market is such that you can’t even get anybody in it.”
The Tomczyszyns have hope the local market will turn around.
“It’s always a great investment,” Marisa said. “Port A, it’s a very touristy town, so I don’t think you can lose by doing that. You do have to be patient. I will say that. If you’re going into it thinking, I’m going to sell it tomorrow, that’s the wrong kind of attitude. You want that to happen, but you have to go in there just being patient and just realizing what you’re doing, and then going from there, keeping faith.”
Contact Kathryn Cargo at reporter@portasouthjetty.com.
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