LODGING
GIVEMESHELTER Rents and mortgage payments stable but still outstrip worker wages seeking affordable housing
Affordable places to live in Williamson County are like the jackalope or chupacabra of real estate. Some people swear they’re out there, but the search is the stuff of legend.
While many subdivisions are popping up in the Hutto and Taylor areas, most of them are well above what many can afford thanks to demand from people searching outside Austin for lower prices.
With thousands of new jobs added in the county and a major influx of thousands more in the next few years, especially advanced manufacturing jobs in East Williamson County, the prospect of finding a place to live less than 30 minutes from work is becoming even more daunting.
“We don’t have enough houses today and we know the jobs are coming,” said Williamson County Judge Steven Snell.
He spoke at the recent Central Texas Growth Forum hosted by the Austin Board of Realtors and Unlock MLS, sharing a stage with Travis County Judge Andy Brown.
“We talk about housing affordability. It’s tough when the land’s not affordable, and the building materials aren’t affordable, and the permitting fees are crazy depending on where you are. And yet you’ve got to have affordable housing at 7% interest rate or whatever you have,” Snell said.
The median price of the 29,383 houses sold in 2025 in the five-county Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos Metropolitan Statistical Area was $435,000, which was 2.4% less than the 2024 median price, according to data from ABoR and Unlock MLS.
The 10,070 houses sold in Williamson County last year resulted in a median price of $417,000. That’s a whopping 26% less than the $570,00 median price tag on homes sold in 2025 inside the city of Austin.
There was some softening in December, with the median sales price in Wilco at $415,000.
THE AUSTIN EXODUS
With that kind of price difference, industry observers aren’t surprised that Austin workers are seeking cheaper options. When the thousands more expected jobs, such as the nearly 2,000 at Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s advanced semiconductor fabrication plant in Taylor, come to Williamson County, prices could heat up again if not balanced with new developments.
The bargains are in counties that are a little longer haul to the employment centers of Austin, such as Caldwell County at a median price of $282,000 last year, Bastrop County at $352,000 and Hays County at $375,000.
For every plant manager, engineer, marketing executive and dentist, there are many times more people engaged in oil changes, operating a retailer’s cash register or working in restaurant kitchens.
The lower-wage earners are competing for the same inventory of houses and apartment rentals as those with high salaries.
Because of construction costs, profit motive and not enough tax-incentivized multifamily developments that include some apartment rental rates tied to the poverty level, too few job holders can live near where they work.
“As we grow and you think about all our small businesses and our restaurants, they need employees, and employees aren’t going to drive by 100 job opportunities and spend that gas money to get out to the corners of Williamson County,” Snell said. “It’s a balance. We’re having those growing pains; we’re going to continue to have them.”
COMMUTINGFACTOR
In 2021, it was estimated that 53% of Taylor residents who worked had commutes of 30 minutes or more, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the Greater Taylor Foundation. Now, those coming to new jobs in Taylor are looking at similar commutes to keep a roof over their heads.
That’s why the multifaceted issue needs a multipronged solution, Snell said. Roads are the first part.
“We want you at home with your family or at work or in one of those great green spaces, or parks or a downtown community in one of our small cities out there having a great time. We don’t want you stuck in traffic,” Snell said.
“We have to plan ahead. At some point, Williamson County is going to have more people than Travis County. We’re not going to have the big city like Austin. We’re going to have lot of mid-sized cities throughout the county. As soon as we get water, it’s ‘Katy, bar the door’ on the north side as well,” he said.
The county judge added, “If we can stay in communication (with the cities), if we can know when the growth is coming, if we know where the houses are being built and when they’re being built then we can get those roads on the map.”
The other solution is more new homes and apartments at different price points and not all luxury.
“Affordable means different things to different people,” Snell said. “There are no starter cars and starter homes anymore. There needs to be diversification of prices” including smaller homes and apartments.
DEFINING ‘AFFORDABLE’
An analysis of data from Unlock MLS found the housing market in 2025 was dominated by houses that don’t match most definitions of affordable.
In the five-county MSA, 58% of the houses sold last year went for more than $400,000 with nearly one in 10 fetching over $1 million.
Williamson County saw 55% of all house sales in 2025 changing hands at more than $400,000. Only 13% of the houses went for less than $300,000.
In Travis County, just 10% of sales were below that threshold while twothirds of the houses were more than $400,000.
Builders faced with rising costs and some softness in sales are now getting back to putting more inventory out there, which will help continue to stabilize the market as demand increases along with job growth, economists say.
“We’re coming out of a year or two where things have been a little soft for builders,” said Vaike O’Grady, research advisor at Unlock MLS. “I expect to see builders reengage.”
While she thinks builders want to provide homes at a variety of price points, O’Grady said they face stumbling blocks.
For one, the cost of development, including land acquisition and materials, hasn’t gone down. Smaller lot sizes could help control costs but “cities have been under pressure to keep out smaller lots,” O’Grady said.
Having more houses available on the market (while it won’t push prices down significantly) will keep the market more stable for the buyer and seller instead of skyrocketing costs brought on by high demand for too few houses from about 2020 to 2022.
Even people willing to spend a largerthan-normal chunk of their
income on
mortgage payments to score a house were shut out by multiple bids and incentives over the asking price.
“I am optimistic because of some of the big plays around Samsung and the (Austin Bergstrom International) airport,” O’Grady said. “Jobs will ramp up and inventory around Williamson County will get picked up. I’m encouraged that there’s more conversation about how to get more housing.”
At some point, Williamson County is going to have more people than Travis County.”
— STEVEN SNELL, WILLIAMSON COUNTY JUDGE
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