Using Abilene real estate data to compare its schools

December 2023 overview

With a slight fall in JNCISD prices and a $16K uptick in WISD, the gap between total price of JNCISD and WISD sales narrowed to $17,000 - almost half of the $33,000 gap last month. The decline in AISD prices that started September 2023 puts AISD $156,000 below the average price of WISD sales. It's worth noting that homes in JNCISD are on larger lots (avg 4.456 ac) than WISD (1.018 ac) and AISD (.208 ac) which helps explain the price difference. WISD (avg build date 2007) and JNCISD (avg build date 1987) inventory have a twenty year difference in home age; the average AISD home was built in 1970.
If you adjust for inflation, the price on JNCISD homes finished better than 5 years ago (+$33,349), less in WISD (-$20,051), and roughly the same in AISD (+$1250).
Year-to-year, total price for new-builds rose in WISD (+$10K) and AISD (+$17k), but fell for JNCISD (-$48K).
In current dollar terms, price per sf trended downward for the last month of 2023 in JNCISD (-$7/sf) & AISD (-$2/sf). WISD saw a $2/sf uptick.
In real dollar terms, $/sf in AISD and JNCISD stayed flat over the last 5 years. $/sf in WISD decreased over the last 5 years.
JNCISD homes were on the market almost longer than homes in AISD & WISD. These conditions were more pronounced for new builds - JNCISD new builds were on the market roughly 80 days longer than homes in AISD & WISD. Of the three districts for all homes, AISD homes fared the best, selling 13 days faster than homes in WISD. If you limit that to new builds, AISD and WISD peformed almost identically in terms of days on market.
JNCISD has the greatest inventory at 5.1 months, but this has been shrinking since hitting 6.2 months in August 2023. Inventory in WISD has been climbing since April when interest rates were in the mid-6's. Overall AISD inventory saw small decline as 2023 finished.
New construction in WISD switched to a buyer's market in September 2023 when inventory rose to 6.7 months and has continued to climb over last month's gain to 9.5 months while new construction inventory in JNCISD and AISD registered 4 months of inventory in each district. December 2023 new build listings in WISD fell from 86 to 59 which decreases the downward pressure on new build prices in WISD as evinced by the $5/sf uptick in WISD over the last month.
Inside the WISD market, Wylie West homes sell for more than Wylie East homes, but price per sf for new/existing construction in both areas were the same ($171.72/sf Wylie East, $171.59/sf Wylie West). The difference is driven by sf - Wylie West has larger homes. Homes sold in the last month in Wylie West were 2315 sf; homes sold in the last month in Wylie East measured 1938 sf - roughly an 400 sf difference.
Inventory of homes in Wylie West were larger and they stayed on the market longer - this is intuitive: larger, more expensive homes take longer to sell. The gains in inventory seen in WISD have been fueled by new growth in Wylie West - Wylie East has 4.1 months inventory; Wylie West has more than three times that at 13.9 months. This is mirrored in new listings for new builds - Wylie West saw 3 times the number of listings for new builds v. Wylie East. Roughly the same number of closings for the two areas only compounded this situation.

AISD v. WISD v. JNCISD

SALES PRICE

all homes - SALES PRICE (current dollars)

new built homes - SALES PRICE (current dollars)

homes >3,000 sf - SALES PRICE (current dollars)

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT

ALL HOMES - $/SF (CURRENT DOLLARS)

ALL HOMES - $/SF (CONSTANT DOLLARS)

NEW BUILT HOMES - $/SF (CURRENT DOLLARS)

NEW BUILT HOMES - $/SF (CONSTANT DOLLARS)

HOMES >3,000 SF - $/SF (CURRENT DOLLARS)

DAYS ON THE MARKET (DOM)

Days on market (DOM) is a measure of pain for the homeowner. Each day on the market means another day of keeping your dogs at the neighbors for showings, keeping the house tidy, paying a mortgage on a home when you'd rather liquidate and port the cash elsewhere. A seller's market shrinks days on market; a buyer's market causes this number to swell.

ALL HOMES - DOM

NEW BUILT HOMES - DOM

HOMES >3,000 SF - DOM

MONTHS INVENTORY

Months inventory is a ratio of current supply of homes offered for sale per the number of homes purchased over a period of time (usually within a month). The result indicates the number of months to take down all homes currently for sale in a market. The Texas A&M Real Estate Center states that 6.5 month inventory means the market is balanced - anything greater than 6.5 months suggests a buyer's market; anything smaller means shrinking inventory, giving sellers advantage in the deal.

ALL HOMES - INVENTORY

NEW BUILT HOMES - INVENTORY

HOMES >3,000 SF - INVENTORY

NEW LISTINGS

Abilene ISD has more homes than WISD; WISD has more homes than JNCISD. For this reason, AISD will always come first for the number of listings and JNCISD last.

When looking at some of these figures like average price for new build JNCISD homes, the reader likely notices new listing numbers are small. This is the reason I omitted a graph for homes >3000 sf - the JNCISD numbers are too small to be meaningful. When our sample size gets limited; we have to be careful about making infererences about the market from a tiny sample - all it takes is one outlier to skew our statistics.

ALL HOMES - NEW LISTINGS

NEW BUILD HOMES - NEW LISTINGS

CLOSED SALES

Like new listings, closed sales present the same ranking - AISD beats WISD, WISD beats JNCISD. It makes sense - AISD is a two-high school market, WISD a growing 1 high school market and JNCISD is a more rural 3A district.

ALL HOMES - CLOSED SALES

NEW BUILD HOMES - closed sales

WISD East v. WISD West

Now that Wylie seems to be committed to school district mytosis with the creation of Wylie East and Wylie West (and rumblings of a second high school), I thought it would be interesting to see how the two areas perform in terms of housing stats. It's not really an intended application of the Tiebout model - the taxes are the same, the topography is the same - the only thing you could be capturing hedonically (value for non-market things expressed in market records like price) is preference for Wylie East v. Wylie West. This isn't without local precedent; after all Wylie was birthed by the same dynamic when AISD built Cooper HS and 30 years of preferences causes the AISD school board to upend those choices.

SALES PRICE

ALL HOMES - SALES PRICE (CURRENT DOLLARS)

NEW BUILD HOMES - sale price (CURRENT DOLLARS)

>3000 SF HOMES - sale price (CURRENT DOLLARS)

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT

ALL HOMES - $/SF (CURRENT DOLLARS)

NEW BUILD HOMES - $/SF (CURRENT DOLLARS)

DAYS ON MARKET

ALL HOMES - DAYS ON MARKET

Over the last 5 years, homes sold in Wylie East typically get contracts quicker than homes in Wylie West. In November 2023, Wylie East homes went under contract 10 days faster than homes in Wylie West.

NEW BUILD HOMES - DAYS ON MARKET

MONTHS INVENTORY

ALL HOMES - MONTHS INVENTORY

NEW BUILD HOMES - MONTHS INVENTORY

NEW LISTINGS

ALL HOMES - NEW LISTINGS

NEW BUILD HOMES - NEW LISTINGS

CLOSED SALES

ALL HOMES - CLOSED SALES

NEW BUILD HOMES - CLOSED SALES

December 2023 November 2023

December 2023

November 2023

On total home price, JNCISD continues to outpeform WISD on overall price by $33,000. WISD outperforms AISD by $130,000. It's worth noting that homes in JNCISD are on larger lots than WISD and AISD which helps explain the price difference. WISD and JNCISD inventory only have a two year difference in home age.
If you adjust for inflation, the price on JNCISD homes finished better than 5 years ago, less in WISD, and roughly the same in AISD.
Total price for new-builds stayed relatively flat in 2023 in WISD and AISD, but fell for JNCISD
In current dollar terms, price per sf trended downward as 2023 concluded for all three districts, most acutely in JNCISD. This trend is especially true for new builds with AISD having the most steady price per sf for new homes.
In real dollar terms, $/sf in AISD and JNCISD increased over the last 5 years. $/sf in WISD decreased over the last 5 years.
JNCISD homes were on the market twice as long as homes in AISD. These conditions were more pronounced for new builds - JNCISD new builds were on the market three times longer than homes in AISD. Of the three districts for all homes, AISD homes fared the best, selling 11 days faster than homes in WISD.
JNCISD has the greatest inventory at 5.6 months, but this has been shrinking since hitting 6.2 months in August 2023. Inventory in WISD and AISD has been climbing since April when interest rates were in the mid-6's. New construction in WISD switched to a buyer's market in September 2023 when inventory rose to 6.7 months and has continued to climb to 9.3 months while new construction inventory in JNCISD and AISD shrank. Couple this with the 88 new build listings added to inventory in November 2023 and this helps explain why WISD has seen a drop in price per sf of $10/sf since August for new construction.
Inside the WISD market, Wylie West homes sell for more than Wylie East homes, but price per sf for new/existing construction in both areas were largely the same. The difference is driven by sf - Wylie West has larger homes. Homes sold in the last 365 days in Wylie West were 2121 sf; homes sold in the last 365 days in Wylie East measured 1298 sf - roughly an 800 sf difference. A trend to watch - the $16/sf difference between new build homes in Wylie East v. Wylie West.
Inventory of homes in Wylie West were larger and they stayed on the market longer - this is intuitive: larger, more expensive homes take longer to sell. Twice as many new listings in Wylie West v. Wylie East & roughly the same number of closings for the two areas only compounded this situation.