Rising home prices pushing Austin buyers to ‘burbs

​​AUSTIN – Seattle-based real estate brokerage and technology company Redfin Corp. recently released a report that found home sales in Austin are moving farther from downtown.

The typical home sold in the area in​ 2011 was 13.2 miles from the city center. Four years later, that distance had grown to 14.8 miles.

Austin’s 12.3 percent increase was the second highest among the 31 U.S. cities studied by Redfin.

In Houston, the typical home sold in 2015 was 20.6 miles from the city’s urban core, a 5.6 percent increase from 2011.

Redfin points to rising home prices as one possible explanation for the suburban sprawl.

In Austin, it costs $318 per sf to live in the urban core while the suburbs are much cheaper at $128 per sf. Nationally, the median price per square foot in 2015 was $148, but was nearly double in urban centers at $284.