About Driving It Home with ABoR's Housing Economist
There's no shortage of opinions about the housing market. Driving It Home gives you something better: an accurate, data-driven perspective on Central Texas real estate straight from the experts at Unlock MLS. Every episode, we cut through the noise to bring you the trends, insights, and market updates that keep real estate professionals one step ahead — so you're caught up before you finish your morning drive.
Driving It Home is produced by Unlock MLS, the most complete, timely, and accurate source of housing market activity for the 18-county Central Texas region. Learn more at UnlockMLS.com.
September hit a speed bump. Vaike O’Grady opens with a deep look at where new construction is actually happening in the metro — and why the price gap between new builds and resale matters more than the headline median. Then she joins host Kelea Youngblood to unpack September’s numbers: what drove the drop in closed sales, why pending sales tell a more encouraging story, and what agents should be watching as rates settle into a new normal heading into Q4.
6 Oct 2026
Rates Are the Headline, Growth Is the Story
Rates are the headline- growth is the real story. Vaike O'Grady opens with a Market in 5 on why mortgage rates just hit their highest point in nearly three years, what's actually driving it (the bond market, not housing), and how to make it a smarter client conversation.
Then it's a replay from the Central Texas Housing Summit, where Keith Mars (Austin Development Services Department), Matthew Watkins (Texas Tribune), and Josh Lickteig (Endeavor Real Estate) dig into what keeps a market going underneath the rate noise: jobs, rooftops, and the city-state shift toward building more. They get into the infrastructure bottlenecks you can't see on a map, the push for a predictable permitting process, and where the next wave of growth is headed — from Dog's Head in Southeast Austin down the I-35 corridor.
Links mentioned in the episode:
Unlock MLS Research Page Unlock MLS Research & Reports | Unlock MLS (https://www.unlockmls.com/research)
22 Sept 2026
100 Years In: Why Austin's Economy Outlasts Every Rate Hike
One hundred years in, and the takeaway's the same: Austin's economy is what gets this market through the rough patches — rate hikes included. Vaike O'Grady starts with a Market in Five on August's slowdown and the Fed's first rate move since 2023, then rolls into a replay from the September 9th Central Housing Summit celebrating ABoR's 100th year. She walks through why luxury is moving fastest right now, what the zip-code scorecard is telling agents, and how jobs and migration are shaping the fall.
Links mentioned in the episode:
Unlock MLS Research: https://www.unlockmls.com/research
Zip Code Scorecard: https://assets.unlockmls.com/pu0snv8rn9fa/13yCJgKIVyQ0fOAA3r83w4/753701e07ff79ed9261fd49586fab669/2026-07_CTX_Zip_Code_Scorecard.pdf
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292,202
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Spotify
5.0 / 5
6 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 70 / 100
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