A record number of Austin homes are worth more than $1 million

The number of Austin homes valued at more than $1 million tripled since before the pandemic — more than any other Texas city and a new record for the metro area.

State of play: The share of homes worth at least $1 million in the Austin metro sat at 3.9% in February 2020. That number has only grown, reaching 12.3% last month, per a new report from Redfin, the discount real estate brokerage.

• It's a trend playing out across the country, with the percentage of U.S. homes valued at $1 million or more reaching a record high — a trend led by the Bay Area.
• Seven of the top 10 cities with $1M+ homes are in California — led by San Francisco, where the percentage of properties worth that amount was a whopping 88.7% in February.

Why it matters: While rapidly appreciating home values are a windfall for those who own them, they also mean that more Americans are priced out of the market, writes Axios' Jennifer Kingson.

• Incomes are rising, but not as quickly as home prices — leaving many people stuck as renters.

Zoom out: That's deeply felt in Austin, which saw the second-highest increase over two years among non-California cities. Seattle was the only other non-California city to top Austin, with a 21% increase since February 2020.

• Dallas' share of $1M+ homes grew by 2.1 percentage points, reaching 4.4% last month.
• Houston saw a 1.3 percentage point increase, hitting 2.7% last month.
• And 1.5% of homes in San Antonio are more than $1 million, a 0.9 percentage point change.

The big picture: Low mortgage rates and pandemic trends like remote work have helped pour gasoline on the hot housing market, where real estate agents and buyers alike complain about the historically low inventory of homes for sale.

• "During the four weeks ending Feb. 27, the number of homes for sale plummeted 50% from two years earlier to an all-time low of 456,000," Redfin says.
• "That helped fuel a 33% rise in the median U.S. home-sale price, which hit a record high of $363,975," the company adds.

Details: Here's a selection of metro areas and their percentage of homes worth more than $1 million:

• Albuquerque: 25%.
• Boston: 18.1%.
• Austin: 12.3%.
• Washington, D.C.: 10.9%.
• Denver: 9.7%.
• Phoenix: 7.8%.

Methodology: Redfin says its analysis uses the "Redfin Housing Value Index," which uses the Redfin Estimate (a market calculation tool), public records and MLS data to estimate the current and historical value of more than 85 million properties in the U.S.