Central East Austin Real Estate - Mueller and More

Since June 1st, most homes sold in University Hills have been subject to mandatory energy audits. What does this mean for buyers and sellers in the area?

If a home served by Austin Energy is over 10 years old and has not received $500 in energy efficiency rebates in the last 10 years, it is likely to require an audit. The majority of homes in University Hills were built in the 1960s and 1970s, and often were built in a split level or ranch style - the average size of homes sold in the last three years is 1640sqft.

For buyers this means a perception of older, larger home which may be less energy efficient than a smaller, newer home. 69% of homes sold in the last three years in University Hills have less than two energy efficient features recorded in the MLS. So double pane windows and ceiling fans aren’t the norm.

Buyers looking at a 40 year old home aren’t expecting them to be built to modern building codes with R38 attic insulation. Only extreme energy efficiency problems are being negotiated between buyers and sellers right now.

How do the Energy Audits affect buyers in the area? The results aren’t surprising - I’ve seen HVAC duct leakages between 8% and 80% in the last two months. As it says on the audit form itself:

In homes the average Duct Leakage is 27%. Acceptable leakage should not exceed 10%.

So an 80% duct leakage is something so catastrophically out of the norm that it could be negotiated. And the rule for sellers is that the sooner you can find, fix and disclose, the better you do in negotiations.

One way some sellers are avoiding the audit is to simply apply for energy efficiency upgrade rebates as part of their home sale preparations. Then they can market a more energy efficient home, avoid negotiations based on an energy audit and have a smoother sale.

If you’re considering selling your home in the next few years, check if your home requires an Energy Audit before sale, and consider some of the available Energy Star rebates.

Garreth Wilcock is an Austin EcoBroker specializing in East Austin Real Estate.

University Hills, Austin is a mature subdivision in the East of Austin, convenient to UT and downtown. Carrington was one of the major builders of this area in the 1960s and the homes have large lots and now have some of the best shade trees in Austin.

The area has been blossoming in recent years with community-driven improvements to Dottie Jordan Park, and a bunch of home remodels. The proximity to Mueller has certainly helped the Upper East Side gain popularity too. Here’s a great home for sale there right now:

3306 Loyola Lane, Austin TX 78723

• 3 Beds, 2 Baths
• 1771 sqft single story
• Austin ISD
• MLS# 6423866
• $174,500
• 0.28 acre corner lot
• Virtual Tour

The home has a huge master suite with two closets and a vanity with french doors opening to the sun room. The home is open and light - it’s a funky ranch home with some great updates like the recent flooring, double-pane windows and a 388sqft air-conditioned sun room.

The home has a large privacy fenced yard and a full sprinkler system and two patios out back to enjoy the yard from. The oversized double garage has space for a workshop too. The pool at Dottie Jordan is a short walk.

See more information on this contemporary ranch on the Austin MLS.

• Search for homes in University Hills Austin
  
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For more information on this home or any other home in Austin, TX, please contact Garreth Wilcock : 512 215 4785

University Hills Real Estate Listing: You don’t need to have a wife called Peggy or a niece called Luanne Platter to be King of the Hill in Austin’s Upper East Side. I am proud to present this home which is at the highest end of Syracuse Cove in University Hills.

6811 Syracuse Cove, Austin, TX 78723

• 3 Beds, 2 Baths
• 1235sqft on 0.23 acre
• Austin ISD (Winn / Andrews / Pearce)
• MLS# 9357342
• $163,977
• Virtual Tour

This is a rare opportunity to own a newer home in University Hills, Austin.

It has new paint throughout, new ceramic tile in wet areas and new carpet. Why settle for a remodel when you can have this practical open floorplan built to modern code standards? There is ample storage with walk-in-closets in each bedroom.

Open floorplan, plenty of windows make a bright living and dining area. Huge elevated lot on cul de sac give a commanding view from the porch. Close to Mueller, with easy access to 290, I35, 183.

See more information on 6811 Syracuse Cove in University Hills at my MLS site

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• View University Hills market data
  
• Find out how much your Austin home is worth

Garreth Wilcock is a real estate consultant at Keller Williams. He specializes in Central and East Austin Real Estate. Call 512 694 8873 or contact him at his website if you want a free valuation of your Austin home. You can search the Austin MLS at his website.

East Austin Real Estate: University Hills and Vintage Hills have been targets for home renovators and flippers in Austin, Texas for the last few years. Here’s my monthly round up of University Hills Neighborhood data.

The Neighborhood of University Hills is bounded by highways 290, 183 on the North and East, and by Northeast Drive and Little Walnut Creek on the South. As the name suggests, the area is set on undulating hills, and given its location, it is a short hop away from the University of Texas. Given it’s ease of access to I35, 290, 183 and the new Mueller Redevelopment, it is convenient to much of what Austin has to offer.

The subdivisions of Vintage Hills and University Hills were started in the 1960s and 1970s, and many of the original owners still live there. The neighborhood email list was set up by Robert Crumley just over a year ago, and is thriving as more tech-savvy residents move in.

I took a look at the last year’s University Hills MLS sales data for single family homes, and gleaned the following charts:

The market over the last 365 days (to September 23, 2008) shows a healthy time on market. Around two thirds of homes that sold got an accepted offer in under three months.

In addition, the average sales price achieved was close to the list price as you can see from the charts above. The market is evolving all the time, as amenities are added to Mueller Austin, but the last year has looked pretty good in University Hills.

Garreth Wilcock is a real estate consultant at Keller Williams. He specializes in Central and East Austin Real Estate. Call 512 694 8873 if you want a free valuation of your home or contact him here. You can search the Austin MLS at his website.

University Hills is a thriving neighborhood in East Austin also known as the Upper East Side. It has large ranch-style homes, many quarter-acre lots and convenient access to Mueller, UT, and downtown. There are changes afoot in the neighborhood and during my monthly review, I found a tale of two extremes.

Firstly, here are the market statistics for year to date sales for University Hills, 78723.

Sales year to date for the last four years:

(All data to August 26^th in respective years)

Sales volume is down from previous years, which is a larger symptom of the changes in lending laws and the general economic health of the nation. Prices are up, and still lower than the surrounding areas, so University Hills homes represent a good buy right now.

If we look at the highest priced home in University Hills and the lowest priced home under contract right now, you can see a world of difference. Check them out on my mls search results page.

The first is a new green construction with metal roof lots of natural light, and a vast kitchen at $489,000. The second is a 1960s home which the listing agent describes as “Needs Slab Repair,Flooring,Countertops,Doors,SheetrockTape/Float,Paint In/Out,Woodrot Repair,Landscaping,Garage Doors,Front Door,Appliances,Fixtures etc“. This was listed for $95,000, and is around a third of a mile from the first home.

The difference in price is enormous, and it’s a great example of what the average statistics don’t show. With the average home price growing in University Hills, we’re seeing more investors step in to remodel and rehab existing homes. Nine out of 53 sales in the last twelve months have been homes owned by agents who have bought homes, remodeled them and sold them.

The area is seeing growth in the community too - Friends of Dottie Jordan is a non profit organization which has had great results renovating the local park with grants for park cleanup, hike and bike trails, and new park facilities. Movies in the Park is a group organized by local residents to screen outdoor movies- they are showing “Kinky Boots” this Saturday at 8pm .

Uinversity Hills is definitely a neighborhood on the up and up. I would expect to see more high-end remodels in the coming years, and seeing it more and more under the spotlight as area amenities improve.

Garreth Wilcock is a real estate agent with the Pinnacle Group at Keller Williams. He specializes in Central and East Austin Real Estate. Call 512 694 8873 if you want a free valuation of your home or contact him here. You can search the Austin MLS at his website.

There are particular pitfalls to avoid when selling a home in University Hills, Austin, TX. Here are the top five things to avoid if you want to sell your home for the greatest return.

Pitfall 1: Leaving the Leaves We are fortunate to have so many mature trees in University Hills - but that often means that piles of leaves can quickly mound up in the yards. The size of the lots is large for East Austin, and buyers want to see them as an asset, not something that requires lots of work. Keeping your yard free of leaves helps buyers see the space. De-leaf before the photographer comes, and keep the leaves away while the home is on the market.

Pitfall 2: Leaving Rover on Guard In a recent National Association of Realtors survey, barking dogs in a home are the number one reason why a buyer won’t even go in the door. If the buyers can’t see inside, they can’t appreciate the home, and you won’t see any offers. If you can keep your dogs with family while you’re showing your home, all the better.

Pitfall 3: Offering a “Foundation Allowance” With the clay rich soil and the homes built on the hills, we often run into foundation challenges. If your home isn’t level, you’ll need to offer something more concrete than an allowance to sell your home. To quell the doubts in a buyer’s mind, get several estimates from foundation repair companies who give lifetime transferable warranties and give them to your REALTOR®.

Pitfall 4. Not Staging Your Home. A home that has been professionally staged will typically sell for 6%-10% more than one that hasn’t, so to get the most of your home equity, work with a REALTOR® who provides staging services, or get a recommendation for someone who gets results in your area. It doesn’t necessarily involve a large amount of expense, but it does require effort.

Pitfall 5. Padding the Price It’s tempting to pad the list price of your home “to allow for negotiation later”. The reality of a home that is overpriced to start with is that it will sit on the market for a longer time, and may end up netting you less money in the long run. Setting the price correctly with no padding will yield better offers faster.

There are many other aspects to consider when selling your East Austin home, and if you want a free consultation, give me a call on 512 694 8873.

Garreth Wilcock is a REALTOR® with the Pinnacle Group at Keller Williams. He specializes in Central and East Austin Real Estate. Call 512 694 8873 if you want a free valuation of your home or contact him here.

Austin is less walkable than Houston. So says a recent report from walkscore.com, a site which ranks neighborhoods for a walkability score - how easy it is to get around on foot. The method sees Austin at a walkability of 49 compared to Houston’s 51. I was fairly surprised at this result - my travel experiences in Houston have mostly been vehicularly based. So I took a look at their methodology and applied it to an area I have lived and worked in - the Upper East Side - University Hills.

Walkscore is one of a number of sites designed to help homebuyers with geographic information. It uses some Web 2.0 principals and integrates publicly available amenity information with geographic data. In theory homebuyers who know nothing of an area can summon up charts and graphs and clue themselves in. Now don’t call me a Luddite - (though I was born in Nottingham, England, the birthplace of the Luddite movement which sought to fight changes due to new technology). But sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t quite work.

Walkscore uses the following algorithm: based on a given address, it checks to see if the closest amenity in each group of amenities (schools, movie theatres, grocery stores etc) is within a range of 0.25 to 1 mile of that address. It gives points based on the closeness of each of these closest amenities. One of it’s self professed drawbacks is that it doesn’t take into account local geography - say there is a body of water or Highway 183 between you and a school, it would still assume you could walk to it.

Within the city, it ranks neighborhoods’ walkability - you can see the one for Austin, TX, here. The neighborhood of University Hills is given a score of just 43 out of 100, compared to 73 for Upper Boggy Creek - the area between Mueller and I35. I plugged in the address of Dottie Jordan Park - a park in University Hills, 78723, to see what amenities showed up.

For the most part, the amenities were correctly categorized (although The Simplifiers is an event planning business, not a restaurant). The Intrigue Bar suffered from having a huge highway between it and the target address - not very walkable. The movie theatres were a little miscategorized but by and large, I was impressed with the accuracy of the data. Score: Walkscore: 1, Luddites: 0! I also checked a few addresses in Hyde Park - which scores a whopping 77 walkability, in Upper Boggy Creek and around Central Austin and all of the data looked reasonably accurate.

So how could one explain that a sprawling city like Houston is more walkable than Austin? According to the US Census Bureau, Houston is denser than Austin, and if you look at the walkability rankings for Houston, there appears to be a continuous mix of neighborhoods. Six areas have a walkability higher than 70, whereas in Austin there are 20 similarly scoring areas. But in Austin there are a few areas that are extremely unwalkable - around McKinney Falls Parkway in southeast Austin for example. Areas that aren’t walkable have precious few residents - less than 5000 in the area around McKinney Falls. So it looks like Austin is penalized due to it’s state park!

In summary, I think the address-based walkability data is useful, though some specific amenity information may be inaccurate. If you take averages based on a large scale area, your mileage may vary.

Garreth Wilcock is a real estate agent in Austin Texas. He enjoys blogging about areas like University Hills.

I just completed my monthly analysis of real estate in University Hills and compared it to surrounding subdivisions in 78723. In brief, sales volume is down over last year and prices are up on last year with University Hills seeing a higher proportion of owner agent sales than the other areas (real estate agents selling their own homes) which is a fair indicator of home rehabbing and resale.

This table shows the relative sales price and sales volume for single family homes in University Hills up to July 28th each year. The number of sales has decreased significantly from last year, in line with all sales in the East Austin area which has seen a 25.7% drop in sales over last year. The month of July has seen a 47.4% drop in sales in East Austin in general over last June, but there has been only a 20% drop in closed sales in University Hills during the same period.

** All data from MLS single family home sales. The majority of the new homes at Mueller are not sold through the MLS, so this just represents a portion of the homes sold or available there.

There are plenty of homes for sale in University Hills, and the median sales price per square foot is lower than in neighboring subdivisions – buyers can still get a good choice and more house for their money! There are still less than six months of inventory in University Hills, so the market is still approaching a balanced market. With so many homes to choose from, buyers are going to find and choose the best marketed and best staged homes first! Seven of the sales in University Hills this year have been of real estate agent owned homes, which is a higher proportion than for the whole of 78723. This means that home sellers need to be prepared to compete with professionally managed flip properties, and prepare and stage their homes well.

Garreth Wilcock is a REALTOR® who sold his home in Univsersity Hills last month but still lives in 78723. He blogs about University Hills Real Estate, and publishes a local newsletter, and enjoys helping people prepare their homes for sale.

I just completed my monthly review of University Hills real estate sales. Looking at MLS sales data, this is the story compared to the Upper East Side:

Sales have picked up in the last few months. Looking at pending versus active listings, there is less than three months inventory in University Hills right now - which puts it firmly as a seller’s market.

Looking at historical year-to-date sales for University Hills in the last four years, the picture reflects the broader Austin market - sales volume is down a little, but list prices are higher than last year.

The development at Mueller and impending infrastructure and facilities are certainly catching the eye of people looking to find a larger and more affordable home with access to amenities and to UT and downtown.