Dec
30
Be First
Posted by garreth under Austin, For Buyers, Regional News
Foreclosure homes in Austin: I attend the Travis County Foreclosure Auctions. They are on the steps of the Travis County Courthouse at 1000 Guadalupe St, Austin, on the first Tuesday of each month.
Many people I speak to about auctions have told me that they expect it to be canceled on Tuesday 1st January 2008, but I can assure you it won’t be. The auctions carry on if there are holidays – there was an auction on July 4th 2006 as it was the first Tuesday of the month!
If you’re going to see the auctions starting at 10am on New Year’s Day, I’ll see you there!
Garreth Wilcock is a real estate agent specializing in helping people find 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.
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Dec
28
Austin Not Trendy
Posted by garreth under Uncategorized
A report in the Austin Business Journal shows that homes in Austin rose in price by 8.62 per cent in the year ending October 2007. This report from First American LoanPerformance mirrors other data that shows Austin prices are holding strong, despite turmoil reported in the mass media on the overall US housing market.
The old anology that describing the real estate market in the US is like predicting the weather in the US holds true. If you read the CNN Money report on the fall in new home sales, you would think there were storms from coast to coast. It uses words like “plunged” when it describes the fall in sales, and cites the downgrading of Lennar, Centex and Pulte homes debt to junk status by Moody’s. Certainly, the cloud over national homebuilders does extend to Austin – Centex recently pulled out of a 1440 home development around Parmer Lane and 45 earlier this month. But the local weather forecast is still relatively sunny in Austin.
Average Austin home sale prices are up, and it will be interesting to see how buyer confidence in the Spring impacts the inventory currently on the market – certainly it is higher than it was last year.
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Dec
14
Sim City
Posted by garreth under Uncategorized
There is still time to contribute to CreateAustin Cultural Plan – the proposal for growth in Austin to foster “a culture of creativity”. Didn’t know about the plan? It’s the result of 15 months of research and community involvement, and comments are being accepted until December 28th 2007.
If you don’t have time to read the full 64 pages, the introduction provides some food for thought:
“… the population has doubled very 20 years since 1890…”
“[Austin is]…the youngest city of any over 500,000 (average age is 28.5)…”
One of the issues raised is that people perceive Austin as being too expensive for artists, but the reality is that Texas has many of the most affordable cities, and Austin rates 7th in Texas according to SustainLane 2006.
Recommendation 3 in the report seeks subsidies for real estate in new construction and existing areas to provide space for the arts. This model has been successful in Boston, Chicago and Washington D.C., and it will be interesting to see how this affects the proposed VillaMuse development I blogged about previously.
More opinions can be found at the CreateAustin community website, but if you have yours to share, email them to economic.feedback@ci.austin.tx.us by December 28th!
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Dec
12
Horses For Courses
Posted by garreth under Uncategorized
Is the real estate market in the US in turmoil? Maybe so if you read the national newspapers. The Austin area market tells another story.
Austin house prices are still strong – the average year to date sales price to November for a single family home was $245,524 over $228,227 in 2006. The MLS sales for 2007 so far have trailed a little behind 2006 and 2005 – but these were exceptional years. So in general, house prices are holding, but sales are falling. But “in general” isn’t what you need to know.
While it is easy to pull data from the MLS and generalize a market, the interpretation is the key. The market is a large and variated beast, and it varies by geography and price range. For example – there less than three months of inventory in the homes priced up to $200,000, so it is not what I would call a buyer’s market. Volume of sales in the $200,000-$250,000 range are comparable with last year to within less than one per cent. With rising prices, there were 3.6% more homes sold this year in the $300,000 – $400,000 range than last year in the same period.
So the fundamental rule applies – the market is localized and it varies greatly. If you want to get an accurate picture of what your house is worth, get in touch with a local Realtor who knows the local market.
