Apr
29
Austin Parade Of Homes
Posted by garreth under Uncategorized
It’s just over three weeks until the start of the Austin Parade of Homes 2009 here at the Mueller Development. There’s a list of the green builders in my article from November, but what can people expect to see?
Visitors will get to see Mueller – now 400 families strong, with the Mosaic Apartments open for business, and the builders here all going strongly. It’s going to be hard to buy a home here during the parade – May 23rd – June 7th. Why? Well there aren’t that many left in Phase II right now, and there are probably going to be only a few left in a few weeks time.
Visitors will also get to see five incredible homes. I was walking around Streetman’s home yesterday, and every time I went to another of the three floors, I was floored by what I found. The view from the top balcony is phenomenal. From the Frost Bank Building downtown to the new Frost building at Mueller and all the parks and people in between.
What will residents get to see? Well they’ll see transit oriented development in action. Or that’s the theory. The idea is that visitors will park at the periphery of the development and take shuttle buses down Camacho.
- The parade homes are open weather permitting, and closed on Wednesdays.
- The homes are open between 10am and 8pm Thursday to Tuesday.
- Tickets are $15 for regular admission for a day
Garreth Wilcock is a Realtor ® specializing in new homes at Mueller. Get in touch to find out more about moving to the Mueller Development in Austin – 512 694 8873.
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Apr
24
Austin Mortgage Rates
Posted by garreth under Austin, First Time Homebuyers, For Buyers, Mortgage and Finance, Regional News
Here™s the scoop on mortgage rates for Austin. This is John Schutze™s mortgage rate update:
œMortgage rates didn’t change much this week.
The financial news from Wall Street was viewed as “more of the same” this week. But next week we have several events that might affect rates. The Fed meets on Wednesday to discuss policy and determine the future Fed Funds rate. The press release from this meeting is closely watched by the financial markets. Plus the Personal Consumption Expenditures index is released on Thursday. This measures the price changes of consumer goods and services and is the Fed’s favorite measure of inflation.
An interesting fact, the average gain for the S&P 500 Index during the first year after the lowest point of a bear market is 36.5%. The lowest point during the current bear market was on 3/9/09 at 677 points. In the following 6 weeks to date the S&P has gained 28.5%!
John™s Austin mortgage blog has news on factors that impact lending rates.
Garreth Wilcock is an EcoBroker in Austin, Texas. You can search Austin homes for sale at his website.
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Apr
21
Resale Market in Mueller Austin TX
Posted by garreth under Uncategorized
One of the challenges a home seller in a new development faces is competing with the builder, and the first resale home at Mueller Austin is available on the Austin MLS.
The Meritage 1901 home is close to the park and pool at Ella Wooten. Here are a few vital statistics:
4121 Lawless St, Austin Tx, 78723
- 3 Beds, 3 Baths
- Single Story
- 1720 sqft
- Austin ISD
- MLS# 7648939
- $320,000
A very popular Meritage floorplan with upgrades like diagonal tile backsplash in the kitchen.
[listing courtesy of Horizon Realty]
Why would a buyer choose this above building their own Meritage home to their own specification? Timing and price are two big factors that influence buyers. This home is available right now.
If the four people at the local newsletter editorial meeting tonight are anything to go by, most of the residents at Mueller are checking out their new tax appraisal values, and may have looked up on this home for sale.
Selling the first resale homes at Mueller will give some comparable sales from which to figure out true market values.
Garreth Wilcock is a Realtor living and working in Mueller Austin, TX, and represents buyers and sellers there. Read more about selling your home at Mueller in this 3 part series. Call or email to set up a viewing of the home above, or any other home at Mueller.
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Apr
21
How To Protest Your Travis County Tax Appraised Value
Posted by garreth under Austin, For Buyers, For Sellers, Regional News
Travis County has just released it’s updated property appraisal values, and the complaints are already being heard in the streets. In an attempt to avert an Austin Tea Party, here’s how to protest your property tax bill.
Know your appraised value. This is as simple as going to the Travis County Appraisal District website and searching for your home address. Or your neighbors address if you’re curious about their appraisal value.- Find your actual value. The appraised value and market value are two totally separate numbers. Getting an estimate of your home’s value by asking an appraiser or Austin Realtor ® to provide comparable sales data will give you some reference data points.
- Register a protest against your tax appraisal value. You typically have until the end of May to file a protest (unless you haven’t received your appraisal by that point, in which case the deadline extends). You protest to the appraisal review board who will review your case based on the evidence you bring along to the hearing.
What many people who haven’t bought or sold a home in the last 4 months might not appreciate is that house values in their neighborhood may have gone up or down since they last assessed their own home’s value.
The tax assessment may be wildly different from the fair market value of your home (the price at which a buyer and seller would agree if neither were under duress), and you can save on your property tax bill if you quantify that and protest it.
Garreth Wilcock is a Realtor ® in Austin, Texas and regularly assesses the value of homes in Travis County.
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Apr
20
Energy Audit Mandated For Austin Home Sellers Soon
Posted by garreth under Austin, Austin Green, For Sellers, Green, Regional News
The Energy Audit is coming to Austin! Here’s Austin home inspector Stan Pearson’s overview of the upcoming changes. I’ll talk more about the impact on selling your Austin home in a coming article.
“In June of 2009, the City of Austin will implement the energy audit ordinance, which essentially states that 1-4 family homes 10 years or older are required to have an energy audit performed by a certified auditor . It is the seller™s responsibility to present the audit report before closing. This audit will consist of 4 primary steps:
- Check weather stripping on doors
- Check for solar/shade screens on windows facing west, south, and east
- Check R-value of attic insulation
- Perform a duct pressure test on HVAC ducts to locate leaks.
Many Home Performance contractors already offer this level of testing. They also offer more detailed audits that can include thermographic inspection using an infrared camera, a blower door test, and a duct blaster test. So it™s safe to assume these professionals will be a top choice by consumers to perform the Austin audits.
Using a Home Performance contractor would be an advantage if the homeowner is planning on making the suggested upgrades, as they™re prepared to do the actual work. A disadvantage might include having to sit through a sales pitch, and be persuaded to undertake more work than necessary.
Home Inspectors are another group of professionals to consider. Codes of conduct disallow inspectors from doing work on homes they inspect, thus avoiding conflicts of interest. Aspects of the energy audit are already part of the normal course of a home inspection. Approximate depth of attic insulation, condition of door weatherstripping, and condition (though not type) of window screens, are noted in an inspection. I would expect that many home inspectors will become certified to perform the Austin audits.
For some, the choice of auditor might become an issue of timing. If a seller is having a pre-inspection done, it might be practical to have the inspector perform the audit at that time. The seller will then have more time to decide on a course of action. For others, it may just be a matter of œcheapest and quickest. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the market”
You can read more about the Austin Climate Protection Plan in a prior article.
Stan Pearson is a home inspector in Austin, Texas. Garreth Wilcock is a Real estate agent in Austin. You can search homes for sale in Austin at his website.
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Apr
17
Austin Mortgage Rates: Weekend Update
Posted by garreth under First Time Homebuyers, For Buyers, General Information, Mortgage and Finance
Here™s some pretty good news on mortgage rates for Austin. This is John Schutze™s mortgage rate update:
œMortgage rates inched higher late this week.
The continued stock market rally finally pressured rates higher this week. Stronger than expected earning reports from several large corporations like Citigroup, GE and Google helped fuel the stock market. Rates increased .125 to .25 across the board…still below 5.0% for 30 year rates though!
John™s Austin mortgage blog has news on factors that impact lending rates.
Garreth Wilcock is a Austin, TX Realtor ®. You can search Austin homes for sale at his website.
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Apr
14
Disambiguation – Miller Mueller Meuller Muller!
Posted by garreth under Uncategorized
Let’s just call it the old airport development in Austin Texas. It may be the most intriguing green development in Austin, but that doesn’t guarantee people will spell it right or say it right.
How to pronounce Mueller:
When people are looking for homes at the Mueller redevelopment, they soon learn that there are different ways to pronounce it. There’s the old Austin way (the same people who pronounce Koenig Lane as “Kay-nig” Lane rather than attempting a phonetic pronunciation)
They say “Mewl-ur”. That’s what everyone called the airport from 1930 until Bergstrom opened and the last planes flew out in 1999.
Then there’s the Mueller family themselves. The airport was named after council member Robert Mueller who died in 1927. They asked for the pronunciation to be updated to reflect that of their family name. The Mueller developer Catellus has taken this on, and if you walk into a model home, everyone will say “Mill-er”.
Then there’s the people who live there. I say “Mill-er, mewl-er” so that I’m understood. I like to say “Mill-er” so I can say “It’s Miller time!” when I wake up every day.
I have a Welsh name that is often misheard as Garreth, Gareth, Garith or Garrett, so I’m used to confusion, mispronunciation and misspelling.
Whatever you call it, the old airport is developing nicely, and buyers are seeing the value, and the realization of the master planned dream. Watch out for my post where I recap on recent sales – it’s the fastest selling development in Austin right now.
Garreth Wilcock is a pioneer and Realtor at Mueller and helps buyers and sellers find homes at the old airport in Austin.
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Apr
13
Avoid Permit Baggage When Buying Your Austin Home
Posted by garreth under Uncategorized
You’ve found your dream home in Austin, your Realtor has negotiated some good terms and you’re in your option period. It’s time for due diligence, and one thing most people overlook are building permits.
Now most of us are ready to hire a licensed real estate inspector to review the home, and to get a wood destroying insect report. If there are special systems that need inspecting, such as a septic system, we’re ready to get the septic tank pumped and inspected.
There’s one more thing that you need to add to the list, especially if buying within the Austin City Limits – you need to check for open or expired permits. If you buy a home with an expired or open permit, you may have difficulty getting a new permit when you want to change something in the future.
This applies to new homes too – a solar contractor friend who is going to put PV panels on the roof of a 15 month old home just informed the owner that his home had an expired permit. The City wouldn’t grant a new permit to attach the panels to the grid until it was resolved. So he now has to wait until the irrigation system is inspected before he can put solar panels up.
In this case the builder isn’t hard to track down. They’re still active in the subdivision. With a resale home, the builder or contractor could be long gone, and you could be buying some expensive contracting to get the permit resolved and to get the home fit to start any new work. That’s the kind of information you want in your option period as part of your due diligence.
Luckily, the City of Austin allows you to search for permits by address at their website. Make sure your Realtor or you have checked out the permits before you buy a home that has construction baggage.
Garreth Wilcock is a Central Austin Realtor ® who helps buyers and sellers navigate the hidden dangers in their home transactions. You can search for homes in Austin at his website.
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Apr
10
Search Foreclosed Homes in Austin
Posted by garreth under Uncategorized
How can I search for foreclosed homes by map in Austin, Texas? Easy! Just used my regular map based search, and click on the “foreclosures” radio button at the top of the page. If you click on the image below, it will take you right there.
Many bank owned listings in the Austin MLS are now tagged correctly as foreclosures, and they pop in the search results. Bank owned listings are the same as REO listings – Real Estate Owned homes for sale.
While there are more of these than a year ago, Austin’s real estate market is far stronger than the headline generating coastal states which are awash in foreclosure. You can see more Austin foreclosure statistics at my old post.
There are some listings which are foreclosures which don’t show up in the searches, and I tell my clients more about those – harder to find but often worth the search.
The homes that show up in the search results have already been foreclosed on – they have been auctioned off at the Travis County courthouse steps, and the bank now owns them – they are typically vacant, and sometimes represent a good buy for an investor or first time homebuyer willing to put in a little work.
HUD homes (the result of a foreclosure on an FHA loan) are being released 4 times a week now – these can be purchased for $100 down which is quite the exception in today’s mortgage market. There are restrictions on who can buy for $100 – no investors for example.
If you’re looking for a home below market value in Austin, consider getting help finding a HUD or foreclosed home while interest rates are low, and there’s the opportunity to get $8,000 back from the government if you’re a first time homebuyer!
Garreth Wilcock is a Realtor ® in Austin, Texas who is approved to help buyers and investors search for and buy HUD homes. Get in touch to find out if a foreclosure home is right for you – 512 694 8873.
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Apr
10
Real Estate on Twitter – Cocktail Party, SEO Conference or Kool-Aid Cult?
Posted by garreth under Uncategorized
Can twitter help you find a home in Austin? Or is it just a way for real estate agents to stalk home buyers and sellers? Here’s what I’ve seen of twitter so far.
For those of you have had your head in the times of druids, twitter is a micro-blogging platform – a chance to send your best 140 character message to a world of followers.
Followers? Sound a bit like some kool-aid is coming? Not exactly. You can follow friends, colleagues, people who share similar interests and they can follow you.
Twitter is a social networking platform that has been growing seemingly exponentially – a 1374% jump in visitors in 12 months.
In my opinion, it’s a bit like a cocktail party rather than a cult. There’s a public timeline where people can tweet – send out their messages.
Other people who are following (in the same cocktail party) can respond back to you in a whisper (direct message) or as a shout (so everyone can see or hear). So other people can join in the conversation too, and they may end up following you.
Sound familiar? It’s social networking, a term which for some reason now seems only applies to online media.
Who is using twitter? If you look at the twitter elite in Austin, the most popular users are online marketers. So even if you’re having a cocktail party in the Tonga Lounge in the hotel in San Francisco, the city is hosting a web marketing convention, and the people you bump into in the corridor and street are online marketers touting SEO.
What are people using twitter for? Some people share information – they use it like Digg or Delicious to share interesting links. Some people use it for meeting people, for conferences, tweetups and some for creating giant “follow me ponzi schemes”. And yes, for spam.
Just like at a cocktail party, there’s twittiquette – think of the guy who shows up at the cocktail party and yells about their latest book, project or blog post. After a while people stop listening. That happens in twitter too.
So how does this relate to home buying and selling in Austin? Personally, I use twitter as a tool to share information about Austin real estate. I also share articles that I’m reading about the topic – my own and other people’s.
I answer questions, and I keep in touch with clients and friends. I build relationships with people.
How does this help buyers and sellers? If I’m at a cocktail party in conversations about Mueller Austin, people might figure out that I can help them if they’re considering a move there. I’ve certainly had a few inquiries from twitter users as I often tweet about life and homes at the Mueller development.
When you’re buying or selling a home, you want someone you can trust, and someone with recommendations from friends, and someone with demonstrable experience and skills.
Building a relationship with social networking tools like twitter is one way of getting to know someone with whom you are considering doing business. And twitter is like a cocktail party with a TiVo – you can see what someone has been talking about for months.
So what are the challenges? Realtors are a social bunch and a fraction of them like online social media. They like hanging out at the online cocktail party.
Say Sally is moving from Chicago to Austin and tweets something like “looking forward to finding a home in Austin”. There are going to be a few Realtors in Chicago and Austin who see this in the public timeline, and decide to strike up a conversation with Sally to see if she needs help in relocating to Austin.
When Sally was chatting to her friends (followers) she didn’t realize that the party line was tapped, and that people would try to solicit business from her. People who believe in permission-based marketing have a problem with that.
Twitter is a useful platform that can be used to build relationships and share information. It’s another way for buyers and sellers to connect with real estate agents and to do some due dilligence on them.
Garreth Wilcock is at various online cocktail parties – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook when he’s not helping people buy and sell homes in Austin Tx.
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