Austin Real Estate sales surge 18 percent in March

Austin Real Estate Market on Fire

Here is another article (see below) from today’s Austin Statesman. It reflects what Sylvia and I have been experiencing – we’re having a harder time finding good clean homes for our buyers. The best homes that are priced right go fast and sometimes it takes a few lost deals before a buyer builds enough trust in our recommendations to believe us when we call and say “you need to write a full price offer on this one right now. I’m emailing the contract to you and you need to get it back right away”. Or “you need to come see this house before lunch – bring your checkbook”.

It’s an odd delima. We’re both long-time laid back South Austin people. Getting people to hurry up and make a snap decision isn’t very South Austin-like, but we’d be lousy Realtors if we didn’t help our buyers get into that frame of mind from the outset.

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Average Austin (Travis County) home appraisal to balloon 16 percent

Home Starts are up

Today’s Austin Statesman reports that average appraised home values for Austin Travis County will increase 16% over 2005. “Many Travis County property owners could get sticker shock when they open their 2006 property appraisal notices, which are starting to hit mailboxes this week. Preliminary numbers from the district show the average market value of a single-family home in Travis County is $236,559, a 16 percent jump from last year.”

Article continued below.

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More Local Real Estate Scam Stories

More Local Real Estate Scams

Today’s Austin Statesman front page has a story about a woman being arrested for taking real estate purchase deposits from people for houses she did not own or represent. The article says the lady would put up signs in front of vacant houses and on telephone poles in Hays county (South of Austin), and this actually resulted in phone calls from people who would meet her and pay a cash “deposit”. Deposits ranged from $500 to $2,800 in five known cases so far. She claimed in some instances to be a real estate agent, and even had a fake business card. She told another victim that the home was her brother’s and she was selling it for him while he was overseas. It’s too bad that there are folks out there who can be fooled this easily.

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Has Real Estate Become a Technology Profession?

Real Estate Industry relies on technology

Sometimes, on days when technology creates more problems than solutions – which is often, I wistfully wonder how sweet it must have been to be a Realtor in the 1970’s. No pagers, cell phones, computers, printers, pda’s, faxes, internet, gps mapping – not even voicemail. It’s 2006 already, and as I try to piece together and maintain all the technology and office tools needed for our small team to operate in the fast paced business world in which we live, I wonder with frustration – why doesn’t any of this crap work properly?

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Media Sends Mixed Messages on Real Estate Services

Handshake Transaction

A recent article (March 18, 2006) in the Austin American Statesman titled “Unscrupulous sellers dwell in online home marketplace” said “gullible buyers lured by nice photos are falling prey to Internet con artists”. The article outlines stories of buyers being ripped off purchasing real estate directly from sellers online, then either losing their money outright or finding out the place they purchased is a worthless rundown rat hole. None of the buyers getting burned use real estate agents and most of them don’t bother to view the homes they purchase prior to closing. They are mostly investors looking for deals to ‘flip’.

What really caught my attention though was the comments by a NY state assemblyman who is seeking to restrict the ability of sites like eBay to connect buyers and sellers directly. The assemblyman, Sam Hoyt, is quoted saying “What eBay is doing, in my opinion, is immoral. They have a responsibility to not facilitate activity like this.”

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