December 2007

Former Boom Markets Hit Hardest

December 27, 2007

Austin was not a “boom market”, but the sentiments and national news resulting from the markets listed in the news snippet below have contributed to a somewhat timid buyer pool in Austin at present. Hopefully, buyers will perk up this spring as the mortgage fallout further clears up and people realize that Austin is not [...]

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Austin Rental Market Update – November 2007

December 26, 2007

The Austin rental market for November in Austin continues the strong climb in prices. The average rental rate of $1386/mo. is a 12% increase over the same month last year. The median leased price is $1200, up 4.3% from a year ago. The number of homes leased dropped 13% from 588 a year ago to [...]

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Austin Real Estate Market Update – November 2007

December 26, 2007

The number of homes sold in Austin for November 2007 was down 19% from November 2006. Average sales price is up 6.5% $255,073 and Median sales price is up 7.9% from $175,000 a year ago to $188,900 this year for November. Average price per square foot is up 4.4% to $119 per square foot. Average [...]

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Austin Board of Realtors Shamefully Incompetent Rollout of New Austin MLS System

December 26, 2007

As I have started to run the stats for November to post on my blog as I do each month, I shuddered to think what I might encounter trying to pull stats from our lousy new MLS system. My fears were confirmed. The new Austin MLS system does not properly compute the data. This is [...]

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Texas Home Insurance Premiums are Highest in Nation

December 23, 2007

AUSTIN (Dallas Morning News) – A new study from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners shows that Texas homeowners pay far more for insurance than those in any other state. The average annual premium in Texas for the most common homeowner policy was $1,372, considerably more than the nationwide average of $764. Louisiana ranked second [...]

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Agent Bonuses – Buyers Should Know

December 21, 2007

The news snippet below discusses a proposed new law in North Carolina that would make disclosure of agent bonuses mandatory in real estate transactions. Good – it’s about time. Currently, very few states require this. I’ve long had a problem with the fact that most buyers have no clue whether or not their Realtor is [...]

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Are Older Homes Really Built Better?

December 20, 2007

I really miss the old house we use to live in on Newning Street in Travis Heights, and the neighborhood. We lived there from 1991 to 1996, when S. Congress was still gritty and not yet “cool”. We certainly didn’t call it “SoCo”. It was still plain old South Austin and Travis Heights. The home [...]

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Moving Tips: How to get a better price on existing services

December 11, 2007

We’re in the process of moving. I called Time Warner to move my internet service to my new address, but when they answered, I told them I want to cancel the internet service instead. I don’t want to cancel (though I truley was considering it), so why did I do this? To get connected to [...]

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Bush announces 5 year rate freeze – Texas borrowers in good shape

December 7, 2007

WASHINGTON (Associated Press, Real Estate Center) – President Bush announced this week plans for a five-year freeze on interest rates for subprime mortgages. “We should not bail out lenders, real estate speculators or those who made the reckless decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford,” Bush said. “But there are some [...]

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ABJ: Centex pulls out of 1,400-home project

December 6, 2007

Looks like Austin is seeing some contraction in the new home inventory, which is a good thing, at least for now. The fact that Centex is backing out of a 1400 home project tells us more about the national housing market, and the financial problems of the large production builders than is does Austin’s market. [...]

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