March 2010

Many Home Buyers Will Consider Tax Fraud in Early May 2010

March 28, 2010

The $8,000 First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit will end April 30th. By “end”, I mean Friday April 30 is the last day to write a contract that qualifies. The transaction must also close by June 30th, which should be plenty of time. But an interesting thing will start happening May 1st, 2010. Buyers who miss [...]

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Travis County Population Now Exceeds 1 Million – and Growing

March 24, 2010

The chart below, from this morning’s Austin Statesman article, shows why 2009 was probably the bottom of the real estate market for Austin. The inertia of population growth is going to, in the next year or two, overtake inventory and home prices will rise and continue to do so for the next 5 years or [...]

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Austin Real Estate Market Update – Feb 2010 Sales

March 21, 2010

The Austin real estate market for Feb 2010 remained about the same as February a year ago. None of the measurable price metrics changes by more than a percent or two. Homes are selling faster though, and the number of failed listings (Expired/Withdrawn) is down considerably. Days on market is down 13% and the number [...]

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Will Web 2.0 Render the Full Service Real Estate Agent Obsolete?

March 18, 2010

I just wrapped up 5 days at SXSW Interactive. It was a fantastic conference with many great workshops, panels and discussion events related to technology, business, the internet and social networking. Much of it was relevant to the real estate business and small business in general, which surprised me.In fact, I attended two discussion workshops [...]

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Austin SXSW Interactive – Much Different Than a Realtor Convention

March 14, 2010

I’m day three of five into the SXSW Interactive “Festival” in Austin. Though I wasn’t at first certain that a convention like this would be a valuable use of time and money, I am now convinced it is, and I know exactly why I’m here. I’m here because I want to gain insight into new [...]

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I’m Attending South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive 2010

March 12, 2010

At the urging of one of my more advanced Tech Guru friends, I am attending SXSW Interactive this year. Matter of fact, I’m here now, at the Convention Center, killing time before my first round of workshops this afternoon. This is the Tech portion of the now three-part SXSW Festival. The Music and Film portions [...]

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A Closer Look at Failed Listings in Austin 1999-2009

March 2, 2010

We all know that some Austin MLS listings don’t sell. The reasons vary, but when demand is insufficient to absorb supply, the prettier better priced homes win, and the sellers who love their homes, and express that love and devotion through too-high list prices, get to continue the romance. Let’s see what that looks like [...]

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Austin Real Estate Market Update – Jan 2010 Stats

March 1, 2010

The Austin real estate market started 2010 on an upswing. Average sold price is up 5.39% from a year ago, median sold price is up 2.12%, days on market are down. In fact, every measured metric on the chart below moved in a positive direction except for median list price, which is down slightly, but [...]

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