austin economy

Austin Real Estate Market – 2010 Breakdown by MLS Area

February 20, 2011

Below is a chart breaking down the 2010/2009 sales comparisons by MLS Area for the Austin real estate market. This time I’m adding a couple of new things. First, there is color coding on each of the summary rows for each area. A green shade indicates “improvement” in the measured metric. I put “improved” in [...]

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Austin Real Estate Market – Year 2010 Summary and 2011 Predictions

February 6, 2011

The Austin real estate market finished 2010 with increased overall sales prices. The market is roughly a bit higher than the peak 2007 values. See the graph below for an illustration of Austin home sales values from 1999 through 2010. The graph can be deceiving though. It simply represents the cumulative data from all MLS [...]

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Austin Job Growth 2011

January 7, 2011

Austin was recently featured on the CBS Evening News as the city with the strongest job growth in the U.S. This is somewhat of an “all sunshine” puff piece, but it nevertheless highlights some of the good things happening in Austin. Job growth drives real estate demand, so if this year keeps heading in the [...]

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Tax Credit Effect on Austin Real Estate Market

May 16, 2010

The $8,000 buyer tax credit ended April 30, 2010. Take a look at the following graph to see the effect the tax credit had on buyer activity in Austin TX.  This shows Pending activity for Austin MLS listings going back to Jan 2005 through April 2010. The green line is 2010. The previous years of [...]

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The Government Has Made Me Stupid About Real Estate

April 22, 2010

As we head into the final weekend preceding the final work week of April, and the $8,000 1st time homebuyer tax credit winds down (thank God), I’m seeing a surge of new Austin real estate listings coming on the market each day as well as a huge increase in the number of showings for most [...]

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Austin Real Estate Market Update – December 2009

January 25, 2010

The Austin real estate market ended 2009 on an up note, with both average and median sold prices up more than 5% over Dec 2008. Oh, but wait … December 2008 was a dismal month because we all still thought the financial world was falling off a cliff. But the stats are what they are [...]

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Austin Real Estate Market Update – Nov 2009

January 5, 2010

Maybe I should start terming my Austin real estate market update blogs “Austin Real Estate Market, as Influenced by the Federal Government”. Indeed, the word “market” does need an asterisk next to it for the Sept-Nov time frame in Austin. Instead of taking its natural course, whatever that might have been, the lower end of [...]

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Texas Cities Outperforming Others

November 17, 2009

This information is from the Real Estate Center at Texas A/M newsletter. Tells what we already know, but I think the stats are interesting. Texas metros, led by number one Austin–Round Rock, claimed four of the top five spots and nine of the top 16 in the 2009 Milken Institute/Greenstreet Real Estate Partners Best-Performing Cities [...]

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Austin Real Estate Sale Stats by MLS Area – Sept 2009 YTD

November 1, 2009

Austin’s real estate market is a “market of markets”, and thus the overall news reported about real estate activity in the Austin Metro area may or may not be reflective of conditions in the specific area in which you live, or the home you own, or the home you want to buy. Each quarter I [...]

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Austin Real Estate Market Update for August 2009 Sales

September 17, 2009

Austin Real Estate values for August 2009 are down about 5% from the same month last year. Average sales prices for the 1,657 houses that sold are down 5.12%. Median sold prices are down 4.80%. The number of houses sold is down 15% from August 2008, which is less of a decrease than we’ve seen [...]

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