Zillow and Trulia Remain Irrelevant in Austin Real Estate Market

Both Zillow.com and Trulia.com could vanish tomorrow, completely – websites crash and stay down forever – and it would make ZERO difference, at all, in the successful sale of any home in Austin TX, or elsewhere in the U.S. Period.

There is no hardship or selling disadvantage created for sellers or their listing agents if their real estate listings do not appear on these real estate entertainment and advertising websites because it is not the purpose of these consumer portal sites to sell homes, but instead to sell advertising to Real Estate Agents.

These consumer sites not only fail to cause homes to sell, the websites fail to create smarter, better educated buyers and sellers. Instead, they create consumers exposed to bad data, and too much of it. Including the ridiculous Zestimate, which everyone knows is inaccurate but which nonetheless remains the “favorite” feature of Zillow.com users, according to Zillow.

Thus, at a Real Estate Syndication panel I attended a couple of weeks ago in Austin, which included a panelist from Zillow, when asked about the fact that these websites often serve to simply confuse and mislead consumers, the response was that this is a good thing for Realtors. The Zillow panelist offered up that, by creating a mis-educated, confused consumer, Zillow is creating an opportunity for the Realtor to step in and straighten things out by filling the gaps and providing correct data and information.

We get to un-confuse the consumer as our value proposition, and for that we should be grateful. So, as a consumer, is it your desire to be confused and mislead, then have a Realtor “un-confuse” you? Or would you rather just get good info from the start?

Don’t get me wrong. These sites are here to stay. Like it or not. Bad and outdated data or not. That cow has left the barn.

Austin Real Estate Predictions for 2015

by Steve Crossland

What will the real estate market in Austin do for 2015?

Most likely, more of the same. More of what we saw in 2013 and 2014 Spring/Summer selling seasons, which was strong price increases caused by limited supply and increasing demand. Especially in the central core areas of Austin but not limited to just those areas. Even homes in Pflugerville get multiple offers now.

The increasing demand is coming from job growth in Austin, which is showing no signs of abating in 2015. Unemployment in Austin is a low 4%. Simply put, barring a major macroeconomic event that affects our local economy and job growth, our housing market will keep chugging along and prices will continue to rise. Nothing will stop it short term, but it will top out eventually and take a breather. Maybe in 2 or 3 years from now.

The recent drop in oil prices will affect Texas to some small degree, maybe Houston mostly, but represents nothing more than a pothole in the road for Austin currently. If anything, it could free up a bunch of construction labor that fled to the oil fields for higher pay, which would help the new home builders increase volume. New home construction is currently restricted by labor shortage and low availability of build-ready lots, which exasperates the effort to meet demand.

Current, Past and Future Values
The median value of a home in the Austin Metro area is now about $250,000. Average value will probably break $350K this summer. A decade ago median sales price was about $150,000 and the average was $225,000. That’s really only a 5% annual increase roughly, which is what we expect over a decade of time, but so much of it has happened the past few years that it feels like too much too fast.

Also, and of concern, much of the appreciation is concentrated in the central “core” areas of Austin proper, which is no longer affordable to service workers or median income families. I sold a home last summer in 78704 zipcode for $290K which sold for $58K 18 years earlier. That’s bumping a 10% annual appreciation rate over two decades. Same with a home we bought in Westlake in the low $300s in 2010 and sold for $500K in 2014. That’s a 10% annual increase over 4 years.

And wages haven’t kept up, so the median income buyer who wants to live in Austin proper, close in, will continue to be pushed out into the suburbs like Leander where a home at or near $200K is still doable, but where they will have to endure ever worsening and soul crushing commutes on our congested roads.

How Should Austintes feel about this?
The value appreciation of Austin home prices gives me mixed feelings.

And just like that, we’re moving again

by Steve Crossland

Have you ever woken up on a Friday morning with no intention of moving and by 5PM that day have submitted an offer on a home? That’s what Sylvia and I recently did, and it’s not the first time.

We really thought our current place in Westlake would be our “forever” retirement home. We’ve slowly improved and updated it, but still had a major kitchen and master bath redo and expansion in our future. The location is, in my opinion, the best in Austin for both our current working/family and future empty-nester lifestyles. 8 minutes to Town Lake, Zilker or Downtown, easy access to Mopac or 360, walking distance Trianon Coffee, FroYoyo, a Thundercloud Subs and more. Even a Cap Metro bus stop 6 minutes walk from our front door goes through Zilker Park and into downtown.

Our daughter can walk to Westlake High, and we’re within even closer proximity to the elementary and middle schools, which is what draws so many families and gives the Woodhaven neighborhood such a good mix of great people. It’s really perfect. A geographically “central” location without the quirky annoyances and absurdities of the 78704 areas.

But …Prices in the ‘hood have gone through the roof. It’s not going to be affordable or practical as a retirement home. If we make the contemplated improvements, our “retirement” home – a basic 1970s rancher – would be transformed and more highly valued and thus produce an annual property tax bill bigger than I want to swallow for the next 30 years. Sure, we’d be building equity, but still, property taxes seem to have gone too high already.

Every Austin Real Estate Offer is an Emergency Now

by Steve Crossland

Life as an Austin Realtor requires a varied set of skills. Add to those now the ability to operate under constant Red Alert conditions if you hope to be an effective Buyer’s Agent. Here is the latest example.

Sylvia had buyers in from out of town last Saturday. Both houses they liked already had multiple offers. They went in on one of the homes. It wasn’t until Monday morning we found out another offer was selected. Meanwhile 5 new properties came on the market. The buyers were leaving town Monday night. Sylvia wasn’t feeling well so I took her buyers out Monday. We found a home they liked, checked with the agent and was told at 2PM that the owner was already reviewing multiple offers from the weekend.

We convinced the agent to wait for our offer. Saw the house, liked it, drove to my home where we all sat around our embarrassingly unclean kitchen table while I wrote it up. We did “old school” signatures on paper instead of DocuSign. I scanned and emailed to the agent with a pre-approval letter, followed by a phone call to “sell it” to the agent that this was the right buyer to select. This is all done with a sense of urgency, but not panic. Nevertheless, no room for mistakes, delays or incompetence. For adrenaline junkies like me, it’s fun. But not for most people.

How did it turn out?

Enjoying the Quiet Uncrowded Austin

by Steve Crossland

I often experience something many Austinites will never know. A quiet uncrowded Austin. No traffic. No noise. No crowds. Just peaceful serenity and bliss.

There is no turning back – no solution – for Austin’s traffic problems, congestion, growth, commercial encroachment into central neighborhoods, and myriad other small and big annoyances caused by Austin’s economic “success”. We all have to develop coping mechanisms to keep our sanity intact. Resistance is futile. You will either assimilate, or move away in disgust. I don’t want to leave Austin, I want to Love Austin. I want to keep that love alive. So I’ve adjusted my personal lifestyle and business practices in ways that equip me to better cope with the new reality of life in Austin. Here’s what I do.

Wake up at 5AM and go Running
You don’t have to run, you can walk, or do something else. Either out your front door through your still-sleeping neighborhood, or drive to your favorite hike and bike trail, park, or the gym. There will be no traffic. The city will be yours. At 5-6AM, there are typically only about 3 cars parked under the Mopac bridge at Town Lake.

Running (or walking) around Town Lake (aka Lady Bird Lake) in the pre-dawn silence, under the dim light of the Zilker Moon Tower, and the distant glow of downtown Austin, is as peaceful and quieting an experience as one can know. When I do this, usually Sunday, Monday and Thursdays, I do it unplugged. No iPod music. Just the dark silence of the morning. I usually encounter no more than a few others on the trail, depending on the weather and how early I go. By 6AM, the trail starts slowly populating, but is still uncrowded, and by 7AM, the normal early birds are there, the sun is up, and it’s no longer deserted.

Austin City vs Metro Home Prices 2013

by Steve Crossland

When you read a news article about Austin real estate that reports average and median home prices, the values quoted are often those from total Austin MLS sales. Those sales figures are compiled from the entire Austin MLS service area, including suburbs, nearby cities as well as some far flung areas. The “Austin MLS” might more accurately be referred to as a “Central Texas MLS”.

Therefore, you might read in one of the “Best of” articles about Austin, that “The Average Sold price for single family homes in the Austin Metro area for 2013 is $314,300 and the Median Sold price is $235,000”.

Those values are represented in the green bars in the graph above. To those thinking of moving to Austin, a median price of $235K sounds pretty affordable. It means half of all houses in “Austin” sell for less than $235K. A buyer with good credit earning the Austin median family income of $65K annually, can qualify for a mortgage payment of $1,950 per month at 5%, or a $266K home. Austin seems like a sweet deal and a great place to live to an outsider reading about it.

Do Austin Production Builders Differ in Quality?

by Steve Crossland

Buyers will sometimes ask “is Builder X a good builder?” My answer is that your builder’s brand name doesn’t matter enough to make it a decision point in your new home purchase decision.

In other words, if a hypothetical buyer is torn between two similar to-be-built home options in the same neighborhood, I will tell that buyer that the brand name of the builder should NOT be a deciding factor. There are more important things such as the lot itself, the floorplan and standard finish-out.

But I read some bad reviews about Builder X?
Ignore those. You cannot protect yourself from a bad builder experience by ruling any builders out, and you cannot increase your chances of a good builder experience by limiting which builders you consider. Researching builders is folly. The same builder can build two houses side by side, and those two different buyers may have completely different experiences. In fact, one project may go smooth, and the other has a lot of problems. Each build is its own standalone project with its own unique and different problems that will arise, because the lots, floorplans and buyers are all different. That’s normal and expected.

In Texas, as in most Sunbelt states, all the “production builders” use the essentially same pool of subcontractors. It’s not that different from the PC you buy (Dell vs HP), or even many appliances and cars. Drive through the neighborhoods and you’ll see trucks from Casa Mechanical and Chistianson Plumbing working in the same subdivisions on different builder’s home. Few builders have in-house framing crews anymore. All sub out the roofing. All trades get subcontracted out now. It’s these subcontractors that do the work, not the “builder”, which isn’t really a “builder” in the strict sense of the word, but a construction management and marketing company.

Austin Real Estate Market 2014 to Remain on Fire

by Steve Crossland

Sylvia and I usually attend an annual Austin Real Estate Economic Update to find out what the coming year holds. This year, I exclaimed to her, “Why bother? It’s going to be full tilt boogie, just like 2013“. I mean, Austin is rumbling along with all cylinders firing. There is nothing I need to hear about 2014 that I don’t already know. We’re gonna be working our butts off and house prices are going to keep rising.

For many, this is good news. If you’re going to sell a home in Austin this Spring or Summer, you’ll be happy. If you’re buying a home in Austin, you better have an “A Game”, and you better be ready to bring it. And I mean bring it. You don’t buy a house in Austin anymore, you compete for one. Oddly, you’ll be happy too, when you finally win a multiple bid competition and pay too much for a house.

Many of our Realtor friends had record production years in 2013, as did Sylvia and I. Most are looking forward to another busy year in 2014. But I don’t like it. I don’t want to be this busy. And I think, to some degree, these manic real estate swings and rising values are ruining Austin, and the real estate profession. Everything has become hyper-instant. Everything is Urgent. Sylvia called on a new listing the morning of Jan 2nd which had already gone under contract with 7 offers New Years Day. This wasn’t even in a “hot” area. Why aren’t people sleeping in on New Year’s Day instead of out fighting over a house?

I know. It’s a weird thing to complain about, being busy, doing well, enjoying professional success. Shame on me.

How and Where to Pay Your Rent

by Steve Crossland

Updated Jan 2015 This post is to make you aware of the different choices available for paying rent as a Crossland Real Estate Tenant. PayLease This free online service is now required, per all lease agreements with Crossland Real Estate. It’s simple and user-friendly. You can pay by eCheck (online Check) for free (we absorb the fees) or, in an emergency, use a Credit Card. There is a third party fee for using a credit card, depending on which type of card you use. From your PayLease profile you can set up auto-pay or a monthly reminder email with a payment link. Paylease also has toll free support in case you ever have a problem. You can get to the payment site from this link or from the Tenant menu above. Regular mail – If you mail your rent, there will be a $5 processing/handling fee, per your lease agreement. … Read more

Austin Realtors: Time to Pull the Plug on Zillow and Trulia

by Steve Crossland

As of this writing, there are 837 homes for sale in the Austin MLS for which the “Syndication” choice is set to “no” in the MLS settings. That’s 14% of current Austin single-family homes for sale, a sizable number, spanning all price ranges. I applaud those Broker/Agents for not drinking the syndication Kool-Aid.

This means, specifically, those 837 Austin MLS listings are not being fed by the listing agent through the MLS to a syndication aggregator called ListHub, which in turn is the main provider of listing feeds for most syndicators, including Zillow and Trulia, and 60+ others. I single out Zillow and Trulia only because those sites are the biggest and most well-known syndication websites. They are also the two most notoriously aggressive in their efforts and tactics to sell expensive advertising to the same Austin Realtors who freely gave away their work product (listings) to these media websites.

But what the 14% means in practical terms is that if you are a serious buyer dumb enough to only be looking for a home on a syndication website, you are only finding 86% of available Austin MLS listings. Wouldn’t you rather know about all available listings that match your search criteria?

Conversely, wouldn’t you rather NOT be shown incorrect listing data, specifically, homes you find on Zillow and Trulia and other sites that are not even for sale, or that already sold months or years ago but still appear on these websites? Or a home listed for $500K with an “estimated” value of $423K, but which had multiple offers over list price before the listing even made it onto the syndication website?

These websites might be interesting time wasters for tire kickers, curiosity seekers and nosey neighbors, but they are not trustworthy sources of current, accurate real estate listing information. Maybe they are an easy “first look” for casual listing surfers in the very early stages of “thinking about” buying a home, just to get a general idea of prices in a new city or area of town. But real estate listing syndication websites are not valuable tools for a serious buyer. Nor do they offer a relevant advertising venue for serious sellers or their listing agents. That’s because these sites are not designed to help you as a buyer, or to help sellers sell homes. They are designed to sell advertising to Realtors.

And the 14% Austin listing gap is growing as more Brokers and Agents come out of the fog and realize that these syndicators are not our friends. These websites do not, in any way, cause any home to sell faster or for a higher price. So the question is, why do so many Realtors mistakenly believe that these third-party media advertising websites are a good thing? And why do so many Realtors wrongly presume that sellers want listings shown on these websites?

History of Listing Syndication in Austin

Read more

Would Edward Snowden Work For Zillow?

by Steve Crossland

As you have no doubt heard, computer analysis Edward Snowden was so appalled by what he deemed to be egregious privacy violations and spying on U.S. Citizens by his employers the CIA and NSA, that he leaked classified information to the press to prove it, then fled to Russia where he remains.

Would he have been happier working at Zillow? No. He would have been just as appalled.

Zillow does not respect your privacy. The lead system at Zillow, through which consumers inquire about listings, surreptitiously records and collects your private communication with Realtors who respond to your inquiry. This isn’t obvious to a typical consumer because of the way Zillow masks where your emails are really going. I’ll try to keep this technical explanation as simple as possible.

How Zillow Plays Games with Email Addresses and Names
When a consumer on Zillow fills out the “I’m interested …” form, the email that arrives is as follows:

From: Zillow <Zillow@email.zillow.com> (this is what Realtors see in the “from” section of the email client)

In the body of the email it says:

New Contact

John Doe (johndoe@johndoeemail.com) is contacting you about a property on Zillow:

I am interested in 123 Main St, Austin, TX 78745. Contacted via Zillow.com

The second line above is the default text in the inquiry box. Most consumers don’t type into this box or ask questions, they simply fill in their contact info and click send with the default blurb. A real serious inquiry. (sarcasm intended)

Next, when the Realtor clicks “Reply”, she sees the following in the “to:” section of the email client:

“johndoe@johndoeemail.com” <reply-fe591075766702787312-359747_HTML-535847118-64517-44712xx@email.zillow.com>

What Zillow does here is cleverly place the consumer’s email address in the “name” section of the send field. Many email clients (the software you use to send and receive email, like Outlook or Yahoo or Gmail) only show the name in this format, not the strange long email address you see after the “name”. Zillow knows this.

The average Realtor is a 57 year old woman. Not tech savvy. When she looks at where the email is going, and sees the email address (placed into the “name” field), she thinks the email address is the destination address of the email. But really, if you look at the long weird email address after the name/email, that is where the email will be delivered, to the Zillow email server.

Tenants: Who is Your Austin Property Owner?

by Steve Crossland

average-rental-home-owner I recently had a tenant utter the phrase “greedy landlords”. Ironically, it was out of frustration for what was in fact a tiny rent increase of less than 3%, raising the rent to a rate still about $75 less than market value. It was one of those “no good deed goes unpunished” moments that property managers frequently experience. More about my philosophy of rent increases can be read in a previous blog post on that subject.

But for this article, I want to talk about just who in fact your landlord is if you’re an Austin Tenant living in a single family home. I don’t mean the identity of your property owner, but more generally, what caused the owner to own a home that needed to be rented.

Owners fall into the following general categories.

Pure Investor – These are pure investors who purchased the property from the outset as an income producing asset. Many have maxed out retirement plans, or simply lost faith in the stock market and need a way to invest. Investing in real estate is very risky, fraught with uncertainty and surprise expenses. But for those with the right attitude toward proper care of the property, holding longterm, and treating tenants fairly, it can be one of the best ways to build wealth. They also need to have the financial and emotional strength to weather the ups and downs of owning rental property. All of our “investor” owners fall into this category, else we don’t take them as clients. But most of our clients are in fact not “pure investors”. Most fall into one of the categories below.

The State of Professionalism Among Austin Realtors is Poor

by Steve Crossland

One of the things I struggle with as a real estate blogger is finding the balance between positive, upbeat stories and dreary negative truths about the real estate industry and the people in it.

My sweet wife/Broker Sylvia has reprimanded me in the past for being too negative. So did my former “big name” Broker, multiple times, for crossing the line of polite decorum and calling out what I see as gross incompetence, not only with other Realtors, but the lenders, inspectors and various others who are part of every real estate transaction. I’ve mellowed somewhat, but things have become worse, not better.

This is going to be another of those “negative” writings because, frankly, I’ve had it. I’m sick and tired. I’m wondering if I even want to remain a part of an industry so plagued with completely useless idiots masquerading as real estate “professionals”.

I think it’s important, as a consumer, for you to know how truly terrible so many Realtors are, and how truly stupid you are for hiring them. You research your purchase of a car for months online before making a decision. You scour the internet travel sites looking for even the smallest of savings on your airline flight. You wander in and out of Best Buy, Fries Electronics, Office Depot, etc, plus review websites, investing hours of research, before purchasing that next laptop or refrigerator. I could go on.

But, when hiring your Realtor, according to NAR consumer surveys, 70% of you hire the first one to return your call. Stop that. It’s dumb. You, the consumer, are part of the problem, if not the problem.

Let’s look at some real life examples of the consequences of having lousy agents out in the field, who would vanish were it not for the “first return call” hiring practices of the real estate consumer.

In Which Area of Austin will Jim and Pam End Up?

by Steve Crossland

Everybody loves Austin. Or so it seems. If the recent Forbes article “Austin Envy” wasn’t enough (though it mistakenly claims we still have Austin Hippies – we don’t. And, please, NOBODY refers to Austin as “Silicon Hills”), the final proof was in the finale of The Office, in which Jim and Pam decide to leave Scranton PA, bound for, of course, Austin, TX.

This makes sense. I mean, what other U.S. city could they have decided upon? Pittsburg? Phoenix? Orlando? No, the writers of The Office got it right. Jim and Pam are likable characters. We want the best for them. They’ve paid their dues in the decaying armpit that is Scranton PA, and they are deserving of a bright and optimistic new life. Austin is the only U.S. city for which this “new beginnings” story line would work. Fans can cheer the decision to move to Austin like they can no other city. It requires no explanation. It’s, like, “of course”. Self-explanatory. And we can feel good about that for them.

And what should Jim and Pam expect when they get here? Where will they live?

Does your Austin Realtor Know How to Show Homes?

by Steve Crossland

Does your Austin Realtor know how to show houses? Maybe not. Ask him or her what “Call and Go” means. The answer might be embarrassing to the agent, once you read this article.

I asked my 10th grade daughter what she thinks “Call and Go” might mean as a showing instruction in Austin MLS listings. She’s not a Realtor and doesn’t know much about the business other than what she absorbs through osmosis from Sylvia and me. But her tart teenage retort was, “well, obviously, if that’s what it’s called, you call and then you go… is this one of your trick questions?”

No, it wasn’t a trick question, but I did have a recent experience which revealed that many Austin Realtors actually DO NOT KNOW what “Call and Go” means as a showing instruction.

I had a new listing for which I expected a tsunami of showings and a quick contract at or above list price. Since the seller was departing on a weekend trip the same day I was entering the new listing, I didn’t want him to be bothered or troubled with tons of showing calls and voicemails during the trip. So I entered my own GoogleVoice voicemail number into the listing as the “call and go” number instead of the seller’s. Thus, the listing had agent showing instructions of: “Owner Occupied”, “Call and Go”, “Key in Lockbox”.

C&G is by far the most common showing method for Austin MLS listings, and the best way to encourage the most showings. The only status that provides easier showing access is “Vacant and Go”. Other parts of the country don’t do this and instead have elaborate appointment setting logistics. Some are even appalled that we have something called “Call and Go”, as they can’t imagine a buyer’s agent having the seller’s phone number. But it’s common in Texas, where we’re not all uptight and where we actually want our homes to be easy to show and sell. Call and Go does the trick.

How Much is Too Much to Pay for an Austin Home?

by Steve Crossland

Austin Buyers, when trying to win a multiple offer situation on a home in Austin, how much is “too much” to pay? It’s a hard question to answer because it’s both personal and subjective. One buyer’s “too much” may another’s “good deal”. One buyer’s “perfect” floor plan may be another’s “it’s just ok”.

That said, if you’re about to write your 5th offer having lost the last 4 multiple offer situations over the past 2 months, you have to wonder if the 4 buyers who beat you were all fools. Were they? Probably not. They all have a house now, and you don’t.

And when you finally do get your own home under contract, you may have to pay relatively “more” than it would have required to win one of those 4 lost bid efforts a few months earlier. That’s ok though. Losing out on multiple multiple-offer situations is a progressive, education process. Losing out on homes does provide value and context as it toughens your resolve going forward, and makes you smarter and, more importantly, braver. Hopefully you have a good agent keeping you sane too.

But here’s how I look at paying “too much” for a home in Austin. There are two kinds of “too much”. There is “irresponsibly too much“, and “responsibly too much“. Or, boiled down to its essence, “responsible risk” vs “irresponsible risk”.

We all make these decisions in life, not just in housing, but in many areas, whether it’s picking one job opportunity over another, or one college over another. Spending $2,500 to repair the 12-year-old car vs buying a new one. Even who you marry.

Sometimes, you have to pull up your A-Game, check your gut, and make the best decision you can in that moment. But in doing so, you are taking a “risk”. And you don’t get to find out of you were “smart” until later, at some point in the future, once all the data becomes known and the dust settles.

Are you an Austin Buyer or a Contestant?

by Steve Crossland

If you’ve tried to buy a house in Austin lately, in an area of high demand and low inventory, such as Southwest Austin, you may have run into some competition. In fact, you most likely have. As of this writing, there are 43 Active listings and 84 Pending listings in SW Austin. I won’t go into a breakdown of what that means statistically, but let’s just call it a Mega-Seller’s-Market and leave it at that.

Other buyers want the same house you want, often the first day it hits the market. A new listing in South Austin 78745 that I showed a buyer a few days ago had a parade of buyers waiting in line when I got there, and more when we left. An offer I wrote today for a SW Austin home that came on the market 3 days ago has multiple offers and we’ll see how ours did tonight or tomorrow. It’s really, really crazy out there.

This type of market changes the way you have to approach your home buying effort in Austin. You are no longer “shopping” for a home, you are competing for a home. You are not a home buyer, you are a contestant. You are not trying to negotiate an acceptable offer with a seller, you are trying to beat your opponent(s), the other buyers, by making a better offer. Suit up, game on. And you’re not able to know what it will take to make your offer “better”, you can mostly only guess, then decide how high you want to jump.

This is disconcerting and frustrating for those unaccustomed to the stress. It can tie you in knots emotionally. It’s too much for some buyers, and they simply bow out of multiple offer situations, not wanting to compete at all. Others get it right away, put on a game face, and bring their A Game to the first offer, crushing the competition and “winning” a home on the first try. Still others, go through several failed offer attempts before they can muster up the fortitude and grit to throw down a wining offer. If you’re one who keeps losing, read How to Win Multiple Offers in Austin for some tips that will help you and your agent increase your chances of coming out on top.

Are we in a Bubble?
I’m not ready to call this a “bubble”, but this marks about 12 months now of very strong demand and shrinking inventory in many areas of Austin.

Austin Lease Extensions Depend on Timing and Season

by Steve Crossland

austin lease renewal As we head into the Spring/Summer leasing season in Austin, and I just mailed my first batch of renewal letters, I’m already fielding inquiries from tenants who have lease-end dates that don’t coincide with their future plans. The inevitable question is “can we have a move-out date of x instead of y?

For one tenant, planning to get married, extending the lease from a March 31 end date to a May 31 end date (two months) is not a problem. The home is owned by a long-term investor, and the new May lease end date benefits both the owner and the tenant. This is a win/win. It places the home dead center of the summer leasing season cycle.

In these win/win scenarios, I have flexibility because the adjustment benefits my client, the owner. I work for the owner and must only make decisions that are in the owner/client’s best interest. Thus, if that same tenant, in that same house, asked for the same 2 month extension for a lease that ended July 31st instead of March 31st, the answer would be “no”. Timing is everything.

How Important is Showing Feedback and How Do You Get It?

by Steve Crossland

I have found showing feedback to be essential and extremely helpful in the sale of my listings. Feedback provides insight into issues or factors that I might have overlooked or not considered important enough to affect pricing. Obtaining good feedback from showing agents takes some preparation and follow through though. Here’s what I do.

First, every listing has a “supra” lockbox. This lockbox electronically records every showing, and sends me an email when it is opened by an agent. The email has the day, time of showing and the contact information for the showing agent.

I then go into my MLS login where I have a standard letter that I send to the agent with a link to the listing. I greet the agent by name and thank them for showing the listing at “specified neighborhood” on “specified address”. I ask if there is anything about the price or condition that they can give me feedback on for this specific home. I think the personalized email is vastly more effective than the robotic auto-requests that so many agents set up. Some agents, including Steve, won’t take the time to complete a multi-question online feedback form sent by a robot, but they will respond to a personal email or phone call from the listing agent.

I ask, “did the buyer’s like it?”, “are they considering making an offer?” I also explain that the seller’s disclosure and survey is online attached to the MLS listing for their convenience. Also, to refresh their memory, I provide a link to the listing. After this I thank the agent for his or her hard work.

Can an Austin Builder Restrict a Buyer to Using Certain Inspectors?

by Steve Crossland

One of my buyers wrote an offer on a new home the other day. Not a completed “spec” home, but a “to be built”. While we can write an offer for a resale home in 15-30 minutes, signed, sealed and delivered (which sometimes isn’t fast enough in this Austin market), a new to be built home is a long, arduous sit-down in the builder’s onsite rep. We were there for over three hours. And this already knowing exactly what the buyer wanted except for just a few exterior items and colors. It just takes that long to write everything up, print it and go through it all.

Anyway, at some point going through the massive stack of builder contract paperwork with my buyer, a nasty little addendum emerged, the likes of which I’ve never personally seen. “Whoa, what’s this?”, I say.

It’s a document that imposes requirements on the private third party inspector that the buyer may hire to inspect a home. It requires that the inspector sign a document called a “Access Agreement for Home Inspection”. The access agreement requires that the inspector have:

Proof of General liability Insurance of at least $1,000,000
Proof of Auto Liability Insurance of at least $100,000
Proof of Worker’s Compensation Insurance equal to the “statutory minimum”.
Proof of Employer’s Liability Insurance of at least $1,000,000

So I dialed up my new home inspector while we sat there and asked about this. He said it’s total BS. A ploy by builders to limit inspections. He doesn’t meet the requirements, nor do most Texas Real Estate Inspectors (TREC requires $100K liability, so most carry the minimum), much less the Code Inspectors you want to be using on a new build.

Does this mean my buyer can’t use my over-credentialed, highly competent and trustworthy inspector? The builder was happy to offer a list of inspectors they have who do meet the requirements. No thanks. I want my buyer to have my inspector, not yours. So now what?