What your real estate offer really buys you

House Sold Sign Photo

Once your real estate offer in Austin TX has been accepted, have you just purchased a home? If you are a seller, and have just accepted a real estate offer, have you just sold your home? The answer to both questions is, not necessarily.

Let me explain. Buying real estate in Texas is a two step process. Let’s look at how this works.

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Austin Home prices on the upswing

The article below, from this morning’s Austin American-Statesman, does a good job of articulating what I have been noticing as the Austin real estate market starts to awaken from the past 3 or 4 years slumber. The last two offers I wrote were multiple offer situations – 3 offers on one home and 4 on the other, both in South Austin Area 10, which is an area I really think will appreciate well in the coming years because of its proximity to downtown Austin, shopping, restaurants and the fact that many of it’s homes are still below the median sales price for Austin as a whole.

As the article says, accurately I believe, “With fewer houses for sale and building costs rising, buyers no longer have the advantage.”

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Rental rates, occupancy to rise in local Austin rental market

Home with for rent sign in yard

Although the article below specifically references apartments, the single family and duplex rental markets generally run parallel to whatever is happening in the multi-family rental market in Austin. Rental prices in turn have an effect on home prices. In general, this is more good news for Austin real estate investors and sellers alike.

Source: Austin Business Journal 8/23/2005
Rental rates, occupancy to rise in local apartment market

Apartment owners will be able to post modest increases in rents this year and slowly eliminate concessions, according to a new market report. The report was issued by Encino, Calif.-based Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage Co.

“Austin’s apartment market will continue to record improvement this year, as several key market fundamentals have turned positive,” says Bradley Bailey, sales manager of the firm’s Austin office.

“Job growth and in-migration are lifting renter demand, leading to rising rents and solid returns,” Bailey says. “The expanding economy and high quality of life will continue to attract new residents. These trends have positive implications for the local rental housing market going forward.”

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Another Real Estate Bubble Prediction

Real Estate Bubble

Robert J. Shiller is arguing that the housing craze is another bubble destined to end badly, just as every other real-estate boom on record has. Lately, most of the news I read, hear and see about the Austin economy and Austin real estate market is positive. I write about and quote this information here online … Read more

Responding to Lowball Real Estate Offers

Lowball Real Estate Offer

Austin Real Estate Agents disagree on the best negotiating strategy for responding to lowball Real Estate offers. There are two general camps of thought. One philosophy says that the amount of an initial offer doesn’t matter, and that the seller should always respond to any offer with a counter-offer of the lowest ‘bottom dollar’ price she is willing to accept for the property. I not only disagree with this strategy, but believe it is fails to protect the seller’s best interests.

To put it harshly, it is incompetent and negligent, in my opinion, for an agent to advise a seller to disclose her bottom line price based upon nothing more than the existence of a lowball offer. Nevertheless, I’ve heard many veteran agents claim that this is the best response to any offer – that “any offer is a good offer and deserving of a counter-offer”.

Would this ham-handed technique be representative of the “expert negotiating skills” that we as Realtors hold forth as one of the primary reasons you should hire us? I hardly think so. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but in general, in a healthy market with a properly priced home – and the seller being under no extraordinary duress – I think responding to a lowball offer with an immediate price decrease is a very poor negotiating strategy.

Another approach, the one I follow both as a listing agent and as a seller of my own properties, has always been to respond to lowball offers with a cordial “thanks, I appreciate the offer – really I do, but we’ll have to pass on it at this time”.

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Austin-area home sales still robust

From today’s Austin Statesman, more good news for Austin sellers who have been waiting the past several years for the market to rebound.

By Kate Miller Morton
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, August 18, 2005

Central Texas homes are selling in record numbers so far this year, and the buying boom shows no sign of waning.

Sales of existing houses have surged 18 percent in the first seven months of this year compared with the same months in 2004, according to the Austin Board of Realtors. Half of the 14,022 single-family houses sold from January through July were priced at $161,220 or above, a 3 percent increase from the same period in 2004. Monthly sales jumped 17 percent in July, compared with a year earlier, with 2,560 houses sold.

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