INHABIT AUSTIN: real estate

When is the last time you considered such a question? Sure you find it easy to walk up to your own front door without reservation. After all, it’s your home. But if you plan to sell soon, would a potential buyer find it just as easy or inviting? Apart from the proud-to-be-a-Texan star that adorns the entry and the old welcome-doormat that’s been greeting visitors for the past 5 years, what is it that creates your home’s curb appeal?

 I’ve been working diligently with my seller-clients lately to get their homes in the best showing condition as possible prior to going on the market. Some understand the importance of this step in the selling process, yet others don’t. Usually the ones that don’t end up taking much longer to sell. (The photo above represents the former group. These clients get it and the photo evidences the fact).

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This past weekend I was showing downtown condos to clients. The weather was gorgeous. Seventy degrees, not a cloud in sky on Saturday. 

As of late, the focus is on new high-rise condos and lofts that are sprouting up all over the place. However, during our tour, something else caught my eye as we visited the historic Brown Building.

I immediately wondered, where are these sellers moving? And why?

Perhaps they are moving up and into a newer building or relocating to some other place. Maybe they are just testing the market to see if they can find an offer that will make them move. Or, they could be in financial trouble.

Looking back at January, the index rose 5 percentage points to 15%. Current market conditions are still favoring buyers throughout the Austin metro area.  The inventory of homes on the market has grown to nearly 7 months; I expect a further increase as we approach the heat of the selling season. The good news is that new construction starts are down, which should help mitigate an oversupply.

So if my prediction for a growing inventory holds true, any future increase would give Austin buyers a larger pool of homes from which to choose. Advantage buyer. However, knowing that, many buyers and sellers are waiting it out in anticipation of such a development. I wouldn’t advise either side to continue with such a strategy.

Ok. I know what you’re thinking. But before you pass that last sentence off as biased-Realtor fodder, you might want to seriously consider it, lest you find yourself in this scenario put forth in a recent Time magazine article.

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This goes to show you, not all news is bad. But as John Stewart aptly stated [referring to mainstream reporting] last night in a humorous interview with Larry King, “at this point, unfortunately, you have to judge each piece of [news] material. There are very few [news] organizations left that have a credibility savings account that they can draw on anymore.”

So while this piece comes as a breath of fresh air in the long chain of doom and gloom national market reports, I caution readers from reading too much into the headlines [both positive and negative] simply because the national media says it’s so. If you are buying or selling in Austin, study the market and more importantly the neighborhood and street in which you are looking, then make your assertions about the market.

That being said, I did agree with much of what the article had to say, minus the characterization of Austin as a backcountry city. It has its quirks, no doubt. But for a city that doubles in population every 15 to 20 years and has the number 1 projected GMP growth for the entire US [32% over the next  5 years],backcountry it is not. The secret is out, Austin continues to be a destination. 

Here’s the NY Times article:

February 15, 2008

Some Cities are Spared the Slide in Housing 

By Clifford Kraus and Ron Nixon

Correction Appended

AUSTIN, Tex. — The real estate market these days is a tale of two Americas, and one of them is not doing too badly.

In the America of big-city housing markets, especially on the coasts and in the struggling industrial Midwest, the huge run-up in values in recent years has given way to big drops in prices and sales volume. Millions of people owe more than their houses are worth. 

But in the other America, specifically in cities like Austin; Grand Forks, N.D.; Yakima, Wash.; and Salem, Ore., the available evidence suggests the real estate market is holding up. Prices there never boomed as crazily as they did in the big cities, and now, even though volume is down almost everywhere, prices in many of these towns are firm or rising.

Consider the experience of one Austin resident, Dan Clark. Forced by a job change to put his house here on the market, he wondered whether he would get anything like the $385,000 he paid for it a year ago. He was floored when the second potential buyer to look at the place snapped it up for $429,000. “Manna from heaven,” he said.

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