Austin Real Estate Blog

How to Sell a Home Fast in Austin TX

by Sylvia While I'm finding the market to be a little sluggish overall, I have found a way to sell my listings quicker. I've had several in the last few months sell for list price in less than a week! How do I do that? It takes a lot of hard ...

Austin New Home Sales Update

The Austin Business Journal reports that home construction and closings of recently completed homes in Austin remain depressed, but that’s unlikely to bring prices down any time soon. Home builders started 37% fewer homes in Austin during the 3rd quarter 2008 than they did a year ago in 3rd quarter 2007. ...

How to Evaluate a Texas Real Estate Offer

I recently did a walk-through on a property that was closing with our buyer the next day. The contract stated in Special Provisions paragraph 11: "home and carpet to be professionally cleaned prior to closing date". Upon viewing the property, the sellers had not completed the carpet cleaning. The seller ...

Texas Economist Dotzour’s Take On Proposed Bailout

Below is the Texas A and M Real Estate Center Mark Doutzour's take on the financial bailout. As usualy, he puts everything into a nutshell quite well. COLLEGE STATION (Real Estate Center) – As negotiations continue over the proposed $700 billion bailout of the nation's financial system, Dr. Mark Dotzour, chief ...

View Austin Real Estate Listings from your iPhone

Realtor.com has a nice iPhone specific url that allows you to view real estate listings from your iPhone. I'm not sure what percentage of U.S. listings are fed into Realtor.com, but I would be suprised if it isn't most of the major metro area MLS listings. And they are all ...

Austin Sales Market Update for August 2008

The average sales price for houses in Austin in August 2008 remained about level, decreasing slightly (-1.96%) to $259,500, down from $264,695 a year ago. Median sold price rose slightly (+2.05%) to $199,000. The number of failed sales efforts, or "Not Solds", (expired or withdrawn) was 46% for August, up ...

What is Your Debt Share of $700B Bailout?

As the U.S. government debates a $700 Billion bailout for the financial industry, what does that mean for you and me, and our kids? One summary I saw broke it down like this: About $2,300 per American About $6,000 per U.S. household The tally for all the various rescue measures launched by U.S. ...

Dotzour’s Take on Mortgage Solutions

My favorite economist, Mark Dotzour from the Texas A and M Real Estate Research Center in College Station has some thoughts on the mortgage mess. DOTZOUR: STEP ONE, RECHARTER FRANNIE COLLEGE STATION (Real Estate Center) – As long as the federal government continues to indicate they are willing to redraw the ...

Austin Continues to be Economic Top Performer Nationwide

The Austin Metro area ranks 4th among the country’s largest metropolitan areas on the Milken Institute and Greenstreet Real Estate Partners’ 2008 Best Performing Cities list. Texas as a whole did well, with Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Killeen, and McAllen joining Austin in the top 25 of large metro areas. ...

Mortgage Rates Drop Below 6%

Loan rates are back in the 5%s and may keep falling. I'm not sure if this will create any notable demand increases in Austin, but buyers and investors do at least perk up when rates drop below 6%. On the downside, the "number of loans" limit recently fell from 10 ...