Austin Real Estate Blog The Austin Real Estate Blog Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 57 3239

Articles from Austin Real Estate Blog

Austin By Numbers 2007-11-11 14:51:33 Austin is one of America's hot list cities. The housing is affordable. The landscape is pretty with rolling hills to the west and fields to the east. The weather is pleasant in the spring, fall, and winter, with summer being bearable, even welcomed by heat-lovers. The music, art, and film scenes are thriving and growing with new festivals like Austin City Limits and those established like the worldwide conference South By Southwest, otherwise known as SXSW. There's something for everyone from rockabilly to folk music and cycling clubs to marathon teams. So, in short, it's a cool place to hang your hat. But what are the facts? Let's talk about some of Austin's numbers regarding education, jobs, and other random numbers. 39.1 have graduate degrees. A large part of this is that one of the largest universities (if not the largest now) is located in the heart of the city, just north of downtown. With almost 50,000 students, the University of Texas at Austin supplies the city ...

Why in Real Estate Big Lots are Good 2007-11-09 10:13:14 When I am looking for real estate what makes my mouth water. Huge cathedral ceilings? Updated kitchens? Recessed lighting? Nope. I love big lots. The bigger the lot the more I get excited. Why do I love big lots. Over time large lots tend to appreciate faster. In real estate one of the cardinal rules is that generally land increases in value and general structures decrease in value. Why does a structure tend to decrease in value? As a structure gets older it tends to get farther away from safety codes. But generally properties tend to increase in value because the rate at which the land appreciates outpaces the rate at which the structure is decreasing in value. When you are hoping to sell your property for more in a few years its best to look at the dirt and not the house. Because land tends to appreciate I usually prefer properties that have more of the current value in the land than in the structure. This means that a property in a new subdivision where the structure ...

Sprucing Up Your Home to Get It Ready to Sell 2007-11-05 17:54:46 When getting your home ready to sell, you could invest in all kinds of services and upgrades but it is tough to know what really will pay off. These are some guidelines to help you know start thinking like a Buyer and see what will help sell your home. In the end, each real estate market and neighborhood is different, so consult with a real estate agent as to what is best for your situation. Curb appeal is definitely at the top of the list to tend too. Don't underestimate the importance of curb appeal when selling a home. Most Buyers will drive by and check out a list of homes. You want your home to make it on that list so you can get them in the door. If you cannot attract Buyers to get in the home, you have no chance to sell. Keep the yard trimmed and cleaned up. If you don't have the time yourself or have already moved out of town, hire a professional to come by every 2 weeks. The $100 or so a month to have someone polish the outside of your place is worth it. Once th ...

Is the Superfund Capable of Restoring Confidence? 2007-11-02 18:14:08 The M-LEC, as it is called, has been created in order to restore investor confidence in some areas of the economy that are neccesary for credit to maintain its liquidity, or ease of transference from one entity (a bank) to another. This loss of liquidity comes in the wake of the discovery of high-risk, sickly subprime mortages that have been sold off in pieces, often in the form of supposedly secure money market funds to thousands of investors. Over the past several years, those funds have changed hands so many times that their spread is difficult to chart for the average investor, who therefore loses confidence investing in a potentially tainted company or financial institution, which, over time, results in a credit crunch, which is a surefire recipe for recession. In order to avoid such an outcome, this superfund aims to selectively buy large number of securites from what is called Structured Investment Vehicles- or SIV's, which sell so-called "commercial paper" to finance themsel ...

Is The Federal Interest Rate Cut Enough to Stabilize Sub prime Mortgage Woes? 2007-10-31 14:56:23 As the sub prime mortgage debacle continues to play out across the United States, the Federal Reserve has opted to cut interest rates by half a percentage point, from 5.25. This cut makes all loans relatively cheaper, thereby encouraging a pantheon of economic activity to increase, hopefully in the troubled housing market. Such tactics have been used with relative success in the past, most notably in 2000 when the US economy suffered a major downturn in the wake of the dot-com collapse. This collapse triggered a recession, which took three years to completely stabilize. Since 2003, the Fed has slowly brought interest rates up in order to help keep dangerous inflation and reckless consumer spending down. These effects have been in line with forecasts at the time, showing that the Fed was relatively in touch with potential economic problems. Yet the slow buildup of the interest rates may have occurred too late for them to be high enough to combat the problems in the housing market beca ...

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2007-10-30 14:05:55 Festivals have been steadily gaining popularity all over the world in recent years, and the larger ones have expanded tremendously. However, as a result of the high ticket prices and relatively remote locations, a few oppurtunistic entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the backlash against the inaccesibility of events like Bonaroo, Lollapalooza, and other big-draw, weeklong festivals. One notable example of this comes in the form of Austin's Fun Fun Fun Fest, which is now in its second year. Last year's event featured over 30 bands on three stages, for a modest charge of $10. Many local and nationally acclaimed acts were featured, from punk rock bands like the venerable Circle Jerks to Austin favorites such as the Octopus Project and the Riverboat Gamblers. Large festivals aim to please as many music fans as possible by providing an incredibly diverse cross-section of acts, thereby minimizing the liklelyhood of alienating a potential customer. However, the drawback to this approa ...

Halloween in Austin 2007-10-27 11:56:58 With Halloween just around the corner, it’s a good idea to keep track of some of the fun and creepy events coming up in Austin, Texas. The good news is that most of them are inexpensive and fun for the whole family. The Bats The bats are a popular Austin attraction from May until October every year, but Halloween is obviously the most appropriate time to go check them out. The underside of the Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin is home to North America’s largest urban bat colony, with these creatures of the night numbering close to 1.5 million. Every evening at dusk the bats fly out from the bridge in search of food, and people gather around, waiting and watching for a glimpse. The Day of the Dead Parade La Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is a Mexican holiday celebration that takes place each year on November 1. Because Texas is so close to Mexico, the culture has spread throughout Austin which, through its Mexic-Arte Museum, hosts a parade. This year it ...

Why People are Moving to Austin 2007-10-24 20:02:54 Austin, Texas is no longer a hidden destination buried in travel books. It is projected to grow in population by about 30 of the Austin population has college degrees compared to the US average of 27.0 have graduate degrees compared to the US average of 9.9%. A lot of this has to do with the University. Many students who come to Austin for school end up not wanting to leave their beloved city. So, you run into a lot of waiters and book store cashiers with college degrees refusing to leave. The University is just north of the Capital of Texas, which is pretty much the opposite vibe of UT. UT has the young, huge crowd of kids finding themselves, and the state government has all the politically driven players pushing ahead in their careers. This government component of Austin provides the city with all the various official establishments like the Texas School for the Deaf, the Texas School for the Blind, the Texas Real Estate Commission, the Secretary of State, IRS, etc. The deaf ...

September Statatistics for the Austin Real Estate Market 2007-10-24 10:06:23 While Austin seemed to escape most of the slowdown that affected other parts of the country over the last year Austin is feeling the changes in the credit markets. The amount of sales in September 2007 was 1824 or falling 22 percent from the sales in 2006 of 2341. The amount of inventory also increased 22 percent. On one hand the amount of inventory last year was incredibly slow but its still a sign we would rather not see. It looks like East Austin is seeing larger inventory increases than most areas. If we break out the increases in inventory by area we see. Suburbs +21% Central Austin West +18% Central Austin East +62% It looks like East Austin is seeing large inventory increases because investors are pulling out and the total amount of homes in East Austin has increased due to rapid new construction. Looking forward what happens in the Austin real estate market depends largely on what happens with the more stringent lending practices currently gripping the nation. Whi ...

Cashflow is King (Sometimes) 2007-10-17 11:54:46 A common mistake of investors is the way they evaluate a potential investment properties. Below is the process I have seen first time investors use. Step One : Look at Cashflow What is step two? Their is no step two. Basically if the property has good cashflow they move forward. What are some issues with this approach? 1) The property is over rented. MLS Listings will frequently say that a property is under rented. They rarely if ever say a property is under rented. What would cause a property to be under rented? The previous owners could have offered one or two months free in an effort to get rents unnaturally high. They could also be renting to family members and other incentives could be known to only the owner and the renter. Lastly, and don't underestimate this, sometimes an owner just gets lucky. This is one of the benefits of using a realtor. Out of town investors are the most likely to unknowingly purchase over rented properties. 2) The property is going to ...

If Office Space was a Drama 2007-10-16 14:28:56 I write about real estate alot. But ever so often I like to break it up. I don't know how many of you have seen Office Space. If you have ever worked in a cubicle you might find it pretty amusing. Anyway what if Office Space was a drama? Whats wierd is this actually looks like a decent movie considering its a spoof. Ki works as a realtor in the Austin Texas real estate market. ...

Should Your First "House" be a Duplex 2007-10-16 14:17:19 There is a lot of talk about getting your first house. It’s part of the American Dream to get a house and maybe get a dog named Rover. But maybe someone’s first home should instead be a duplex. Why would I propose such a thing? Is it possible I am a secret Russian spy that hates American pie? No, there are simply too many advantages to buying a duplex first. Buying a duplex has a number of financial advantages over buying a house. A lot of people assume that duplexes would sell for about twice of what a house sells for in the same neighborhood. This is rarely the case. Duplexes are more frequently about 1.5 times the price of a house in a given area. So to pick an easy number if a house is selling for 100k then a duplex should be selling for 150k. So let’s compare buying a house to a duplex. To keep things the same let’s assume we have 20k to put down and we are looking in the Austin real estate market so that the taxes are 2.5 percent of the purchase price and ins ...

Worst Idea Ever 2007-10-10 23:18:35 Ok so the national real estate market is doing poorly. Many markets are seeing falling prices. When prices are falling, people with low savings that are forced to sell can find themselves facing foreclosure. The credit crunch is lowering the number of buyers further depressing prices. What are some steps to help the market and avoid a record number of defaults? 1) Lower interest rates 2) Help buyers avoid foreclosure by offering buyers flexibility on loans 3) Construct a bunch of houses and dump them on the market further depressing prices. Wait what? Yes the House is looking at a measure to provide 800 million to 1 billion a year to create 1.5 million affordable housing units over the next decade. The last time I checked artificially increasing inventory at a time of depressed demand isn't exactly the best way to deal with problems associated with falling prices. When I was writing this I was trying to think of a worse plan so I could write something along the lines of "W ...

Worst Idea Ever to Fix the Housing Downturn 2007-10-10 23:18:35 Ok so the national real estate market is doing poorly. Many markets are seeing falling prices. When prices are falling, people with low savings that are forced to sell can find themselves facing foreclosure. The credit crunch is lowering the number of buyers further depressing prices. What are some steps to help the market and avoid a record number of defaults? 1) Lower interest rates 2) Help buyers avoid foreclosure by offering buyers flexibility on loans 3) Construct a bunch of houses and dump them on the market further depressing prices. Wait what? Yes the House is looking at a measure to provide 800 million to 1 billion a year to create 1.5 million affordable housing units over the next decade. The last time I checked artificially increasing inventory at a time of depressed demand isn't exactly the best way to deal with problems associated with falling prices. When I was writing this I was trying to think of a worse plan so I could write something along the lines of "W ...

Why People Move to Austin 2007-10-10 13:40:55 Austin, Texas is no longer a hidden destination buried in travel books. It is projected to grow in population by about 30% every ten years. Perhaps being one of the biggest universities in the US with about 50,000 students at the University of Texas has leaked the secrets of Austin to the world. Or maybe it was the tech boom in the late 90s that put it on the map as the Silicon Hills and brought a lot of high-tech talent out here. Whatever the reason, Austin has been discovered, and it is growing quite fast. Why do people love Austin, Texas? Well, the Texas part is not usually why people are excited about Austin, but rather that it is the city of Austin. Austin is its own little world surrounded by the big state of Texas. The city is extremely diverse. There is the huge college crowd, which brings a lot of the intellectuals and research projects to the area as well as the funkiness and flavor only a college town can have. 38.8% of the Austin population has college degrees c ...