Austin Real Estate Guy Blog
Real estate and related information about the Austin, TX market. |
|
Statistics
Unique Visitors:
Total Unique Visitors:
Outgoing:
Total Outgoing: |
0
0
69
3386
|
|
|
Articles from Austin Real Estate Guy Blog |
Subprime Mortgages by County
2007-11-28 15:04:00
Take a look at this map, which shows the percent of subprime mortgages across the county by county. One thing you will find is that Central Texas isn't one of the areas with a terribly high number of these. All of the counties in the Austin MSA are well under 30%. Why is this a good thing? Many of the properties being foreclosed on are ones that were purchased using subprime mortgages. This tells me that the foreclosure rate in the Austin are won't affect our real estate market too badly. ...
|
Retiring to Austin
2007-11-25 13:34:00
With more and more baby boomers starting to enter retirement, Austin is a great place for them to look for a retirement house. More specifically, the hills from western Austin to Marble Falls as well as the entire Dripping Springs area are the places to buy. Why? First, we need to look at what a lot of the baby boomers, especially those with a good amount of retirement savings, are looking for.Views, golf, water, privacy, proximity to a major city with major shopping and medical facilities. The area ranging from around Oak Hill to Dripping Springs to bee Cave to Spicewood has all of that. This area has the Hill Country, Lake Travis, the Pedernales River, golf all over the place, the new Hill Country Galleria Mall in Bee Cave and a new major medical facility slated for Lakeway. What this area also has, in addition to master planned subdivisions, is areas in which you can buy lots with acreage. That is what gives people the feeling of privac ...
|
Lakeway Regional Medical Center
2007-11-23 11:45:00
I have posted about the proposed and now approved medical center Lakeway is getting before. Now I can direct you to a website with images showing the layout on a plat and a 3-dimensional drawing. It is very impressive. Click here for the plat and here for the 3-D. After having been approved by the Lakeway City Council a few months ago, it is expected that this facility could be open in around 3 years. ...
|
Prayer To St. Peter
2007-11-22 08:18:00
On this Thanksgiving I think of our troops all around the world. The living should be honored for all they do for our own country and others. Those we have lost should also be remembered and honored for all they have done. I am thankful for the men and women who continue to serve. For those we have lost, here is a video to honor them. View VideoFormat: ???Duration: 4:16 ...
|
Hospitals and Banks = Growth
2007-11-12 09:19:00
The western Travis, northern Hays and southern Burnett Counties area is poised for some really significant growth. A major medical facility (read hospital with a level 2 trauma center) is slated for Lakeway. A hospital is going into the Marble Falls area. Hospitals don't put major facilities in where they don't expect a lot of patients. Over the last 3 years, around a dozen new banks came into a stretch of 620 in Lakeway. Banks don't go in to places where they don't expect to have significant deposits. This feels a bit like McDonald's - they located at the corner of Bee Cave Rd. and Hwy 72 years ago. McDonald's is as much in the real estate business as the burger business. They don't build in an area in which they don't expect significant growth.A couple of the higher-ups in Keller Williams are predicting a boom in this area as well. They know markets across the country and they have a finger on the p ...
|
Keller Williams Masterminds
2007-11-06 17:27:00
I was down at the Austin Convention Center for a tech panel discussing internet leads this afternoon. It was part of the Keller Williams Masterminds program, which brings agents from all over the place to learn and brainstorm. This post is intended to see who, if anyone, from that session will search Austin real estate blogs. If you were there, please contact me to let me know that this post worked. ...
|
Fog Over Mansfield Dam
2007-11-01 16:25:00
If you saw my post from a few days ago about fog following the Colorado River valley, you know that the for isn't generated just by the water of Lake Austin. This shot shows the thin, soupy fog as it rolls over Mansfield Dam from Lake Travis. It is too thick to see the dam, but you get the idea.This one shows the fog following the Colorado River valley. It goes from left to right, curves back to the left and then again to the right. People with homes in the river valley get fog quite a bit in the winter when people above get none at all. ...
|
New Apache Shores Homes
2007-10-30 09:02:00
I was driving around Apache Shores the other day marveling at the new homes going up in that neighborhood, which is where I live. The transition from 5 years ago is amazing. Take a look:These new homes sit overlooking Lake Apache, a little lake in Apache Shores.These two 3-story homes are on Brass Buttons. Though technically waterfront, you need to drive to the water or have a tram built. They are 3-story homes because the lots, although large, have tiny footprints on which to build. Oh, how much? Over $1 million. The view from the back of the homes toward Mansfield Dam and Lake Travis with Lake Austin below. See what I mean about a tram? The house I took this from also has a pool built up very high in the back. The top of the pool is just below the second level of the house. Each house also has cantilevered balconies looking out over the ...
|
Is Your Home Dusty?
2007-10-28 14:29:00
I was searching the web for stories about the fires in California and came across an interesting blog post that was written by Nickie Rothwell's on her Los Angeles home staging business blog. The post was about the importance of changing air conditioning filters. Nickie stated that there is a lot more to dust than many people realize. She stated that dust can be little bits of animal dander, dirt, tiny pieces of fabric from clothing, carpets and furniture as well as other more dangerous pollutants. With the California fires, there is probably a lot more in the air out there than most people would ever let into their lungs. The dust from a burned building can contain asbestos, fiberglass from insulation and other nasty stuff. Here in Austin we don't have that sort of thing, but we have a lot of other stuff floating around. Pollen and mold spores are pretty much a year round thing thing here.So back to the point about changing y ...
|
Lake Austin Fog
2007-10-28 10:05:00
The last few days have been absolutely beautiful in the Austin area. Cold nights, cool days and low humidity are what we have experienced. An interesting thing happens in the morning on days like these.What you are looking at is fog that is spilling over Mansfield Dam, which holds back Lake Travis, into The valley that carries Lake Austin closer to the downtown Austin area. The dam is at the far left of the photo. If you look closely, you will see how the lake winds to the right and then bends back to the left. The fog is barely visible, but you can see it.On mornings like this, the water temperature of Lake Travis is much warmer than the air temperature. Without the presence of wind, water from the lake evaporates and rises, condensing into fog (that's my theory). For whatever reason the fog appears to flow over the dam and down the valley. I wish I had a higher vantage point from which to take more photographs as this makes for a pr ...
|
89 to 56
2007-10-22 14:29:00
Nope, that isn't a basketball game score, it is the temperature drop since yesterday afternoon - 33 degrees. I love this time of year in Central Texas. One never really knows what the weather will be like in October - or any of our fall and winter months. I remember a weekend in February around 10 years ago when it was 99 degrees one Saturday. The next Saturday we had ice everywhere. Halloween can be tricky on the little trick-or-treaters as well. I remember Halloweens when the kids did nothing but sweat in their costumes. I also remember a Halloween when it must have been 40 degrees and the wind was howling more than the ghosts!But the temperature swings certainly aren't limited to Austin. I'm sure this kind of thing happens all over the place. When I was a kid living outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, we had a drop from around 33 degrees to minus 40 in one 24 hour period. ...
|
Neighborhood Update - Steiner Ranch
2007-10-19 13:42:00
As of today, October 19, 2007, there are 180 active, single-family home listings in Steiner Ranch. The average price is $586,286, with the least expensive home being $225,000 and the highest being $3.6 million. The average price per square foot is $158. Steiner Ranch is pretty diverse, with many homes being in what one might call an average neighborhood setting. Other homes are on a golf course and still others are on Lake Austin or at the top of a cliff high over Lake Austin. So far this year, 267 single-family homes have sold in Steiner Ranch. The average price has been $437,771 with the high and low being almost $1.56 million and $225,900 respectively. On average, it took 70 days to sell a home. Since 9-15-07, 13 homes have sold in Steiner Ranch. The average price was $373,290 with the average price per foot being $127. The average days on market was 84. As the market has changed quite a bit recently, let’s ...
|
Statistics Update for Austin Real Estate
2007-10-18 09:29:00
October 7 - October 13, 2007 (compared to the same week in 2006)New listings up 42.39%Pendings are up 34.72% Solds down 13.89% As for Average Prices: Oct 7 - Oct 13, 2007(compared to the same week in 2006) The "New Listings" average list price increased 4.45% to $289,359. In 2006 the new listing average list price was 277,020. Sold average sales prices decreased 13.09% to $223,914.In 2006 it was $257,649 for the same week. Check it out at http://www.alamotitle-austin.com/mls_statistics.phpStatistics provided by Alamo Title Co. ...
|
Why Use a Buyer's Agent
2007-10-15 13:21:00
Do you know what a Buyer's Agent is and why they are significant? Most people don't. In Texas, you have representation as a seller when you sign a listing agreement. What many home buyers don't understand is that the listing agent can't really do provide them any value. If a home buyer goes to a listing agent to see a property, the listing agent can only tell them things that are of benefit to the seller. If a buyer gets an agent who is not the listing agent to show a property, that agent is a subagent of the seller and also can not provide any benefit to the buyer. The same is true of an agent holding an open house unless it is the actual listing agent.So enter the Buyer's Agent. An agent can not really represent a home buyer as a Buyer's Agent without having a Buyer's Representation Agreement signed. This agreement empowers the Buyer's Agent to truly add a lot of value. A Buyer's Agent can ...
|
|
|