Category Archives: Buyers

Austin Neighborhoods, Blog, Buyers, Circle C Ranch, Investors, Landlords, Renters, Sellers

Austin Real Estate Market amid the Corona Virus April 2020

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Greetings all… a quick post to our friends, clients and website visitors.

Melinda and I hope you are all well, staying safe, and taking care of yourselves and family. For those of you in essential businesses and especially the Medical fields, thank you so much for what you are doing for all of us! We are forever grateful for your sacrifices and frankly, bravery.

Over the past few weeks, several of you have reached out to ask me my thoughts on the housing market…. as sellers or buyers, renters or investors. I can briefly summarize my thoughts and expectations – however, I have to answer the way my attorney friends answer – that’s to preface any projections with the words “it depends”.

“It depends”?
What that means is simple.
The answer is dependent upon how long the CV-19 virus handcuffs local, state, regional, national and global economies.
Real estate is ‘local’ for the most part but it’s driven by confidence. Confidence is driven by jobs and income. If jobs / income go down in a (you can enter a time frame here – as it depends) recession, confidence will be lost and home sales will likely drop in several price channels (price bands).

“The best scenario”
Let’s say we have a short pause in the economy…. 2-3 months, CV-19 is controlled, a vaccine is approved and rolled out, and the majority of the population gets back to work 100% by August. Confidence would replace uncertainty. That would be awesome. If this becomes a prolonged ‘pause’, obviously the opposite would be more likely.

“Our economy”
As you all probably can guess, Austin is in much better shape than other cities employment wise, and for the high-tech individuals, they may be able to work online from home. Obviously, not all workers can just go online. The service industries appear to be impacted the most right now (retail, restaurants, hotels (@ < 5% occupancy downtown) for example.
Housing wise, we have a lack of resale inventory and builders are not going gangbusters right now. Low inventory plus continuity in employment (even if from home), could contribute to prices holding their own for a period of time. (caveat – it depends).

Those are my thoughts – however, as we have not done anything like this before, I’m taking a somewhat educated guess. After all, I did get a minor in Economics in college 😉 lol.  For an expert’s opinion and projections…. I give you Mark Sprague, State Director of Information Capital with Independence Title. His latest blog post link appears below.

https://independencetitle.com/market-musings-greater-austin-area/

My thanks to Mary Tran with Independence for providing the link today.

For sellers or landlords in the near term, we are recommending virtual tours, virtual open houses, even if the property is vacant. If the property is occupied, we are suggesting block times for physical visits – for example, “….showings this Saturday from 2-4pm, 10 minute gaps between groups by appointment only – social distancing rules apply”. Property surfaces should be cleaned prior to and immediately following showing windows. Some sellers are having their properties cleaned professionally every day. Properties should also have hand sanitizer and booties available at the door. Of course, if anyone is not feeling 100%, no showings or visitors should be allowed. Unfortunately, it all depends.

Feel free to email me back with thoughts or comments, suggestions or criticism ( I can take it) … or just to let us know you are okay. Because right now, that is most important to us. We are doing okay, keeping a smile on our face and doing our best to not gain an extra 15 lbs.

#BeSafe, #BeStrong, #StayHome

Buyers, Circle C Ranch

Circle C Housing Market Update September 2018

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Circle C Housing Market Update September 25, 2018

Let’s take a quick look at the Circle C housing market for a few minutes. Specifically, March 2018 through August 2018. For that six-month period, we recorded 230 homes sold in Circle C. The average sold price was $514k or $184/sf. 39 of those were in August. That’s ~11% more homes than same time last year. The highest sales per month of the year was May 2018, when we recorded 53 homes sold. I expect to continue seeing sales in the 25-35 homes per month range for the next month or so before we go into the fall and winter months. By the end of the year, I would expect to see a total of 350-370 Circle C homes sold and recorded in MLS. Remember not all sales are captured in the MLS – most off market homes are new construction and never reported through the MLS.

Year to date (9/23/2018) the average home sold in Circle C this year is almost 2,800 square feet, was built in 2003 and sold for $504k. Prices and sizes do range from a low of 2,017 SF and $414k to a max of 4,363 sf and $725k. As projected in January 2018, we’ve seen slower price growth than the past few years. Year to date, prices are up approximately 4% over last year at $183/sf.
Average days on market is lower than same time last year at 36.5 days (on average) whereas in 2017, we were averaging 40 active days on the market before contract. That number can be skewed by the number of resale homes versus new construction homes as new construction homes that are listed in MLS (spec homes) may be tracked from the start of construction and are not ready for move in for 6-8 months.

We did see a ‘pop’ of resale homes hitting the market in this last week of September jumping from 50 in August to 57 on the 23rd of September. Still with for sale we have only ~ 1.6 months of inventory based on a sale rate of 39 homes per month. The short story there is we are in a robust seller’s market although Fed rate hikes and the potential of an economic slow down because of the recent global tariff’s being applied could damper the market a bit going into the winter months.

For more information about the Circle C housing market and an interactive map of the 5400 home master planned community click the one of the two links to view the updated Market Stats report on MoveToCircleC.com or AustinRealEstatePartners.com. if you still have questions about the market or what your home value could be today? Call me directly at (512) 288-8088 and I’ll do my best to provide an answer and there is no obligation.