Saturday, October 30, 2010

Starbucks report, my open house, and my fave mexican restaurant

What a nice crowd at my local Starbucks this morning.  I counted 9 in line, 6 waiting for their coffee and 23 sitting inside and outside.  It’s a gorgeous day too.  About 50 degrees, sunny, and I don’t see a cloud from a where I sit.  In my first blog I said I would observe the 8am – 9am crowd, but it is apparent from today the Saturday activity starts happening around 10am.

My open house in Anderson Mill West of Cedar Park went well today.  I consider it a success if I have just one qualified buyer come through the door.  Anderson Mill West is located just north of 620 along El Salido and is a pretty sizable area.  The open house I held today feeds to an exemplary elementary school and middle school in the Leander ISD.  That’s pretty exciting.   Especially since the elementary school is basically in the backyard of the house and the middle school is just down the street.  What more can you ask for at $183,000.

I drew the graph below based on data from the Austin Multiple Listing Service (which is deemed reliable but does not guarantee accuracy).  To me it shows a pretty stable market based on where the $ per square foot value starts 10 years ago and where it ends in 2010 so far.  It starts just under $80 and ends right in the middle of the 80 and 100 (the bars).  And look at the average sold price line…pretty darn stable.


Another thing I love about this area is the Mexican Restaurant down the street named Guadalajara.  I go there in the morning before 11am whenever I can (lately every other week) for the $2.49 Huevos Rancheros plate.  Whenever I am showing out of town clients that side of town I always invite them to have a genuine Mexican lunch with me to break up the day.  So far everyone I have taken there has gone back after settling in to their new home in Cedar Park or Northwest Austin.  The waitresses there are great.  Your cup of coffee never goes empty.  My usual is the plate with coffee, chips, corn tortillas, and a side of bacon (don't forget to exercise an extra 15 minutes or so the next day).

Friday, October 29, 2010

Crystal Falls and Grand Haven Homes


This might sound like a paid advertisement but it’s not.  I have been previewing Crystal Falls neighborhoods and homes because these offer the most gated communities” properties under $500,000.

All neighborhoods with Crystal Falls in the name of the subdivision are not created equal.  You want to drive out to Grand Mesa Crystal Falls.  Take 183A (the tollway section) to Crystal Falls Parkway and turn left heading west then pass Baghdad and Lakeline Blvd.  Keep going until you see the rolling hills full of trees and roads winding around streets large beautiful homes, but watch out for the dividers in the middle of the road with those beautiful oaks.  It is the most gorgeous scenario you can find just north of 1431 off Lakeline Blvd.  It really has everything the hill country of Texas has to offer.

Last night I was there for the Grand Haven Homes grand opening event of their new home community in the Cap Rock section.

At the second section to the left is a huge stone structure that reminded me of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona that serves as the entrance to the Cap Rock section.  While you are driving down the road be sure to take in the scenery.  WOW.  Ravines, hills, and tree tops lay before you like a bunched up fluffy carpet you want to roll around in.  When I see a view like that I want to tie myself to a glider and cruise across the tree tops.

Grand Haven Homes is one of my favorite builders.  The leadership comes from the past Frederick Harris Homes executive team and they tout the 5 Life Zones’ approach to how your home should be designed.  Drive by the Model Home to see what I mean.  Their customer service is among the best in the industry.  Mike Miloch is the sales representative at the Estates of the Ranch at Brushy Creek, a gated community with some of their higher end floor plans.  Located off Parmer just south of 1431 it might be a more convenient place for some of you to sample their work.  Give me a call at 512-917-8961 to arrange a tour, or just let Mike know I sent you.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Open Houses and The Coming Holiday Season

Open Houses this weekend

Saturday October 30 3pm – 5pm
2802 Buckeye Trail, Cedar Park  787613, Anderson Mill West  $183,900
4 bedroom 2 full bath one story 2173 SQFT, high ceiling, exemplary schools

Sunday October 31 2pm – 4pm
23703 Shemya Cv, Austin 78729, Milwood  $194,987
3 bedroom 2.5 bath, 2 story, .35 acres, tall trees on big lot, walk to Rattan Creek Park
(I don’t understand why this hasn’t sold already)

Open houses are a great indicator of home buyer activity in the market place.  I have done an open house at the Shemya address on 4 Sundays over the past 2 months and the number of people who come through on Sunday afternoons has not changed that much.  The biggest difference is whether the open house is posted on the internet or not.  The INTERNET is such a HUGE factor on getting a house sold these days.

If you are selling your house, or planning to sell your house, you MUST have a professional internet presentation that shows off the model-like condition of your home and compels prospects to contact their agent for a showing.  Depending on your price range you can expect 90% of home buyers or more to find your listing online first, and 70% of these prospective home buyers will drive by the houses they like:
36% will buy that home they found on the internet.
24% of home buyers called on the yard sign of the house they bought.
36% will buy the house their real estate agent found for them.

That accounts for 96% of the possibilities for attracting a buyer to your house.
36% - online presentation
24% - curb appeal for the people calling from the sign
36% - pricing, for the real estate agent search

The other 4% is print ad and miscellaneous.  So, where should you be putting your marketing energy?  What kind of internet marketing strategy and system can your listing agent demonstrate for you.  (Not tell you about, but demonstrate.) 

Go on Google and do a search for “homes for sale in [insert your favorite neighborhood] and tell me if the Realty Austin website isn’t at the top of the results page.  If it is not, I will let my office know and we will make sure it is next time you look.

The Coming Holiday Season

The end of the year always sees a little seasonal pick up in home sales.  For the past 4 years November and December have been very good business months for me, and for many other agents who continue to work through the holidays instead of going on their ski vacations.

Halloween is this weekend so I am advising my clients who are thinking of selling this year to start getting prepared for the professional photographer.  (I would have preferred to have a sign in the yard so the moms and dads with their little costumed monsters and princesses could grab a flyer.) 

Do whatever staging we are going to do and let’s get that photographer in your house next week or the week after.  We need to have your listing on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) by mid-November at the latest.  People travel during Thanksgiving and use that time to drive through neighborhoods and see homes they like.  Those people want to be under contract with a close date before Christmas if at all possible.  Because mortgage loans are taking so much more time these days, people might be travelling earlier.

News reports that this year's retailing business will see an increase in overall revenue compared to the last two years.  People feel the economy stabilizing.  I hope to see more home shoppers out in force this holiday season.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Austin Leads, Are you keeping UP?

Will You See Austin’s Resurgence, or Will You Read about It 2 Months Later?
George Mora, REALTOR® , Realty Austin

By almost all reports, Austin leads the nation in attracting businesses and people.  When we finally read about the national economic recovery, Austin will already be riding the curve up, ahead of all but a handful of local economies around the nation.  That means mortgage rates will have started rising, houses will be selling just a little better, and chances are you will have missed the opportunity to buy closest to the bottom of the real estate market if you haven’t already bought or refinanced your mortgage.

So, we find ourselves here in Austin at the forefront, the vanguard, the leading edge of coming out of the economic slump our state and the nation seems to be in.  While national reports have our country at 9.9% unemployment, Texas Labor Market Information (www.twc.state.tx.us) shows our state unemployment rate over the summer at around 8.5%, Austin and Round Rock 6.7% , Cedar Park 5.7%, and Pflugerville 5.9%.  Isn’t that awesome!? (These are from the "not seasonally adjusted" numbers.)

* Update: I wrote this last week.  Since then the September numbers have come out (again, not adjusted) Texas: 7.9%, Austin 6.7% unchanged, Round Rock 6.2%, Cedar Park 5.4%, Pflugerville 5.3%. Perhaps the surrounding cities show movement because of the smaller economies, and they are moving in the right direction.

As awesome as that is, it also means that all this economic reporting we are reading and hearing tends to be dated.  It would make more sense for us who live here to find our own indicators to focus on.  If you read any article that talks about the economic recovery, they talk about consumer spending leading the recovery, and reduced unemployment as a necessity.  As a professional in the residential real estate business, I believe that people need to feel more confident about keeping their current job, or getting a job they don’t have.  Many of my real estate colleagues have voiced agreement.

That is why I have come up with a project for myself to keep track of consumer spending, employment, and pending residential sales (for houses only) at the local level.  I would also like to hear from any readers about what you can observe that might indicate people are spending more or people are getting confident about their employment.

People in line at Starbucks:  My first favorite thing will be counting people in line at my local Starbucks.  I plan to make it a point to go to the Anderson Mill / 183 Starbucks regularly two days out of the week, Mondays and Saturdays between 8am and 9am, and count the people in line.  The Anderson Mill and 183 location will be a great indicator for northwest neighborhoods like Anderson Mill, Milwood, The Mountain (Park at Spicewood Springs), Spicewood at Balcones, Barrington Oaks, even Avery Ranch, Forest/Silver Oaks, and others in that area.

Online job postings:  The other easy-enough-thing-to-do is to get a count of the job openings on some of the public web sites for job hunters.  Using no other criteria but “Austin TX”, at http://www.indeed.com/ and http://www.simplyhired.com/, those searches returned counts of 29,696 and 27,934 respectively.  For the same search, workintexas.org showed 425, and http://www.dice.com/ showed 912 for postings within the last 30 days.  I am thinking postings on these types of site will increase as companies begin to hire again.  (I tried http://www.monster.com/, but it limited the results to 1000 records.)

Pending residential real estate contracts: Since I am an Austin real estate agent with a constant pulse on the market, I am also going to keep track of Pending sales.  Lately a big story in local real estate has been the record setting inventory of Active listings for single family homes on the Austin Board of REALTORS® multiple listing service.  I want to be on top of the story when Pending contracts begin to surpass new listings over a given period of time.  With the current hold up on foreclosures, we should also see something happening in these numbers whether they continue to be stopped or released.

The Austin area markets are going to lead the way out of this economic slump.  Stay tuned with me to see how it moves.