Austin residential real estate market struggling....home sales fell 10% and home values fell 4%..... (Howe: foreclosure, renting)
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As usual, it all depends on where you are and what you're selling or trying to buy. Austin is a market of markets. No one sound bite or phrase can aptly characterize it.
I can report real life 3 day old news from the trenches ...
- Just closed Friday on a listing we sold in 8 hours for over list price in South Austin.
- Just had a buyer miss out on a house in South Austin in the same neighborhood because in less than 12 hours after hitting the market, the seller had multiple offers and would not wait for ours to be sent in the next day.
These were both houses in 78745, priced less than $200K. The market down south in Cherry Creek and the older 1960s/1970s neighborhoods is on fire. The Pending to Active ratio is hotter than is was in the 2006 fenzy. Only now, these are local buyers purchasing something to live in, trying to beat the $8,000 tax credit deadline.
Circle C in Southwest Austin is also doing very well. I just completed a comparison between Circle C and Avery Ranch, two subdivisions often in the same consideration pool for relocation buyers. From the stats, you'd think these two neighborhoods were in different cities altogether...
Number of Sales:
Number of sales for the entire Austin MLS is down 17% YTD for 2009, through August. Sales volume in Circle C is down 8.38%, much less than the area average. Avery Ranch number of sales are down 37% for 2009 compared to 2008, more than double the area average. Avery Ranch is suffering disproportionately to the rest of the market during this slowdown, while Circle C remains stable and is holding up in sales volume better than the Austin market as a whole.
Average Sold Values:
Values in the Austin market overall for Jan-Aug 2009 are down 3.25%. Circle C is down 3.68%, slightly worse than the Austin MLS average, but not bad considering the average sales price is is in the $300Ks, which has been a slower selling price range. Avery Ranch, even though it enjoys a lower average sales price of $267K, is down 8.17% so far this year, doing much worse than the market overall or Circle C.
Median Sold Values:
Median values are similar to the average sold prices. Avery is doing far worse than Circle C with a 6.4% decline in median values compared to a 2.27% decline for Circle C. The overall median decline for all of Austin is -0.72% for Jan-Aug 2009.
Sold/List Price Ratio:
Homes in Circle C are selling for 97.02% of final list price. Homes in Avery Ranch are selling for 96.55% of list value. Almost close enough to call a tie, but Circle C still wins. Austin overall is selling for 95.67% of list price, so both Avery Ranch and Circle C are doing better than the overall market in this category.
Average Price per sqft:
At $112.20 average sold price per square foot, Circle C has declined 5.78% on this measure compared to the same time period in 2008. At $102.39 psf, Avery Ranch has declined 6.74% on this measure. The Austin market overall is down 5.28%, so both neighborhoods did slightly worse than the overall market on this measure. This may be because in both neighborhoods the average home size is much larger than Austin as a whole, and the larger homes have taken the biggest price hits in the past two years.
Days on Market:
Circle C homes sell in 73 days on average, 46 days median, slightly better than the citywide average. Avery Ranch homes sell in 80 days average, 55 days median, worse then the citywide average of 76 avg and 48 median. Circle C takes this category as well.
Not Solds:
For 2009 in Austin overall, 43% of the listings departing the MLS are doing so as failed sales efforts (expired or withdrawn). For Circle C, the rate of failure for sales listings is 31%, well below the city average. For Avery Ranch, the “not solds” are 42%, slightly better than the citywide average but much worse than Circle C.
This is just an example to the vast differences one can find in the Austin Metro markets. If we were to look at starter neighborhoods on the far eastern edges of Austin, such as Austins Colony, prices have really fallen a lot out there and sales are difficult, even though these are homes that would be perfect for 1st time buyers. But the long commuting distance and lousy Del Valle Schools kill the demand.
All that matters is the house you need to buy or sell, and what the market is doing in the neighborhood and size/price range. And you won't get any useful information about that from the newspaper.
Steve
Special PS for inthecut ...
I do believe this, and the stats and historic data support it; the stretch of time we are presently in, up until December 1 when the $8K tax credit ends, will be looked back on as one of the best times in history to have purchased a home in America, and particular in Texas, and specifically in Austin TX. And the people who could have but didn't will be remembered as the crowd who missed the boat. $8,000 rebate, interest rates below 5%, and plenty of homes to choose from. It doesn't get any better than this and it won't happen again in my lifetime.
Steve
A Question...if RE is doing well in Austin, would you recommend that people out-of-work in Austin sell real-estate full time? If sales are "on-fire", perhaps all the displaced workers in Austin can survive selling real-estate here in Austin....I haven't seen one post of any RE agent trolling these boards for biz recommending that people should get into real estate.....
Also, how much business is out there for new agents, if some of our local market is ON FIRE?.........I would think there, in total, isn't even enough for the current agents if sales are down 10% Y-to-Y....
A Question...if RE is doing well in Austin, would you recommend that people out-of-work in Austin sell real-estate full time? If sales are "on-fire", perhaps all the displaced workers in Austin can survive selling real-estate here in Austin....I haven't seen one post of any RE agent trolling these boards for biz recommending that people should get into real estate.....
Also, how much business is out there for new agents, if some of our local market is ON FIRE?.........I would think there, in total, isn't even enough for the current agents if sales are down 10% Y-to-Y....
He said the market in Cherry Creek is "on fire;" that's a small area. How are you extrapolating from that statement that the entire market is doing well enough to support a surge in real estate professionals?
....I haven't seen one post of any RE agent trolling these boards for biz recommending that people should get into real estate.....
And I don't remember in the 2 years I've been looking at this board any realtor "trolling these boards looking for biz". Or if it does occasionally happen because a new poster doesn't know the rules, their posting is immediately removed, and they stop doing it. In fact, I believe that not only is against the rules of these boards to do so, but I have always found it really professional of the agents here that they very specifically tell posters that they aren't allowed to solicit business here. But maybe we just read different posts, or maybe we bring different agendas to our interpretations of the same posts.
A Question...if RE is doing well in Austin, would you recommend that people out-of-work in Austin sell real-estate full time? If sales are "on-fire", perhaps all the displaced workers in Austin can survive selling real-estate here in Austin....I haven't seen one post of any RE agent trolling these boards for biz recommending that people should get into real estate.....
Also, how much business is out there for new agents, if some of our local market is ON FIRE?.........I would think there, in total, isn't even enough for the current agents if sales are down 10% Y-to-Y....
The question is, "should a job seeker in Austin consider a career in real estate?"
Sure, absolutely. You don't decide to become a Realtor based on how the market is doing though. That would be short sighted. My wife became a Realtor in 1988 in Austin, during the absolute worst real estate market Texas and Austin has ever seen. She's still around 21 years later, and doing fine. In fact, it probably benefits an agent in the long run to come into the business when things are hard.
So, when someone asks me "is this a good time to get into the real estate business?", I always answer by saying "that's the wrong question. The question should be, are you the kind of person who can succeed in the real estate business? If so, it won't matter what kind of market you enter into".
And with regard to our Austin market, with which US Metro area would you like to trade market stats and job numbers? It's all relative. Austin is doing very well, relative to the rest of the country, and there is no bubble waiting to burst here.
The question is, "should a job seeker in Austin consider a career in real estate?"
Sure, absolutely. You don't decide to become a Realtor based on how the market is doing though. That would be short sighted. My wife became a Realtor in 1988 in Austin, during the absolute worst real estate market Texas and Austin has ever seen. She's still around 21 years later, and doing fine. In fact, it probably benefits an agent in the long run to come into the business when things are hard.
So, when someone asks me "is this a good time to get into the real estate business?", I always answer by saying "that's the wrong question. The question should be, are you the kind of person who can succeed in the real estate business? If so, it won't matter what kind of market you enter into".
And with regard to our Austin market, with which US Metro area would you like to trade market stats and job numbers? It's all relative. Austin is doing very well, relative to the rest of the country, and there is no bubble waiting to burst here.
Steve
Well, perhaps I myself am remiss, in that city-data is actually a relocation board, geared to the same. Sometimes I forget that. The whole premise of CD is to give information to potential relocatees and new residents. That being said, RE agents will obviously want to be seen on the same, especially in cities with large relocation movement like Austin. Are they discreet about it? Sure.....BUT,They do carry the REAL ESTATE moniker over their name, and can easily be contacted via messaging. Do the RE agents who post with regularity get much business from CD itself? Surely they get some, but, in the guise of discreetness, that won't be mentioned. My guess is quite a bit of business, jsut from the fact that they post so often. Anyone whose business involves mining leads would not waste time on here unless they were getting quite a bit of business from this site.
My only issue is that discussions about economic trends and such will be very much compromised by the nature of this website. Geared to local relocation businesses, the unstated goal is to pump up and inflate good news, and belittle the bad. In that case, the site functions much like a local Chamber of Commerce, with all that entails.
Per the bias of real estate information on CD, that would be the equivalent of the NAR pumping up the overinflated market up to the millisecond before the bust hit across the nation. You simply have to know where to look for unbiased viewpoints, and CD is not the place for that. And I have been a fool for the last 8 months on here not realizing that this is so.
Finally, for the best objective sources for local economic trends, the American-Statesmen is very good, but the weekly Chonicle is hands down the best of all, especially its lengthy
letters to the editor section.
Again, CD is at best a Chamber of Commerce adjunct.........
...The whole premise of CD is to give information to potential relocatees and new residents.
Agreed.
Quote:
That being said, RE agents will obviously want to be seen on the same, especially in cities with large relocation movement like Austin. Are they discreet about it? Sure.....BUT,They do carry the REAL ESTATE moniker over their name, and can easily be contacted via messaging. Do the RE agents who post with regularity get much business from CD itself? Surely they get some, but, in the guise of discreetness, that won't be mentioned. My guess is quite a bit of business, jsut from the fact that they post so often. Anyone whose business involves mining leads would not waste time on here unless they were getting quite a bit of business from this site.
Agreed. So what?
Quote:
My only issue is that discussions about economic trends and such will be very much compromised by the nature of this website. Geared to local relocation businesses, the unstated goal is to pump up and inflate good news, and belittle the bad. In that case, the site functions much like a local Chamber of Commerce, with all that entails.
I Disagree. In what manner are the discussions "comprimised"? This is a free exchange of ideas and opinions. If you mean to say that you hold the only true and correct opinion about these matters, and therefore opinions and information not in alignment with your own are somehow inocrrect or "comprimised", then I'd have to remind you that these are opinions we are talking about.
If you like to get out a scorecard and go back a couple of years to see how many of your dire predictions came true, I think you'll find that the more reasoned voices would prevail in the "got it right" category.
With regard to the purpose of the CD Forums, we live in a changed world.
30 years ago, an individual relocating himself to a new city or region had very few information resources. They would have to rely on recommendations from new co-workers, Realtors, or maybe even the waitress at iHop. That probably worked out ok in most cases, but today's people want to know more. Much more. Way, way much more. More than they even need to know. I deal with it every day.
But today, thanks to venues such as City-Data, people relocating to Austin or elsewhere can ask questions of an entire "crowd" of people and hear a variety of opinions and suggestions. The answers provided to the common questions are, in most cases, high quality, top rate answers and information. I continue to be impressed, especially by the valuable and good real estate insight provided by non-Realtors, who often know as much or more about specific neighborhoods and schools than most Realtors.
Therefore, I think CD is a valuable resource and it accomplishes exactly what it's suppose to accomplish, both for users and for whomever owns the site (which is extremely well run/moderated) I might add.
Well, perhaps I myself am remiss, in that city-data is actually a relocation board, geared to the same. Sometimes I forget that. The whole premise of CD is to give information to potential relocatees and new residents. That being said, RE agents will obviously want to be seen on the same, especially in cities with large relocation movement like Austin. Are they discreet about it? Sure.....BUT,They do carry the REAL ESTATE moniker over their name, and can easily be contacted via messaging. Do the RE agents who post with regularity get much business from CD itself? Surely they get some, but, in the guise of discreetness, that won't be mentioned. My guess is quite a bit of business, jsut from the fact that they post so often. Anyone whose business involves mining leads would not waste time on here unless they were getting quite a bit of business from this site.
My only issue is that discussions about economic trends and such will be very much compromised by the nature of this website. Geared to local relocation businesses, the unstated goal is to pump up and inflate good news, and belittle the bad. In that case, the site functions much like a local Chamber of Commerce, with all that entails.
Per the bias of real estate information on CD, that would be the equivalent of the NAR pumping up the overinflated market up to the millisecond before the bust hit across the nation. You simply have to know where to look for unbiased viewpoints, and CD is not the place for that. And I have been a fool for the last 8 months on here not realizing that this is so.
Finally, for the best objective sources for local economic trends, the American-Statesmen is very good, but the weekly Chonicle is hands down the best of all, especially its lengthy
letters to the editor section.
Again, CD is at best a Chamber of Commerce adjunct.........
I don't know that I agree with all of this. First, I think the realtors are required to identify themselves with the little title under their names. Additionally, I've seen this board used for vacationing purposes as well. I agree with Steve in that there are many many voices on here and most of them neither fall into the cheerleading camp nor the doom and gloom camp...just helpful people offering their own opinions on the places they call home.
I don't doubt it is helpful. It just isn't the place for lengthy, involved discussions about current trends. I see the same people, including myself, saying the same things over and over. Like a Shakespeare play, everyone chimes in on cue in defense or offense, on the same issues. That means we are just playing roles. My role is to bring reality, though I lead towards a slightly negative view, and others lean towards a positive, things are looking up or are doing very well view.
The end result is that its laughable for all involved, including myself, and just waters down to the same people saying the same thing over and over......
The main issue after all is said is that CD facilitates relocation vendors, and is geared towards the same, and that is VERY much why real estate agents are on here so often, especially the regulars......
I'm not saying CD has no redeeming qualities....just that by far, the reason for CD is to generate income/leads for relocation-orientated businesses, while inadvertently it does provide useful info, which is the whole point/reason that it is so useful for relo vendors.
They provide useful information, and make money doing so. Would agents be on here as often if they were not making money here? Surely not. And some would not be here at all.
Again, the fact is other sites are far more objective when dealing with economic/growth/
civic issues. Sometimes we do get some great posts on here, but very rarely. I wish we had far more. I also wish we could remove completely the chamber of commerce taint, but that seems to be imbedded within the site's Raison De Existance itself........
Sorry, but I don't believe a city's RE agents are the best/most objective mouthpiece for finding out what is actually going on in a metro.....and they seem to be the main spokesmen for Austin on CD by default.
The main issue after all is said is that CD facilitates relocation vendors, and is geared towards the same, and that is VERY much why real estate agents are on here so often, especially the regulars......
Most importantly agents are making money here
For me, personally, I'll be here answering questions long after I'm retired. I enjoy helping people, engaging in dialog, and I enjoy this form of two-way written communication. I think that's what brings most of us "regulars" here. I also learn a lot about Austin and gain insight into other people's viewpoints that I find very valuable (and to which I might not otherwise have ever been exposed to). Sometimes I drop out for a week or more at a time when I get really busy. Other days I'm working in front a computer for most of the day (like today) and get temporarily addicted to answering posts.
I've never PMd anyone or tried to "get business" from anybody. That's not why I'm here. But if someone sends me an email or a message asking a question, I'll reply.
And again I'll ask, so what? What's your problem with that, ITC? Would the forums be better and more valuable if real estate agents were banned completely, or required to remain anonymous?
do you know that there are dozens of high quality housing and economic blogs out there? Seriously great posting and commenting. I think you'd enjoy it. Places like Calculated Risk, Naked Capitalism, Jessie's Cafe American, Mish, Dr. Housing bubble.
There are lots of places "out there" that are engaging in exactly the kind of discussion that you seem to want.
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