Austin Market Slowing? (San Antonio, Cedar Park, Orange: days on market, month to, custom home)

[atlanta hope]

Did ya'll see the Statesman today?

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/business/stories/realestate/10/20//1020austinhomes.html (broken link)

AUSTIN HOME SALES
September home sales drop 22 percent in Central Texas
Number of homes on the market hits four-year high.

[Torontonian]

Originally Posted by atlanta hope

Did ya'll see the Statesman today?

September home sales drop 22 percent in Central Texas (broken link)

AUSTIN HOME SALES
September home sales drop 22 percent in Central Texas
Number of homes on the market hits four-year high.

No surprise here. I've been saying this for some time. The signs of this happenning are everywhere and Austin is not immune. Now we got the proof. The question is how bad it will become, not if

[LinusK]

"The sales drop was sharpest for homes below $200,000...

But the news isn't all grim... the median home sales price in the Austin area rose to $182,500"

It's amazing they don't connect lower-priced houses not selling with the median rising.

Also: why is it that people who call for affordable housing, also complain when housing becomes more affordable?

Do they miss the connection there, too?

[llkltk]

Originally Posted by atlanta hope

Did ya'll see the Statesman today?

September home sales drop 22 percent in Central Texas (broken link)

AUSTIN HOME SALES
September home sales drop 22 percent in Central Texas
Number of homes on the market hits four-year high.

Yes but this part of the article is key:

"But the news isn't all grim. While prices are declining in many areas around the country, the median home sales price in the Austin area rose to $182,500, up 9 percent from September 2006. Experts attribute the increase to price appreciation as well as rising construction costs and more sales of higher-priced homes. "

Prices are still rising which is a good sign for owners!!!!

[denadavis]

Atlanta Hope,

Here is my take. ( you may remember me from the baranoff vs. Bailey post) Yes we have more inventory. But this market is very good condition. Dont even try to "time the market". Our job figures are super. In the month of August -- we had 3.5% unemployment. I just went to a talk by Ted Jones, Senior Economist at Stewart title. The population estimates are ASTOUNDING. This town is going to grow like crazy. By 2015 they expect the population in the Austin Metro Service Area to grow to 2.1 million. So our size is going to grow by 25% in 8 years. We are running out of semi centrally located land. So as long as you dont buy out in Del Valle or East Egypt-- you should do very well in the 5 year forecast.


Yes the sub prime market is gone-- but Austin did not have a large percentage of sub prime loans ( compared to the national average)-- I think the percentage is only 8.3 % or something close to that.

We are not overbuilt-- like a lot of inflated markets-- bascially - you can estimate that one residential unit can be absorbed for every 1.25 jobs created. In Austin-- WE ADDED 29,0000 JOBS in the past 12 months. That is a LOT OF JOBS. As for as residential units -- we issued permits for 22,000 units. So that is is a ratio of 1.32. The US JOB GROWTH rate for the past year was 1.19%. The Austin JOB RATE GROWTH for the past year was 4.10%. That is more than 3 times the national average.

Forgive me if this explaination is too much-- I work mainly with investors -- so I am big on the numbers.

If a home has been on the market a while-- offer a little less. The NATIONAL news is making people nervous. So you could get a deal. But if you find your dream home and it is a new listing-- you could loose the house if you do not put forth a good offer.

I put in an offer last week on a home that was in mulitiple offer-- our offer was 4000.00 over the asking price-- we did not bid high enough. We lost the bid.

When it comes to where you are going to live with your family. What's 10K when you are going to live in that home for a number of years?

Hope this helps.

Dena

[Trainwreck20]

Linusk has nailed it....it is basically lies, dam lies, and statistics.

If 10 homes sell for 500,000 and 10 homes sell for 100,000, then the median sales price is 300,000.

Now, if none of those homes sell for 100,000 and those same 10 high price homes sell for 400,000, the median price went up 100k, even though ALL the prices went down .

Of course, that is an extreme example, and high end home prices may still be rising, but a lower sales rate in lower price homes will exaggerate the amount. In our neighborhood, the houses pretty much run from the ~225k up to around 325k (or somewhere around that). Anyway, the houses are selling and at higher prices, in general, than last yeat...or so it appears, I am not a realtor and just get the news through the gossip mill .

[denadavis]

Atlanta Hope,

Here is my take. ( you may remember me from the baranoff vs. Bailey post) Yes we have more inventory!! But the sky is not falling. This market is very good condition. Dont even try to "time the market". Our job figures are super. In the month of August -- we had 3.5% unemployment. I just went to a talk by Ted Jones, Senior Economist at Stewart title. The population estimates are ASTOUNDING. This town is going to grow like crazy. By 2015 they expect the population in the Austin Metro Service Area to grow to 2.1 million. So our size is going to grow by 25% in 8 years. We are running out of semi centrally located land. So as long as you dont buy out in Del Valle or East Egypt-- you should do very well in the 5 year forecast.


Yes the sub prime market is gone-- but Austin did not have a large percentage of sub prime loans ( compared to the national average)-- I think the percentage is only 8.3 % or something close to that.

We are not overbuilt-- like a lot of inflated markets-- you can estimate that one residential unit can be absorbed for every 1.25 jobs created. In Austin-- WE ADDED 29,0000 JOBS in the past 12 months. That is a LOT OF JOBS. As for as residential units -- we issued permits for 22,000 units. So that is is a ratio of 1.32. The US JOB GROWTH rate for the past year was 1.19%. The Austin JOB RATE GROWTH for the past year was 4.10%. That is more than 3 times the national average.

And you can tie real estate market success to the success of job growth.

Forgive me if this explaination is too much-- I work mainly with investors -- so I am big on the numbers.

If a home has been on the market a while-- offer a little less. The NATIONAL news is making people nervous. So you could get a deal. But if you find your dream home and it is a new listing-- you could loose the house if you do not put forth a good offer.

I put in an offer last week on a home that was in mulitiple offer-- our offer was 4000.00 over the asking price-- we did not bid high enough. We lost the bid.

When it comes to where you are going to live with your family. What's 10K when you are going to live in that home for a number of years?

Hope this helps.

Dena

[CLQ]

Originally Posted by Torontonian

Not Standard Pacific in Cedar Park. No incentives or discounts yet

I was actually just at the model homes there recently, I thought they were offering $20K for upgrades.

[achtungpv]

Originally Posted by Torontonian

The signs of this happenning are everywhere and Austin is not immune.

To quote every realtor..."BUT THE AUSTIN MARKET IS DIFFERENT!"

I've always wondered if that phrase is taught in the first realtor class.

[LinusK]

Dena,

I'm not sure of your stats, or your interpretation.

Austin's been growing for a while. From 96 to 2006, we grew from a little over a million to 1.5 million - 41%. If we grow only 25% over the next 8 years, that sounds like growth will be slowing down. But I'm not sure where the 25% growth estimate is coming from. The state is projecting an increase to 1.7 million by 2015 - a 13% increase over the next 8 years. http://recenter.tamu.edu/mreports/AustinRRock.pdf

I'm also getting different numbers on other stats. For example, I'm showing housing starts of about 24K from Sept. 06 - Aug. 07. But even if housing was growing at 20K/yr, rather than 22 or 24, by 2015 we'll have more housing than we need. (160K units, for 200K people, or 80K more units than we need.)

Where does the 1.25 jobs per household number come from?

But regardless, I get the impression you're cherry-picking your numbers to support the sales-friendly projection you can.

Austin home-builders have been cutting back, after building all-out for a couple of years. They're not seeing the demand for housing that you're seeing.