September 16th, 2009 by JoshBushner
This article was published in the September 16th edition of the Austin American Statesman:
The region’s first major retail project to be announced in nearly three years is planned for 69 acres at RM 620 near RM 2222, across from the new Concordia University campus and a Walmart.
Developers Rodney Speaks and Leslie Perry Sloan plan to break ground by June on the Trails at 620, a $70 million, 300,000-square-foot center at RM 620 and Wilson Parke Avenue, pending approval of a site-development permit from the City of Austin within the next six months.
The project’s developers are targeting a summer 2011 opening. They hope to attract a movie theater, hotel, specialty grocery store and clothing, sporting goods and bookstores, as well as local retailers and restaurants to the affluent area, Sloan said.
“We don’t want this to be just another strip mall,” Sloan said. “We want it to have a very Austin flair.”
Negotiations are under way with several theater owners and hotel groups, said Jeff Townsend, a principal who heads the Austin office of Edge Realty Partners, which the developers tapped to recruit retailers.
Sloan and Speaks are the general partners of the development group, 69 Grandview LP, which includes several other local partners. Sloan and Speaks also developed Vista Ridge at Steiner Ranch, a retail center on North Quinlan Park Road.
Sloan said the Trails land is the largest undeveloped parcel in that immediate area that is ready to build on. Utilities and zoning are in place, as well as an environmental permit from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Sloan said.
A large greenbelt runs across the rear of the property, which backs up to the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve.
In addition to shops and restaurants, Sloan said the project will have playscapes, ponds and two miles of trails.
The plan is to make the large oak trees on the site and the views the focal point, she said. “We are going to extreme measures to design around some very, very beautiful trees.”
Townsend said the project is “probably the only new development in Austin of its size” that is expected to get built over the next couple of years, as retail development has virtually ground to a stop amid the recession and financing constraints.
Chris Ellis, managing principal of Endeavor Real Estate Group, said it could be even longer before other new projects emerge, because financing remains difficult to obtain.
Other than the Trails, “there’s still no new development on the horizon, and it will be a good while (years) before we see any,” he said.
Although some residents in the area would like to see the Trails tract remain undeveloped, one neighborhood representative, Jim Smitherman, said the plans for the site are the best he’s seen among others previously proposed.
Smitherman is a member of the development committee for the Parke Homeowners Association, which represents about 180 of the 320 households in the Grandview Hills subdivision within a mile of the development.
He said the project would bring much-needed local retailers and local restaurants.
“We’re starving for good sit-down restaurants,” Smitherman said. “We’re excited for the potential this project has.”
Besides Walmart, the center is near a Home Depot, a Target and an H-E-B grocery store.
But Endeavor’s Ellis said the area is short on dining and entertainment options. The Trails project “will fill a void in these areas,” he said.
Sloan said that besides a dearth of local retailers, the area is lacking in grocery options other than H-E-B.
“We think the market is deep enough for more than one grocery,” she said.
Townsend said the Trails leasing assignment brings Edge Realty’s Austin office portfolio to 2 million square feet, one of the largest in the region.
Edge Realty’s leasing efforts will be coordinated by Krista Dabney Dillard, the new director of leasing in the Austin office. Dillard formerly was director of brokerage services for Direct Development’s Austin office.
Even if you’re not a fan of new development, it’s a good sign for the Austin economy that a project like this is even being talked about, let alone moving forward. Things are definitely looking brighter than they have been for a long time here in Central Texas.
September 16th, 2009 by JoshBushner
This article was published by the Austin Business Journal. Austin is poised for a great rebound and in some areas I’m already seeing it. Clients of mine just lost a bidding war for a house that was on the market for 1 day. Obviously that’s not the situation everywhere and for every house and we still have a long way to go, but dare I say it’s a good sign of things to come.
Austin and San Antonio will be the first two U.S. cities to recover from the recession, according to a new national forecast from IHS Global Insight.
The forecast from the Lexington, Mass. economic research firm suggests the two Texas cities will bounce back to their pre-recession job levels sometime next year.
Eight other metropolitan areas are predicted to recover by 2011, a group that includes Texas’ two largest markets, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, along with Washington, D.C.
IHS Global Insight said most metros will start adding employment next year, but the increases are likely to be tepid. “Solid gains will not return for the majority of the country until 2011,” the report said.
Austin is also named one of the 20 best performing metropolitan areas in the second quarter of 2009, according to a study by the Brookings Institution.
The second quarter MetroMonitor report tracked nine metrics in 100 U.S. metro areas, and found Austin was a leader in many of those, from percent change in gross metropolitan product to percent change in housing prices.
Employment in Austin fell 0.5 percent from its pre-recession peak, that was the second-narrowest gap in the nation. The Texas Capital was also one of only three metro areas that surpassed their pre-recession peak output by the second quarter of 2009. Along with the other two cities, McAllen and Washington D.C., Austin was one of those least affected by the downturn.
The report’s authors said the figures reveal some stark differences in economic performance among metro areas.
“Signs at the national level that job and income losses are slowing continue to mask the highly variable performance of individual metropolitan economies,” said Alan Berube, co-author of the report. “While several metro areas may have reached a turning point, there are many others that still have not touched bottom, as well as a few that have almost fully recovered.”
Texas had the strongest showing, with six cities among the 20 strongest metro areas: Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, McAllen and San Antonio. Florida dominated the
list of the 20 weakest metro areas with eight, including Bradenton, Cape Coral, Lakeland, Miami, Orlando, Palm Bay and Tampa.
September 11th, 2009 by JoshBushner
The stock market may be jumping around and jittery, but housing numbers are headed in just one direction, and at least for the time being, that’s better and better.
Pending home sales jumped again. They were up by 3.2 percent for the month of July, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s the sixth straight month of increases. The pending sales index is now at its highest level since June of 2007, and is 12 percent above a year ago.
Pending sales, of course, point ahead to closings scheduled within the coming two to three months. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, pointed to two key factors that are pushing up market activity – The near record affordability of house purchases caused by moderate prices and low mortgage rates. Plus, the icing on the cake for first time buyers — the eight thousand dollar federal tax credit.
Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount that prices are turning around in growing numbers of markets around the U.S. Freddie Mac’s most recent home price index, released last week, showed national prices up by an average 2.7 percent.
Clear Capital’s home price index, which digs into thousands of Zip codes and small neighborhoods, reported even larger gains. Prices were up by 7.3 percent during the period July 27th to August 25th. That may sound exceptionally high, but remember: Clear Capital was the first to detect the earliest hints of rising prices months ago, well ahead of Case-Shiller and others.
Boom-to-bust markets like Phoenix are even seeing higher prices along with huge sales increases. MDA DataQuick reports that sales of houses and condos were up 28 percent in Maricopa and Pinal Counties in July over year-earlier levels. And median prices inched up — by two percent in July over June – as the percentage of distressed sales among total sales declined to the lowest level since last October.
There was more good news on the mortgage front with average rates on thirty year fixed rate loans declining to just below 5.2 percent last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers association’s national survey. Fifteen year rates averaged four point six for the week.
Looking at the larger economic picture, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s top forecaster, Orawin Velz, continues to predict that the recession will be over shortly – or already is over. She cited rising consumer expenditures – up two percent in the third quarter compared with a minus one percent in the second quarter. Plus manufacturing output is up, and new layoffs declined last week.
Published: September 8, 2009
September 5th, 2009 by JoshBushner
I think these are all great tips and these are all things that I do for my clients when selling their home. This article was published in the September 5 edition of the Austin American Statesman:
Summer’s almost over and the kids are back at school, but the heat lingers — and so does your house on the market. Any homeowner who’s heard the pep talk about how property sells like lemonade in the summertime is bound to be feeling more than a little nervous at fall’s arrival — especially this year, given the uncertain economy.
Don’t give up hope: Area real estate agents have a few tricks up their sleeves, although you’ll probably have to roll yours up if you want results.
The fall doldrums are real: For the past 10 years, several hundred fewer homes have sold in September than in August, and sales usually slip a little further in October, according to data from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. (Into numbers? Go to recenter.tamu.edu and look under the “Data” link for sales figures for Austin and other Texas cities.)
But this year is likely to get a little boost from the first-time homebuyers’ tax credit, which can be up to $8,000 for homes bought before Dec. 1.
Area agents say they tend to see a blip of more buyers out looking in September. “I have found that once we get past school starting and Labor Day and when school is back in session, UT is back in regular session, the energy of the city just changes,” says Elizabeth Brooks of Landmark Properties. “It kind of kicks up a notch. Houses start looking better and people want to be outside more.”
Jim Gaines, a research economist at the Real Estate Center, says that September can go either way in terms of home sales in Texas. But he offers the heartening news that Austin home prices have been holding up pretty well during the past year. Supply and demand are fairly balanced. But post-September, “we’re going into the slump of the seasonality, so you may have to lower your price to attract a buyer.”
Hardest-hit, he says, are the homes priced at $500,000 and up. Financing, he says, is difficult for loans above $417,000.
What can homeowners do to get their home sold? Besides the obvious remedy of dropping the price (and anybody who watches “Real Estate Intervention” on HGTV knows that nobody wants to do that), the strategies can be as big as knocking down walls or as small as a shift in marketing tactics. But most agents agree that, above all, staging is imperative in today’s housing market in Central Texas.
Here are tips for a strong fall battle plan.
Inside the house
• Stage it right. “It’s required on my listings,” says broker Dena Davis of Davis Company Real Estate. “A stager is priceless in this market. Staged homes sell faster, and they sell for more money.”
Bear in mind that staging and decorating are not the same thing. “It’s about pulling that couch out because you know what? We need to show wood floor for days,” Davis says.
Though a professional might be part of the picture, plan to do some work yourself. Celeste Messer of Adkor Realty says she does staging for many clients and has brought in thousands of dollars’ worth of furniture.
But “they’ve got to do some sweat equity on their side — I will bring in what it takes.” Messer has seen it work: One home that had been languishing on the market got three hard offers in one weekend after it was painted and staged.
• Do windows. A home also needs to be “clean beyond anything they’ve ever been cleaned before,” says Brooks of Landmark Properties.
Windows are a big deal: “Light is a big factor,” she says. “Windows need to be open and professionally washed inside and out. They really kind of make the house sparkle and give the impression that you’ve got a neat freak living in the house.”
More pointers for neat-freak wannabes, from www.austinhomesearch.com and from my own experience house hunting in the past year:
• Do not just throw all your stuff in the closet. Potential buyers will check out storage space.
• Don’t leave dirty clothes piled up. Your teenager’s stinky gym socks make people want to leave the room and maybe the house.
• Give your pets a vacation away from the house during the day if possible, or at least during showings. Buyers might be allergic, might want to see the yard or get so distracted by a dog’s barking that they just want to escape.
If you can’t buy or borrow better furniture or clean yours up, get slipcovers.
• Fresh paint is inexpensive and almost essential. You might not see the marks on the walls anymore, but potential buyers will.
• Air the house out if you cook with strong spices.
• Clean the cat box daily. Yes, even if it’s in the garage.
• You’ve probably heard this again and again, but it’s true: Depersonalize. Put away the family photos and the football jersey collection. People need to be able to picture the home as their own, and they can’t do that with your stuff in the way.
Consider resetting your thermostat to keep the house comfortable even when you’re not there. If it’s too hot or too cold, buyers will wonder why.
Make space. “Layout is everything,” says Davis. “Today’s buyer wants the kitchen open to the family room. Knocking down walls and creating open space is always a good thing. Sometimes it’s just as simple as taking out a wall and paying for the flooring job or whatnot.”
Bill Sill of Bill Sill Realtors says today’s buyers don’t really want to think about what work they can do themselves after a purchase. “You have double-income families and they have kids. They don’t have time. They don’t want to live in the mess.”
Outside the house
• Paint the doors and oil squeaking hinges.
• Put out potted plants in front, mow the lawn and trim the shrubs.
• Rake leaves and sweep the porch.
• Check the roof for missing shingles.
• Make sure the pond or pool is clean.
Market wisely
Sill says he invests a little more this time of year in direct mail to what he calls “move-up markets.” For example, if he’s trying to sell a five-bedroom home in the $400,000 price range, he’ll look in the immediate area — within the same school boundaries — for families in three-bedroom homes in the $250,000 range. They’re more likely to move into a home in the same area during the school year. He also looks at tax records to see who’s been in area homes for five years or more because that’s the average time most people stay in a home.
Targeting those potential buyers with direct marketing is more apt to produce results.
If you’ve tried everything with no results, and you just can’t drop the price further, the best option left is probably to wait. Gaines and others said that the market tends to be extremely slow in January and February but begins to pick up again in spring.
September 5th, 2009 by JoshBushner
This article was published in the Saturday, September 5th issue of the Austin American Statesman:
Price cuts as steep as 25 to 30 percent have helped developers of two downtown-area condominium projects, the Shore and Bridges on the Park, sell off many of their remaining units.
At Bridges, which opened nearly two years ago on South Lamar Boulevard just south of Lady Bird Lake, 15 units are left, down from 30 before prices were cut June 29.
At the Shore, a 22-story tower at 603 Davis St. on the eastern side of downtown, 11 units remain, compared with 80 that were for sale before price cuts May 2.
Joe Pettyjohn, a sales associate at the Shore, expects the remaining units to be sold by Oct. 1.
Those units are priced from $194,000 to $680,000, marked down from original prices of $255,000 to $630,000.
The remaining units at Bridges are priced from $261,000 to $488,000, about 15 to 30 percent off their original prices when it opened in late 2007.
However, agents and developers of four other downtown projects — the newly opened Spring and three under construction — said they are holding firm on their pricing, confident in the strength of the downtown market, especially as the economy recovers.
And several predicted that there will be a shortage of downtown condominium units within a few years, with no new projects in the planning pipeline.
“Austin is probably poised for a faster recovery and a healthier future than many of the other urban cores in North America,” said Al Coker, president and CEO of Al Coker & Associates, which specializes in high-end condominium sales. “We’ve gotten to the bottom of the downward curve, and now our momentum is taking us up.”
Coker’s firm is marketing units at the Shore, Bridges on the Park and the Four Seasons Residences, which is under construction next to the Four Seasons Hotel and is set to open in the first quarter of next year.
Buyers have put eight units in the Four Seasons under contract since late spring, all at full prices ranging from the mid-$400,000s to $1.5 million.
Almost half of the 148 units are under contract.
“We’re holding firm on our pricing,” said Brett Denton of Ardent Residential, which with Atlanta-based Post Properties Inc. is developing the 30-story project.
“The downtown condo projects continue to have strong sales,” Denton said.
At Spring, where the first buyers in the 248-unit high-rise began moving in last month, 135 units are under contract, said Larry Warshaw, one of the developers.
Spring is maintaining prices, Warshaw said. And so is the Austonian, said Terry Mitchell, strategic marketing director for the 56-story condo project, where prices range from $573,000 to $8.4 million for the priciest penthouse.
Spring is currently selling three to four units a month, Warshaw said, “and that will increase as people catch on to shrinking supply and the economy stabilizes.”
Mitchell said that there are between 400 and 500 available units under construction or on the market downtown — with no new construction planned for the next several years.
“Given the fact that downtown absorbed approximately 600 units in 2008, there is a substantial likelihood even a fraction of the past demand will absorb the existing inventory,” Mitchell said.
Coker thinks that “at some point in the not too distant future, downtown housing will be scarce in terms of supply because the population of Austin is going to keep growing.”
But some experts say that developers are building too many luxury units at once and that the recent price discounts confirm that.
Mark Alfieri, senior vice president for Behringer Harvard, a real estate investment company, said the number of unsold new condos on the market “is large relative to the downtown condo market.”
Preconstruction sales “are unreliable in every market,” Alfieri said. “The fact that prices are down 25 to 30 percent validates the statement that there is little depth for the high-end condo market.”
Matthew Sutter, a real estate broker with Keller Williams Realty, said the price cuts attracted some of his clients to the Shore.
“Price-conscious buyers are moving if they can find the right deal,” Sutter said. “I think buyers are feeling like we’re pretty much at the bottom now, and prices are not going to go down significantly more.”
Mitchell Whiddon, a builder and developer, bought a two-bedroom unit on the 12th floor, paying in the upper $300,000s. He said that his sister Gail Denton bought a one-bedroom unit on the 16th floor.
Whiddon said the location is “fabulous” and called the Shore “one of the most well-constructed buildings I have ever seen.”
He said the Shore’s price reduction is a reflection of what’s happening in the overall housing market locally, noting that he reduced the price on his former house in Barton Hills “a good 25 percent” before it sold in February.
My thoughts on this article, although I agree there could be a “shortage” of living units downtown, the shortage will be in affordable units. The days of $500,000, 2 bedroom units being the norm is long gone (or should be). Downtown developers are going to have to find a way to bring living units down to prices that a typical person or couple can afford. I’ve seen a lot of deals in East Austin, many of the loft units have come down in price and that area is becoming much more convenient with shopping and amenities that people enjoy.
September 1st, 2009 by JoshBushner
Name just about any housing market or economic indicator you can think of, and the odds are good that last week it was much better than the preceding week or month.
Start with resales of existing homes. They were up by 7.2 percent in July over June, according to the National Association of Realtors. That was the fourth consecutive — and by far the largest — monthly increase so far this year.
And check out new home sales. They were up by nearly 10 percent in the latest report from the Commerce Department. The gain was the biggest monthly change in sales since February of 2005. It pushed inventories of unsold new houses to their lowest point in 16 years.
Consumer confidence also was sharply higher, according to the Conference Board’s widely watched index, up seven points in August over July. Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s consumer research center, said “consumers (are) more upbeat in their short-term outlooks for both the economy (as a whole) and the job market.”
The latest Case-Shiller home price index even turned positive! Case-Shiller’s national composite was up 2.9 percent comparing the first quarter of 2009 with the second quarter. That was the first quarter to quarter price improvement in more than three years, and we all know how spooky and bearish Case-Shiller has been throughout the housing downcycle.
Fully 18 of the 20 major markets tracked by Case-Shiller were positive for the quarter, even though on a year-to-year comparison basis, prices in the second quarter of 2009 were still 15 percent below the second quarter of 2008.
Mortgage applications and interest rates continued to be favorable as well. Total applications jumped by seven and a half percent last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Rates remained low and stable: 5.2 percent for 30 year fixed rate loans, and 4.6 percent for 15 year mortgages.
Equally significant, some prominent analysts are saying the recession either officially ended sometime during the month of August, or will do so shortly, maybe in September.
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s top forecaster, Orawin Velz, said the national gross domestic product or GDP likely will RISE in the third quarter — ringing down the curtain on the deepest recession in decades.
Now, does this all mean that happy days are here again and the housing market can only go up as the recession comes to an end? Not with unemployment still above 9 percent and three million foreclosures forecast for the year.
Look for a slow-mending recovery, but one that looks like it will be led by housing.
Published: September 1, 2009
September 1st, 2009 by JoshBushner
The Austin-Round Rock region should begin to see the signs of a rebounding economy later this year, according to a new forecast.
An analysis of IHS Global Insight data by the Capital Area Council of Governments shows that the region’s gross metropolitan product is expected to move back into positive territory in the fourth quarter. The gross metro product is the value of goods and services produced in the area.
When the recession officially began in the fourth quarter of 2007, Austin’s GMP growth rate was 5.1 percent, Global Insight data indicates. The measure declined steadily in subsequent quarters and went negative in the fourth quarter of 2008. During the second quarter and the current third quarter, GMP is at -1.2 percent. But the forecast calls for positive 1 percent GMP in the fourth quarter, the CAPCOG analysis shows.
Global Insight also expects Austin’s overall metropolitan population will grow by just under 60,000 people this year, or 3.5 percent. The forecasting group anticipates Austin will lose just 4,700 jobs compared with 2008, with income levels relatively flat.
September 1st, 2009 by JoshBushner
Thanks for checking out my blog. I’ll be using this website to post articles, news and information that I find that is relevant to local, state and national real estate news, as well as interesting tips for taking care of your home, mortgage information, and just about anything else you can think of related to real estate. Thanks for reading!
