Austin Real Estate Stats: July 2008-2009

Hopefully the good news keeps up!

Eric,
Overall Austin seems it is smooth sailing for the most part, based upon July 2008/2009 statistics. With an average price of $245k you are double the average price of Manitowoc, Wisconsin’s market. Thank You for bring up the first time home buyer’s tax credit issue. I was curious to see where the market goes without it. My opinion is the market goes downward after the tax credit, meaning the market goes back down to where it should be, since out government is still trying to portray a stable economy. Haha…personally I think we are in for ride after the tax credit goes away. The old saying goes…you can’t borrow your way out of debt.

Yeah – I’ll be interested to see what it does. Personally, I think the tax credit was a necessary part of the stimulus, but peeling the bandaid off could be painful. Only time will tell!

In Bellingham WA, our sales were up slightly over the prior year. However, my feeling is that if it were not for the the $8000.00 tax credit & sale of bank owned property that current sales would be pretty dismal.

lately, when ever I am with a goup of people, I falt out ask them what they are seeing / hearing on their streets / meetings and universally it’s not good. People are concerned about jobs / costs / savings & are really clamping down on what they are will ing to spend their money on.

Regardless of what Bernanke said this morning about nearing the bottom, I think we are far from out of the woods yet.

Just as a side note: we report real estate stats as well on our blog both globally & by neighborhood. If you’d care to preview it it’s located here johnsonteamrealestate.com/blog/

Excellent View got for this Article.It will be really interesting to see the month over month change for it.Thanks for letting us to know.

That downturn doesn’t look too bad compared to a lot of other cities.

Eric and Robert,

It’s going to be extremely interesting to see what does occur after November 30th 2009. Our Green Bay market is showing signs of increase’s and a decrease in some area’s of supply. Start of a good sign, but the true test will be after November 30th.

I appreciate your expert insight into your local real estate market. Talk soon.

Ok I know that there is still tons of bad news out there and plenty of reasons to believe it but here are a few things that MIGHT indicate that the real estate market is starting to firm up in Phoenix.

1. A mortgage lender friend of mine says that April will be his best month since 2005.

2. I wrote purchase contracts on two different properties today and received offers on two different listings this weekend. This constitutes the busiest weekend I have had in four years. One of the offers I received was for full price.

3. My wife, an escrow officer, says that April will be her busiest month since 2005. About 50% of the transactions are refinancing of existing mortgages and 50% purchase contracts. Yes, most of the contracts are of lower priced foreclosures but its still promising to see that so many people believe prices now “make sense”.

4. We have received more buyer leads over the last two weeks than we have in four years.

5. We are finding properties priced low enough that one can easily enjoy positive cash flow if they buy and then rent the property out.

I’m not saying that we can now declare that the bust is over and full steam ahead but if things keep going in this direction we very well may be seeing the beginning of a recovery.

do you still feel the market is leveling out or even turning around? I know in my small market things are definately starting to turn around.

In Bellingham WA, our sales were up slightly over the prior year. However, my feeling is that if it were not for the the $8000.00 tax credit & sale of bank owned property that current sales would be pretty dismal.

lately, when ever I am with a goup of people, I falt out ask them what they are seeing / hearing on their streets / meetings and universally it’s not good. People are concerned about jobs / costs / savings & are really clamping down on what they are will ing to spend their money on.

Regardless of what Bernanke said this morning about nearing the bottom, I think we are far from out of the woods yet.