Luxe Austin Homes

Austin's million-dollar home sales are rivaling Dallas, Houston

Million-dollar home sales in Austin have skyrocketed along with the rest of the market, coming neck and neck with luxury sales in Dallas and Houston.

The number of Austin's luxury sales from January-May 2022 was almost double the number of sales for the entire year of 2018, according to a report from the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.

While Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio saw sales spike in 2021, luxury home sales had remained relatively stable before that.

The Dallas area still leads the charge on luxury real estate sales but the study says Austin is poised to surpass Houston soon. Austin’s population is one about one-sixth of the Houston metro area.

Researchers say year-to-date sales are…

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The Housing Shortage Is About To Get Worse—Don’t Expect Builders To Save the Day

Just a few months ago, builders couldn’t put homes up fast enough to appease the hordes of eager buyers. They boasted about lengthy waitlists, even holding lotteries to choose those lucky enough to purchase their newly constructed homes.

Those days are now over as the housing market corrects after two years of runaway prices.

Buyers are now canceling orders and extracting themselves from waitlists as higher mortgage rates have pushed their dreams of owning new construction beyond their financial reach. Sales are down.

Builders are responding by throwing out incentives, like spaghetti against a wall, to see which ones attract buyers. Some have begun cutting prices, and the majority are slowing down the pace of construction—despite the nation’s…

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Are house prices going down?

After U.S. inflation cooled more than expected last month, you may be wondering whether or not the housing market is cooling off. The answer is yes — but with an asterisk.

The median sale price for a home in June 2022 was $428,400, an 11.2% increase since the same time last year. Even though this is a double-digit increase in prices, it’s also the smallest year-over-year increase “in nearly two years,” Redfin market analyst Tim Ellis says.

Data indicates that while U.S. home prices decreased 0.4% from June to July, other factors are still impacting home affordability. Even though home prices remain high, Ellis says the market is balancing out due to a variety of factors, including higher mortgage rates and decreased demand.

Redfin data shows…

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Austin scoops up top 10 spot in list of best ice cream cities in U.S.

Fans of homegrown brands like Amy's Ice Creams or Lick Honest Ice Creams know that Austin has some of the best scoops in the country. So it's no surprise that on a recent list of the best (and worst) ice cream cities in America, Austin lands in the top 10.

The survey, compiled by real estate brokerage Home Bay, ranks 50 cities using factors such as the number of ice cream shops per capita, the price of a small cup or cone (using Ben & Jerry's as a benchmark), average annual temperature, and Google searches. Data sources include the U.S. Census Bureau, Yelp, and Google Trends.

The best
The best cities for ice cream have more shops (an average of 4.9 ice cream shops per 100,000 people), a high interest in ice cream (Google searches), and better…

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A Buyer’s Bonanza or a Seller’s Dilemma? Where the Housing Market Sits Now and What It Means for You

The real estate market seems to have a split personality.

On the positive side for homebuyers, the number of properties for sale shot up by a record-setting 30.7% this July compared with the same month last year, according to a recent Realtor.com® report. That’s the most significant increase in active listings in the data’s history. And in another hopeful sign for buyers, the share of homes seeing their prices slashed—19.1%—hit a record not seen since 2019.

Yet on the flip side, the $449,000 median list price of homes is a 16.6% increase compared with last year. And the average time a home spends on the market before it sells remains significantly lower (a mere 35 days) than in pre-pandemic times.

So how does a savvy homebuyer make sense of…

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New-home market 'at a crossroads' amid uptick in canceled contracts, incentives

Homebuilders across the U.S. are shifting their strategies and financial outlooks amid changing consumer demand for housing.

But where the jury is still out is whether the trend toward elevated canceled contracts, more incentives and lower demand for housing is settling out to pre-pandemic levels — when demand for homes was still higher than historic norms — or will continue to worsen.

The nation's publicly traded homebuilders, in earnings calls reporting their most recent quarter's financial performance, are seeing similar trends and patterns across their portfolios as the housing market shifts amid higher interest rates and fears of a recession. The three-month period that ended in June is the first full quarter that illustrates how…

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Texas metros top ranking for apartment demand

As new residents continue to flood in, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston now have the highest apartment demand in the nation.

The largest Texas metros took the top three spots in a ranking of the increase in apartments needed to meet projected demand by 2035 in a study commissioned by the National Apartment Association and the National Multifamily Housing Council.

The study calculated the needed percentage growth in local rental stock as well as the absolute number of new apartments necessary to meet demand over the next 13 years. The combined weighted average ranked the Texas metros highest in projected rise in demand, according to the Austin Business Journal.

With a 2.6 percent growth rate and 117,107 new apartments needed to meet…

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Retro Austin-area drive-in movie theater premieres on the market at $4 million

Picture this: You could be the owner of a retro-style drive-in movie theater just east of Buda.

Doc’s Drive-In Theatre recently debuted on the market at a list price of nearly $4 million ($3.999 million, to be precise). The deal would include the business itself, as well as the land and structures.

The 7.9-acre property, near I-35, features the theater setup as well as three fully furnished movie-themed rental casitas and a members-only, speakeasy-like private club. Also included in the sale are the commercial kitchen and bar. The theater, casitas, and club remain open.

The listing notes that there’s “potential to grow and improve” the existing business or entirely redevelop the site.

Central Texas couple Chris and Sarah Denny opened the…

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As extreme heat rolls on, energy efficient homes capture attention

As Texans keep a close eye on the state's electrical grid during this record summer heat, one Austin-area neighborhood is staying relatively worry-free about blackouts.

Each home in Whisper Valley — located in Manor, about 8 miles north of the Tesla factory — comes equipped with solar panels on the roof and an underground geothermal heat pump that is more efficient at heating and cooling a home than an above-ground unit, said Greg Wolfson, chief technology officer of EcoSmart Solution, an affiliate of community developer Taurus Investment Holdings LLC. These two factors make Whisper Valley a zero-energy capable community. The development will eventually have more than 7,000 homes that are zero-energy capable.

The zero-energy capable label is not…

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Santa Rita Ranch Named Top-Selling Master-Planned Community in the Austin Area by RCLCO

Santa Rita Ranch, a 3,800-acre historical ranch redesigned as a master-planned community with world-class amenities and spectacular views near Austin, Texas has once more ranked #1 in sales in the Austin-Round Rock area, according to the 2022 RCLCO mid-year report. Santa Rita Ranch also placed 29th in the nation in total sales, up from last year's rank of 33rd.

"We have a top-notch team working hard every day to make sure that Santa Rita Ranch provides the very best possible place to live for all of our many residents," said Santa Rita Ranch Developer Ed Horne, "so recognition like this from an expert group like RCLCO is a wonderful thing. But what we love most is welcoming friendly new faces to our master-planned community, which is why we're so…

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