Luxe Austin Homes - Grossman & Jones Group

"U.S. Housing Market Recovery Is Being Held Back by Limited Listings and Fluctuating Mortgage Rates"

Realtor.com reports, "The numbers: Sales of previously-owned homes in the U.S. fell 3.4% in April for the second month in a row, as buyers continue to deal with low levels of home listings and see-sawing mortgage rates.

Sales of existing homes in the U.S. fell to an annual rate of 4.28 million in April, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday.

That’s the number of homes that would be sold over an entire year if sales took place at the same rate in every month as it did in April. The numbers are seasonally adjusted.

The drop in sales wasn’t as bad as what economists on Wall Street had expected. They forecast existing-home sales to total 4.26 million in April.

But compared with April 2022, home sales were down 23.2%.

Key…

510 Views, 0 Comments

"New Home Sales Rise as Buyers Run Out of Options in the Resale Market"

Realtor.com shares, "The numbers: An ongoing and persistent lack of homes in the resale market is pushing more home buyers into new construction, which caused sales to surge for the second month in a row.

The strength in new home sales was also driven by a massive jump in sales in the south. Overall, new home sales are trending higher as buyers grapple with a low level of home listings in the existing home sales market.

U.S. new home sales rose 4.1% to an annual rate of 683,000 in April, from a revised 656,000 in the prior month, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.

The number is seasonally adjusted, and refers to how many homes would be built over an entire year if builders continue at the same pace every month.

The jump exceeded…

474 Views, 0 Comments

"Private developer plans to build 600-acre public park in east Austin"

KXAN reports, "a private developer plans to fund and construct a 600-acre public park in east Austin that will one day be donated to the city of Austin and its park system.

Douglas Gilliland, the managing director for Taurus Investment Holdings, describes the park as the “Zilker Park of east Austin.” The new public park will almost double the size of Zilker, will be sandwiched between Walter E. Long park and the East Metropolitan park, and will tie in to Travis County’s 14-mile public trail system.

Cost and scope of the project

Gilliland said the project will be privately funded and cost $8 million to complete. The park will be built and designed over the span of six to seven phases in the next seven years. Gilliland said he is hoping to complete…

516 Views, 0 Comments

"Georgetown is the fastest-growing city in the U.S."

Austin Business Journals reports, "for the second year in a row, a city in Williamson County was estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to be the fastest-growing city in the country. It was one of three Austin-area cities that ranked among the top four.

Georgetown reached a 2022 population estimate of 86,507. That's a 14.4% year-over-year increase, according to a May 18 release from the U.S. Census Bureau. That ranked just ahead of Santa Cruz, California (61,800, +12.5%), Kyle (57,470, +10.9%) and Leander (74,375, +10.9%) among cities with a population of at least 50,000 people.

"Job growth in Georgetown and across the Austin metro continues to bring new residents to our city," Georgetown Mayor Josh Schroeder said in a May 18 statement. "People are…

541 Views, 0 Comments

"Mortgage Rates Just Edged Higher, but Homebuyers Aren’t Giving Up. Here’s Proof."

Realtor.com writes, "what a difference a year can make.

Today’s mortgage rates are more than 1 percentage point higher than a year ago. Plus, rates edged even further up this week, to 6.39% for a 30-year fixed-rate loan, compared with 6.35% a week earlier, according to Freddie Mac.

These stubbornly high interest rates, combined with headstrong home prices, have plunged the entire housing market into a strange sort of stalemate.

On the one hand, 82% of home sellers feel “locked in” by the low mortgage rates they’d secured years earlier. Meanwhile, cash-strapped homebuyers with few new listings to pique their interest feel locked out of the American dream.

Yet despite this unrelenting real estate limbo, there are small signs of life kicking…

519 Views, 0 Comments

"Suburbs are setting the pace for migration. But patterns are shifting."

Austin Business Journal writes, "when it comes to population growth during the Covid-19 era, large suburbs are shining. Urban centers and rural counties? Not so much.

That’s according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau with updated population estimates for 2022. 

Nationally, counties with populations of at least 250,000 in 2020 grew by an average of 0.84% between 2020 and 2022. For all counties, the average was 0.44%.

But a closer look at the data shows the strongest growth was generally in ring counties — suburban counties located within the nation's largest metro areas.

Among counties with at least 250,000 residents, the top counties for percentage growth were St. Johns County, Florida (located in metro Jacksonville); Hays County,…

495 Views, 0 Comments

"Austin housing prices are down one year after setting spring records"

Austin Business Journal writes, "one year after setting a median sales price record of $550,000 last April, housing prices are down in the metro.

The median sales price in the Austin area was $466,705, a 15% year-over-year decrease that amounts to $83,295, according to the Austin Board of Realtors April market report. And while prices have been trending up in recent months, the year-over-year decrease is a welcome signal to Central Texas, which saw housing prices skyrocket at unsustainable rates during the Covid-19 pandemic to a level where many buyers were over-bidding on property. It wasn't uncommon for a $400,000 home to sell for closer to $500,000 in recent years.

“This is still a market that is seeing lots of activity, just not at a…

576 Views, 0 Comments

"The Austin housing market is outperforming national trends, latest report shows"

CultureMap Austin shares, "housing inventory is on the rise, as is the number of days houses spend on the market, while prices are steadily falling. That spells another month of a balancing act in the Austin-Round Rock housing market, according to the latest report from the Austin Board of Realtors (ABoR).

“This is still a market that is seeing lots of activity, just not at a record-setting pace, and that is to be expected given broader economic trends,” said 2023 ABoR president Ashley Jackson. “Home prices are moderating, pending sales are holding strong, and homes on the market last month are selling closer to list price. These are all signs of a market that is still balancing and doing so in a healthy way.”

Housing inventory has continued to…

515 Views, 0 Comments

"The Star Trek Tech Selling Luxury Condos in Austin"

TexasMonthly writes, "near the edge of a cliff that plunges hundreds of feet down to the shore of Lake Austin, a five-thousand-square-foot steel-frame structure with tentlike walls houses the potential future of ultraluxury real estate marketing: a holodeck.

The term comes from Star Trek, in which Federation starships were equipped with special rooms where crew members could create and interact with holographic environments. At Lake Austin, the enormous space brings to virtual life, in photographic detail, one of the most opulent condo buildings Texas has ever seen. Its creator bills it as the first installation of its caliber anywhere.

Let’s back up. When entrepreneur Jonathan Coon announced his plans to build a sprawling complex along the top…

567 Views, 0 Comments

"Down Payment Amounts Are Shrinking: Can Buyers Put Down Less and Still Compete?"

Realtor.com writes, "after a steady rise in buyers kicking in ever larger down payments in an attempt to win heated bidding wars over the past few years, down payments are now shifting—and shrinking.

The housing market is seeing an overall decline in down payments for the first time since the second quarter of 2020, according to a new report from Realtor.com®. Buyers likely don’t have that extra cash lying around as they face stubbornly high home prices, higher mortgage interest rates, and rising inflation. And many have already burned through the COVID-19 stimulus payments that helped millions of Americans save up.

The average down payment slipped to 13% in the first three months of this year, down from the peak of 14.1% in the second quarter…

531 Views, 0 Comments