Luxe Austin Homes - Buyers

"Yay! Mortgage Rates Just Dropped—and Now There’s Even More Good News"

Realtor.com writes, "mortgage rates have finally dipped, after three panic-inducing weeks of climbing upward.

For the week ending June 8, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate sank to 6.71%, down from the previous week’s 6.79%, according to Freddie Mac.

And that’s not where the good news ends.

Home price growth, which has been spiraling skyward since the COVID-19 pandemic, has also “slowed to a halt,” according to Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com® in her recent analysis of the latest housing data.

Indeed, median listing prices came in a mere 0.2% higher for the week ending June 3 compared with this same week last year. That’s the lowest level in the history of Realtor.com data, which goes back to 2016.

Yet despite this…

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"The Housing Market Has a ‘Chicken and Egg’ Problem—but Buyers Have Finally Hatched the Perfect Workaround"

Realtor.com writes, "anyone who’s tried to buy or sell a home lately is no doubt painfully aware that today’s real estate market has slowed down considerably—but why?

A new Realtor.com® report sums it up as the “chicken and egg” problem. Allow us to explain.

It all starts with mortgage rates—which are about 1 percentage point higher than last year, hovering in the mid-6% range. This is a formidable deterrent not only for buyers, but also for sellers, who feel “locked in” to their current properties (along with the lower mortgage rates they got years earlier).

As a result, even homebuyers who are willing to pay high rates are finding few homes for sale, with May clocking 22.7% fewer new listings than last year.

“Many sellers report being…

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"1,200-home Adelton neighborhood rising in Bastrop"

Austin Business Journal reports, "work is underway on a 348-acre mixed-use neighborhood in Bastrop and the search is on for commercial tenants to set up shop on three sites.

Homebuilders broke ground in October on the master-planned development, called Adelton, off State Highway 21 and Farm-to-Market 20. Plans call for 1,200 homes, 125,000 square feet of commercial space, four miles of trails and 50 acres of parks, according to a May announcement from developer West Bastrop Village Ltd., an entity tied to Austin-based Benchmark Land Development Inc.

Phase one of the project, which is estimated to take 10-15 years, is underway with homebuilders David Weekley Homes and Empire Communities already completing two model homes. Developers are now eager…

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"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…

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"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…

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"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…

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"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…

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"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…

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"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…

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"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…

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