Luxe Austin Homes - Buyers

First phase of 1,400-acre Mirador neighborhood in Del Valle takes step forward

Plans to develop a huge residential and commercial hub on the southeastern edge of Austin have taken another step toward.

With little discussion, the city's Zoning and Platting Commission on Aug. 16 unanimously approved a preliminary plan for the first phase of construction for the planned community on 1,400 acres near Pearce and Wolf lanes. That is in the unincorporated community of Del Valle, east of Circuit of The Americas race track and south of Tesla's new gigafactory.

Houston-based real estate developer Hines purchased the land earlier this year with the intention to create Mirador, a master-planned community that includes 2,500 single-family lots and 75 acres of commercial space.

The project also includes 50 acres of multifamily homes…

402 Views, 0 Comments

Austin housing inventory skyrockets to highest levels since 2018

More signs of relief for the Austin housing market. The latest monthly report from Austin Board of Realtors, released Tuesday, August 16, offers indications that the market is continuing to stabilize.

There are still new records to report, but “In every aspect of our market," says Cord Shiflet, 2022 ABoR president, in a release, "Realtors are seeing positive signs that Austin’s housing market continues to normalize.”

One of the most promising signs is an explosion of inventory in the Austin-Round Rock metro area. In July 2022, the region's housing inventory reached 2.7 months — the highest level seen  since November 2018, ABOR notes, and an increase from the 2.1 months reported in June 2022. 

“On top of rising housing inventory, home price…

341 Views, 0 Comments

Something big is happening in bubbly housing markets

Even before the lockdowns were eased, white-collar professionals who saw their jobs go remote were ditching their apartments in places like Seattle and New York City for homes in markets like Austin, Boise, and Las Vegas. That rush of homebuyer activity, of course, saw home prices absolutely skyrocket in those markets. In Las Vegas alone, the Pandemic Housing Boom pushed home prices up 49%.

That boom is over now.

Across the country, housing markets are cooling down. Home sales are falling. Multiple offers are drying up. Homebuilders are scaling back and offering buyer incentives. But every aspect of the cooldown is more intense in markets like Boise and Austin. Simply put: Pandemic boomtowns are getting hit the hardest by the Pandemic Housing…

443 Views, 0 Comments

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…

450 Views, 0 Comments

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…

474 Views, 0 Comments

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…

467 Views, 0 Comments

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…

486 Views, 0 Comments

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…

351 Views, 0 Comments

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…

457 Views, 0 Comments

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…

394 Views, 0 Comments