Luxe Austin Homes - homeowners

"Austin’s HOME Initiative won’t change much — for now"

Austin Business Journal writes, "a new policy allowing up to three homes to be raised on some single-family lots is one of the most high-profile changes to Austin's land use code as it tries to combat high home prices and adopt a big-city mentality.

But experts said the program will not have a notable effect on the local housing market for the foreseeable future — plus, there's the specter of a lawsuit scaring some developers off.

The first phase of what's called the HOME Initiative launched Feb. 5. That's when homeowners and developers could start to submit applications. Landowners can either sell the new, smaller homes or they can rent them out. The impact of the change will only become measurable in the months and years to come, but the…

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"Pending Home Sales Post Biggest Jump Since June 2020 as Mortgage Rates Fall"

Realtor.com shares, "The numbers: U.S. pending home sales shot up in December as falling mortgage rates brought buyers back into the market.

Pending home sales rose 8.3% in December from the previous month, according to the monthly index released Friday by the National Association of Realtors.

Pending home sales reflect transactions where the contract has been signed for a the sale of an existing home, but the sale has not yet closed. Economists view it as an indicator of the direction of existing-home sales in subsequent months.

The jump in pending-home sales was the largest since June 2020, when it rose by 14.9%.

The sales pace exceeded expectations on Wall Street. Economists were expecting pending home sales to increase by 2% in…

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"How to Get Rid of PMI: Tips to Ditch Private Mortgage Insurance Fast"

Realtor.com shares, "most people with private mortgage insurance want to know how to get rid of it. And for good reason: PMI tacks on a substantial extra fee to your already massive mortgage payments. Lenders traditionally require PMI for borrowers who put down less than 20% on a house. Of course, it’s a godsend if you couldn’t afford a home otherwise. But once you have PMI, is there any way to let it go?

For starters, let’s get one thing straight: “Mortgage insurance is neither good nor bad,” says Michael Brown, branch manager for Churchill Mortgage in Nashville, TN. “It can help people become homeowners who would not otherwise qualify because they don’t have 20% to put down. But in the long run, the removal of mortgage insurance could save home…

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"First plots sold at 1,000-acre luxury residential community near Lake Travis"

Austin Business Journal reports, "the first 50 homesites have been sold at Travis Club, an incoming luxury neighborhood on Lake Travis. It's set to rise on more than a thousands acres 15 miles west of downtown Austin.

These first homeowners are being recognized as the “50 founding memberships” of the resort-style community that is being developed by Menlo Park, California-based real estate developer Haas & Haynie Corp. and Austin-based real estate investment firm Castle Hill Partners Inc., according to a Nov. 1 announcement.

This marks a notable step forward for the project that has been planned for more than a decade on the undeveloped bend of Lake Travis between Thurman Bend Estates and the Briarcliff community. This area, and just about all…

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"Millions of homes are vacant in large cities across America"

Austin Business Journal writes, "there are millions of homes sitting empty across America at a time when inventory and affordability are squeezing the nation's housing market.

According to a recent analysis of U.S. Census Bureau 2022 American Community Survey data by LendingTree Inc., there are nearly 5.5 million vacant housing units in the nation's 50 largest metro areas. That puts the housing vacancy rate across those metros at about 8%.

But the reasons why millions of homes are sitting vacant at a time when the nation's housing market is starved of inventory and home prices remain high — the median price of new houses sold in August was $430,300, down slightly from $436,600 a month prior — are varied and nuanced.

The study found, on…

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"So Much for the Federal Reserve: Mortgage Rates Hit a High Not Seen Since 2000"

Realtor.com writes, "last week brought hope to the housing market when the Federal Reserve did not raise interest rates. Many predicted this would help keep mortgage rates fairly steady.

But it turns out those predictions were 100% wrong.

Instead, for the week ending Sept. 28, rates for a 30-year fixed-rate loan rose to their highest level since 2000, landing at an average of 7.31%—a substantial jump from last week’s 7.19%, according to Freddie Mac.

This latest spike in borrowing costs will likely hit today’s already shaky real estate market especially hard.

“Unlike the turn of the millennium, house prices today are rising alongside mortgage rates, primarily due to low inventory,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “These…

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"Austin Is The New Austin"

National Mortgage Professional writes, "there’s no such thing as a perfect housing market, but Austin is trying to check off all the boxes for would-be buyers. Young and savvy tech professionals are flocking to the funky metro known for its music scene to scoop up jobs and take the plunge into homeownership.

Since Austin is attracting new buyers and transforming long-term renters into prospective homeowners, LOs aren’t having trouble wrangling customers to buy loans. And it helps that 25.8% of homes in Austin have lower estimated monthly housing payments than they would have if they had been for sale a year ago, according to Redfin. Year-to-date home sales price data from the Austin Board of Realtors show a 12.6% decline in the median price for…

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"Will 'golden age of remodeling' persist with economy, housing-market slowdown?"

Austin Business Journal writes, "home-remodeling activity, which boomed during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, is beginning to taper off from what experts say was unsustainable growth, but current conditions in the housing market may ultimately provide medium-term tailwinds for the sector.

Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies' most recent Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity, a quarterly assessment of future demand for remodeling projects, is projecting a decline for remodeling activity beginning early next year. Its forecast also calls for activity for the current year to end at a 3% annual growth from the previous year, a deceleration from pandemic years — where double-digit annual growth was typical.

Abbe Will, a…

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"Mortgage Rates Go Up—Right as the Housing Market Melts Down"

Realtor.com writes, "as much of the country swelters under a heat dome, the housing market is experiencing its own meltdown.

Mortgage rates jumped to 6.81% for a 30-year fixed-rate loan for the week ending July 27, according to Freddie Mac. That’s up from last week’s average rate of 6.78%. And the welcome run of median home prices declining for 42 days flatlined for the week ending July 22.

“The annual decline in the median listing price evaporated, with prices tying year-ago levels this week,” says Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale in her analysis.

What’s keeping home prices so high—and is there any way for homebuyers to find some sweet relief from the punishing real estate market this summer? We’ll break down what this latest real…

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"Is the Housing Market About To Hit Rock Bottom? Here’s What That Means, and Why We May Be Here for a While"

Realtor.com writes, "today’s housing market has been in some deep doldrums by many standards, but the latest real estate statistics suggest something more serious might be ahead—that the market might be careening toward some sort of rock bottom.

“Taken as a whole, this week’s data lines up with other indicators that are pointing to a potential bottom in housing market activity at a fairly low level,” notes Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale in her most recent analysis.

The only upside we can think of is that there’s typically nowhere to go from there but up. So, does that mean the worst days of real estate will soon be over? Not quite, since the big four harbingers of housing—home prices, inventory, days on the market, and mortgage…

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