Luxe Austin Homes - housing

"What a more normal Austin housing market looks like"

Austin Business Journal writes, "Austin's housing market has had a full year of "normalization," experts say, but we aren't out of the woods yet.

After years of soaring prices and diminished inventory fueled by a pandemic-era buying frenzy, home prices began falling back toward more normal levels and inventory began rising in July 2022. Market observes have framed this as a return of more normal conditions, dictated by actual supply and demand and affected by typical season fluctuations.

A year later, what does that look like? The Austin Board of Realtors this week reported that the metro had a median sales price of $462,000 last month, down 10% from a year prior and much lower than the peak of $550,000 in April and May 2022.

Inventory, which…

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"Q&A: Austin Board of Realtors housing economist helps others ride the waves of Austin market"

Community Impact Austin shares, "Clare Losey joined the Austin Board of Realtors as its housing economist in March. She graduated from Texas A&M University with a PhD in August 2021 and previously worked at the Texas Real Estate Research Center. This interview has been edited for clarity and consistency.

What made you choose Austin?

I attended [The University of Texas] for undergrad and just really fell in love with Austin, and I love just the outdoorsy aspect of it. I think folks here tend to strike a happy medium; they tend to find jobs that they’re at least reasonably passionate about, but yet they have hobbies on the side that they really enjoy.

What do you do as a housing economist for the ABoR?

Much of what I do is focus just on digesting what’s…

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"Luxury homes replace church in Brentwood, a new normal juxtaposition for Austin"

Austin Business Journal writes, "a handful of new luxury homes have started hitting the market in Central Austin’s Brentwood neighborhood.

Brentwood Heights, as the community is called, is a 1.4-acre, eight-home co-development from Cascade Homes and Urbane Roost, and the luxury residences come with a hefty price tag: $1.6 million to $1.9 million, according to an Aug. 17 announcement.

It's a price point that even those already living in Brentwood may struggle to afford. But new luxury homes for sale right beside older and cheaper properties is the direction Austin is trending in, Ashley Jackson, 2023 president of the Austin Board of Realtors. The Brentwood area is located a few miles west of where U.S. Route 183 meets I-35.

Two of the homes…

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"High interest rates aren't deterring homebuyers in Austin"

CultureMap Austin writes, "real estate experts now have a much clearer picture regarding the resilience shown in Austin's housing market. The latest Austin Board of Realtors' (ABoR) report revealed that July 2022 was when the Austin-Round Rock housing market initially started stabilizing. If current trends continue, ABoR says 2023 will have a "strong finish."

"We now have a direct year-over-year comparison of when our market began stabilizing, and the big fluctuations we’ve previously seen have started to even out," said 2023 ABoR president Ashley Jackson in the report. "Potential buyers who have been on the fence about purchasing a home should know interest rates are settling, and now is the time to act."

Even with interest rates beginning to…

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"AISD is building teacher housing amid affordability crunch"

AXIOS Austin reports, "in an effort to recruit and retain teachers amid the city's rising cost of living, Austin ISD is trying something new: building housing.

• It's part of a national trend of school districts working to help chronically underpaid teachers afford to live where they teach.

Driving the news: Within 12 months, the district plans to choose developers, who will construct and manage two residential complexes with 600 units on unused district land.

• It plans to lease the former Ana Ferrales Coy Facility and former Rosedale Elementary School to developers who will be able to leverage its property tax-free status to keep rents affordable, Austin ISD director of real estate Jeremy Striffler tells Axios.
• They'll be…

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"Wildhorn Capital aims to develop 2,000-plus apartments off East Riverside"

Austin Business Journal shares, "Austin-based real estate investment firm Wildhorn Capital LLC is moving forward with plans to redevelop hundreds of South Austin apartments. It could quadruple the number of residences on the site, potentially bringing more change to a busy pocket of the city and ramping up the debate over affordable housing.

The company wants City Hall to rezone the 530 units at 2207 Wickersham Lane and 2239 Cromwell Circle, which appear to be complexes called Hillside Villas and The Patten, and raise the site's building height limit from 40 feet to as high as 120 feet. The change would clear the way for the boutique investment firm to create 2,100 apartments in an area close to downtown, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and…

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"Home prices stabilize after historic highs in Southwest Austin area"

Community Impact Austin writes, "even as Southwest Austin remains among the most desirable and pricier areas of the metro to buy or rent, local data points to the housing market settling down after a recent burst of activity.

Movement toward a more balanced market has been underway since last year with observers crediting broader trends, such as rising interest rates, lasting inflation and more mild job growth, for spurring the changes. Every month in 2023 has seen local homes priced well below 2022 levels and taking longer to sell.

The days of new home listings drawing crowds and selling rapidly are not entirely over, some real estate experts said. Generally, they said buyers now have a better chance to explore their options thanks to narrowing…

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"More housing could be headed to Lakeway"

Austin Business Journal reports, "Lakeway City Council must decide whether to rezone a 33.9-acre tract and clear the way for a largely residential community in the city.

At an Aug. 2 meeting, Lakeway’s Zoning and Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend the rezoning to Council. The proposed change would see the tract switch from single-family temp zoning to a planned unit development, according to the meeting agenda.

Housing developer Cascade Homes LLC made the rezoning request for the Balcones Point PUD on behalf of the property owners, the MB Winborn Trust and Gregory & Kenneth Winborn Irrevocable Trust.

It was not clear when Council could vote on the rezoning. It typically meets on the third Monday of each month.

If built, the…

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"Austin expedites land use reforms for denser housing"

Austin Business Journal reports, "a push by a handful of Austin-based nonprofits to expedite construction of denser, more affordable housing has garnered a response from City Hall.

A coalition of housing-focused organizations issued a call to city leaders on July 7 to expedite code changes to enable developers to build denser and faster than previously allowed. The letter was from the Austin Housing Coalition, Transit Forward, HousingWorks Austin and the Austin Justice Coalition.

About two weeks later, Austin City Council unanimously approved a resolution July 20 that authorizes the city manager to propose code amendments that complement the city’s ongoing piecemeal changes to its land development code. The ultimate goal is to streamline…

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"Austin housing economist: forecast calls for cooling home prices, lower mortgage rates"

Shonda Novak of Austin American-Statesmant writes,  "last week, I attended the Austin Board of Realtors' second annual Central Texas Housing Summit. It was loaded with facts, figures, insights and prognostications about the Austin-area housing market. One panel featured the board's housing economist, Clare Losey; Mark Sprague, a longtime Central Texas housing market analyst with Independence Title; and Selma Hepp, CoreLogic's chief economist who gave a national economic update.

Below are a few takeaways with Losey's outlook for the Austin metro's housing market over the next several months. Losey made the comments in a weekly audio interview called "Driving It Home" that features Losey and the board's CEO, Emily Chenevert.

• Inflation will continue…

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