Luxe Austin Homes - housing

"Mortgage rates drop again, creating opportunity for homebuyers: Freddie Mac"

Fox Business reports, "mortgage rates dropped back down again last week and even though it was slight, the decrease had an impact on homebuyer demand, according to Freddie Mac.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 6.33% for the week ending Jan. 12, according to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey. This was a decrease from the previous week when it averaged 6.48% but remains significantly higher than last year when it was 3.45%.

The average rate for a 15-year mortgage was 5.52% last week, down from 5.73% the week before and up from 2.62% last year.  

Mortgage rates have fluctuated in the 6% to 7% range since September, Freddie Mac's data shows. Even though the changes are incremental from week-to-week, the…

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"2022’s Hottest ZIP Codes"

Opendoor writes, "recently, one-third of people across the U.S. told us they would relocate for a lifestyle change. Whether to be closer to outdoor and recreational activities or to join a close-knit community, the desire to belong remained strong in 2022 as the recalibration of work and personal priorities encouraged people to move away from city centers.

To see where people were buying homes in 2022, we reviewed the top 20 hottest neighborhoods across Opendoor markets. While the top 10 included many repeat favorites, it was the next 10 neighborhoods that were most intriguing. One example: Winter Garden, FL jumped up 5 spots from 2021.

Rising to the top 

These rising neighborhoods have a common thread: a small-town feel while close to a…

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"Home Price Growth Is Cooling Fast—Does It Spell a Big Break for Homebuyers This Year?"

Realtor.com writes, "December brought good tidings to homebuyers in the real estate market.

Nationally, median home list prices dropped about 11% from their peak over the summer to hit $400,000 in December, according to a recent Realtor.com® report. While prices were still up by about 8.4% year over year in December, this was the first time in a year that they rose by only single digits.

In another holiday gift for home shoppers, the number of properties for sale nationally shot up more than 50% compared with a year ago. And homes are sitting on the market for longer, giving buyers an opportunity to think about whether this is the right home for them instead of having to put in an offer on the spot.

Mortgage interest rates even dipped from…

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"Expert Economist Predictions For The Housing Market In 2023: Will Home Prices Decrease?"

Yahoo Finance reports, "the Federal Reserve was under pressure to start its roughly one-year-long journey to control inflation by raising interest rates as a result of stubbornly high costs during 2022.

The housing market has been under tremendous pressure as a result of those month-over-month rises in interest rates because mortgage rates rise in tandem with each Fed rate increase.

The Fed increased borrowing costs, which discouraged prospective homebuyers; in November, sales of new single-family homes fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 640,000, down from 756,000 the year before.

It wasn’t just interest rates.

According to a quarterly study released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the median price of a…

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"Santa Rita Ranch yet again ranks among best-selling neighborhoods"

Austin Business Journal reports, "Liberty Hill’s Santa Rita Ranch has claimed the title of top-selling master-planned community in the Austin area for the third consecutive year.

That distinction comes despite an overall drop in sales, according to Robert Charles Lesser & Co.’s 2022 list of the top selling master-planned communities nationwide. No other Austin-area neighborhood sold enough homes to rank in the country's top 50.

In all, 450 Santa Rita Ranch homes were sold in 2022. That was good enough for the development to top all rivals in the Austin area and secure the No. 32 spot nationally.

RCLCO has conducted a survey to identify the top-selling master planned communities since 1994.

According to Santa Rita Ranch developer Ed Horne,…

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"Austin renters see a tight squeeze with limited availability, says new report"

CultureMap Austin writes, "many looking to rent an apartment in Austin might be having a hard time — and for those wondering why, Rent Cafe offers an answer in its end-of-the-year report on Texas' most-competitive rental markets.

In Austin, renters are mainly staying put, renewing their leases into 2023. According to Rent Cafe, nearly 60 percent of renters and apartment dwellers opted to stay where they were. That's creating a tight squeeze for would-be renters; for every available apartment, there are, on average, 12 renters vying to live there.

Rent Cafe also indicates that apartments in Austin fill up within 30 days and the overall apartment market finds itself at about 95 percent occupancy.

That's great news for rental property owners,…

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"Apartment Rent Growth Set to Keep Slowing This Year"

Realtor.com reports, "the pandemic-fueled boom for multifamily building owners is fading fast going into 2023.

Apartment vacancies are piling up. The biggest wave of new rental buildings in nearly four decades is expected to cut the pace of rent growth across the country. Some in-demand Sunbelt cities are already experiencing rent declines, in part because many tenants and people searching for apartments feel they can’t devote any more of their income to rent.

Rising interest rates, meanwhile, make rental-property investments less profitable than one year ago when debt was cheap and hefty rent increases were taken for granted.

“We’re necessarily going to get a bit of a pullback,” said Thomas LaSalvia, senior economist at Moody’s Analytics.

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"Will High Inflation and Recession Fears Lead to a Drop in Remodeling?"

Realtor.com writes, "during the height of COVID-19, it seemed like everyone knew someone who had bought a home and then remodeled the kitchen, created a home office or gym, or turned the scraggly backyard into an outdoor oasis.

But as the pandemic enters its fourth year, most folks are no longer trapped in their homes obsessing over every flaw. The homebuying frenzy that typically spurs remodeling work has died down. And many people are more concerned with high inflation and the looming threat of a recession than their dream en suite bathroom.

Where does that leave the remodeling industry? In fairly good shape, say most experts. Homeowners are expected to spend even more on remodeling, repairs, and maintenance in 2023 than they did in 2022.

…

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"Austin's hottest real estate stories of 2022: Dramatic market shift and big developments"

CultureMap Austin writes, "as 2022 comes to a close, we're looking back at the stories that defined Austin this year, starting with the red-hot topic of real estate. Following unprecedented growth during the pandemic, Austin's market is poised for a dramatic swing, but that's not all that happened this year. From massive mansions to tall towers and the first "residential winery" in the state, here are the hottest real estate headlines of 2022.

1. $45 million Lake Travis mansion makes a splash as most expensive home for sale in Texas. A Lake Travis estate fit for a celebrity hit the market at $45 million this spring. The property came with big-as-Texas bragging rights, as it was the priciest home on the market in Texas at the time. In 2013, the…

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"Mortgage rates fall for the sixth week in a row"

Yahoo Finance reports, "mortgage rates dropped for the sixth straight week, but housing activity remained muted going into the holidays.

The rate for the average 30-year fixed mortgage slipped to 6.27% from 6.31% the week prior, according to  Freddie Mac . Rates have fallen more than three-quarters of a point since mid-November after the Federal Reserve signaled that it would slow its interest-rate hikes amid cooling inflation.

Still, rates remain 3 percentage points higher than they were at the start of the year, leaving many first-time buyers on the sidelines and sellers — who haven't pulled their listings — more willing to negotiate.

“Heading into the holidays, mortgage rates continued to move down,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief…

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