Grossman & Jones Real Estate Blog - real estate

"Housing Starts Post Sharpest Drop Since April 2020"

Realtor.com reports, "The numbers: Construction of new U.S. homes fell 14.8% in January as home builders scaled back new projects.

The pace of construction slowed as builders curtailed their activity amid wintry weather in the U.S. in January.

Housing starts fell to a 1.33 million annual pace from 1.56 million in December, the government said Friday. That’s how many houses would be built over an entire year if construction took place at the same rate every month as it did in January.

Housing starts fell to the lowest level since August 2023.

The drop in January was the sharpest since April 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, when starts fell by nearly 27%. Not including that pandemic drop, housing starts fell by the most since 2015.

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"50 winners revealed for Austin Residential Real Estate Awards"

Austin Business Journal shares, "it's almost time to honor Central Texas' top-selling Realtors, along with superlative homebuilders and master-planned communities.

Austin Business Journal's 2024 Residential Real Estate Awards are scheduled for next month. The winners, listed below, will be recognized and rankings per category will be revealed at the annual event. Winning builders and neighborhoods will also be awarded based on judging by the ABJ.

Even as the Austin housing market normalizes from the high-flying days of the pandemic, Central Texas Realtors and builders have stayed busy and have plenty to celebrate. The March 21 luncheon will be held at the JW Marriott Austin. For more information or to secure tickets, go here.

Read about last…

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"New real estate report calls Austin housing market 'optimistic'"

KVUE AUSTIN, Texas writes, — "Real estate experts are calling the housing market in Austin "optimistic."

Unlock MLS released its January market analysis on Wednesday. It shows the median home sales price in the Austin-Round Rock area dropped about 4% to $430,000. At the same time, residential home sales increased by about 4% compared to the year before.

A housing economist for Unlock MLS and the Austin Board of Realtors (ABoR) said although mortgage rates are still elevated, a recent decline is leading to lower home prices and an increase in closed sales.

“January marks the 15th consecutive month of year-over-year median sales price declines in the Austin-Round Rock housing market, empowering more homebuyers to enter our…

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"Mortgage rates hold steady to start 2024. Is an uptick in the housing market on its way?"

Austin Business Journal writes, "the nation's for-sale housing market is off to a mixed start this year after a 2023 that proved largely challenging for homebuyers.

Existing-home sales ended 2023 down about 19% from the prior year, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. While the number of transactions declined, prices rose in most metro areas through the end of the year, and that trend appears to be holding up early into 2024.

In fact, single-family existing-home sale prices rose in 86% of metro areas measured by the NAR — or 189 of 221 — in the fourth quarter. That's up from 82% in the third quarter.

At the end of 2023, the national median single-family existing-home price was up 3.5% from the year prior, to $391,700.

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"Developers in Travis County regain public improvement districts but with higher fees"

Austin Business Journal writes, "developers in Travis County have a financial tool back at their disposal that's designed to support large-scale real estate projects, but they may not be supportive of all the changes made to the reworked program.

That's because revisions to public improvement districts, or PIDs, include an increase in community benefit charges tied to certain projects. Previously, developers paid a fee equal to 10% of total investment if their projects didn't include enough affordable housing, but that has been raised to 17.5%. The application fee for a PID has also been increased from $55,000 to $150,000.

Adam Boenig, co-president of Brohn Homes — among the region's most active residential developers — called the higher fees a…

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"Austin rents lose steam, with second-steepest decline in December among major U.S. metros"

Austin American-Statesman reports, "just as it is a buyer's market in Central Texas' single-family housing market, so too is it a renter's market in the Austin-area apartment market.

Likely to the dismay of landlords and delight of tenants, Austin saw the second-steepest yearly decline among metros in the latest study by Rent.com.

Rents in Austin dropped 12.5% in December compared with December 2023, according to the study, which tracked rates in the nation's 50 largest metros.

Asking rents in Austin were $1,985 a month in December, versus $2,270 a month the prior December, the study said.

Austin's decline was followed by Raleigh, North Carolina, where rents dropped almost 12.2% to $1,873, and the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise metro, where…

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"Hundreds of apartments slated to rise in Thomas Ranch development west of Austin"

Austin Business Journal reports, "Thomas Ranch, a 2,200-acre mixed-use project on the shores of Lake Travis, continues to take shape.

Salt Lake City-based developer Areté Collective LP has been toiling away on the first phase of construction — a private residential community named Loraloma — while Wasatch Premier Properties recently came on board to build hundreds of multifamily units on another 58 acres west of Austin. Areté Collective recently sold the 58 acres to Wasatch, an arm of Utah-based Wasatch Group, according to a Jan. 30 announcement.

Wasatch's "decision to become the inaugural development partner within Thomas Ranch’s downtown district brings us one step closer to delivering a lively destination to live, work, and play in West…

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"14 Austin Real Estate Startups and Companies Making the Industry Smarter"

Built in ATX writes, "Austin remains one of the country’s hottest real estate markets, so its booming real estate tech sector should come as no surprise. From tightening renter relations between the tenants and the landlords to skipping the commission take by realtors, here are the Austin tech companies making it easier for realtors, renters, homeowners and leasers alike to operate in real estate.

TOP REAL ESTATE TECH COMPANIES IN AUSTIN

• Realtor.com
• Virtual Staging Solutions
• Agent Pronto
• RealSavvy 
• Billd
• OJO

What they do: Closinglock offers real estate tech for fraud prevention. It serves title companies, legal offices and financial service providers in an industry vulnerable to wire fraud, impersonation and other…

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"Austin takes top spot as 'best-performing' US city"

Austin Business Journal reports, "the Austin area has retaken the top spot on the Milken Institute's prestigious 2024 Best-Performing Cities list.

Such a listing will undoubtedly draw the eyes of people looking for a new place to live or start a business, and it combats anyone's perception that Austin has passed its prime.

The index from the nonprofit think tank has been published annually since 1999 and ranks cities on a variety of metrics, including job creation, wage growth and output growth. Designed to help the public and private sectors evaluate and compare cities throughout the nation, the list is particularly handy for Realtors, job recruiters and site selectors.

Austin's position this year at the summit of Milken's largest cities…

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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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