GoodLife Team

Note to readers: The Wise Assessment is posted on the first day of every month. We post our stats later than other real estate companies because we want the most accurate numbers available…and this makes them worth waiting for! Other agents simply copy and paste graphs that they get from other sources and offer no opinions to the marketplace conditions. We track data in house and compare the market on a whole to what we produce internally in order to produce an opinion of the data and give our thoughts of what we are personally experiencing as a top Austin Real Estate Brokerage.

Keep reading for the written Wise Assessment and/or listen to our interpretations on our latest VLOG:

Single Family Monthly Graphs

This month, I decided to mix things up a bit. I have been receiving a lot of responses via email and phone from readers that they love the stats, but want to look at the pretty pictures first. You ask, you receive. Additionally, I am including an overall market summary report below so you can have a full review of the entire Austin market before we get to my interpretations of the data.

Overall Market Summary Report

The Wise Assessment

• SELLERS: The supply (Active Listings) is on a seasonal decline right now, which means if you are interested in selling, you will have less competition. However, demand is declining at the same time. If you want to sell, you will need to have the very best house for the money (we call this value) so you can attract the ever-decreasing number of buyers.The good news: if demand and supply are declining at the same rate, prices will not be affected much. Why is this? As supply and demand remain evenly matched, prices will neither rise nor fall…rather, they will stay fairly consistent. So, you can expect to get the same amount of money for your Austin home that you would have last month, but there are fewer buyers looking so it could take longer and you need to be the BEST house in your price range and price to SELL.If you bought your Austin home in the past few years and are selling it today, your home is most likely worth less than what you paid for it - not worth more. Please see the statistics above that show the average sales price is 5% less now than just 1 year ago. That means you will not be selling for a profit but for a loss. To learn more about pricing your home, read Krisstina’s article, “Are You Still Living In A Bubble“.

• BUYERS: Is it time to get off the proverbial fence? Is the market stabilizing, and is my investment protected against further declines? Anyone telling you that we have fully recovered and are in the clear must have a magic 8 ball that works better than mine! The only way we will be able to definitively say that we have reached the recovery zone is this: we study history (the past) and make interpretations of what has already happened. We cannot predict the future; otherwise we would all be rich and retired.Has the market rebounded? My assessment is that it is too soon to tell. This in no way should detract you from investigating the purchase of an Austin home today. However, I recommend you either find a really good magic 8 ball (let me know if you find one) or seek professional help from experts in the industry; otherwise you may pay too much for your home.Thinking of buying, but not quite sure if now is a good time? Check out The Perfect Storm by Krisstina Wise in her most recent article, “Here Come Higher Interest Rates“. In a time when interest rates are at a historic low, coupled with very low home prices, we all get to take advantage of low mortgage payments. Please refer to the article for a brief, simple and thorough description of this situation and what it really means to you.

• Property Virgins (aka First-time Homebuyers): Time is short, and you must buy now to take advantage of Uncle Sam’s $8,000 tax credit. The deadline to close on your home is November 30…and this means that you must be under contract this week to qualify for this unprecedented stimulus. Interest Rates are Low AND Prices are lower than they have been in years. Do you really think you will find a better time to buy your first home? Click on the link for more Info on This Limited Time Offer from the government.

Sales Closed by Month (Demand)

As you will note from the details of the graph, we are tracking the seasonality of residential real estate sales. Granted, the bold green line is shifted downward, but we continue to track the historical movements of sales, year after year. In June of this year, we experienced a steep incline in the number of transactions which was a launchpad to help us begin tracking very closely to last year’s summer months. Normally I would predict that we will continue to track last year’s sales very closely. However, we have noticed a spike in activity for September and anticipate an unseasonable, atypical number of sales for the month. Look forward to next month to see if we overtake the dark green line from 2008!

Active Listings (Supply)

Currently there are 9,500 homes for sale in Austin. This is 8% less homes than were on the market just 1 year ago. How did that happen, and what does it mean? As you will note from the sales graph, we had a significant increase in sales over the past 3 months which helped absorb our inventory..thereby reducing active listings. Also, there have been fewer homeowners putting their homes on the market this summer (who wanted to sell a house when it was 108 degrees outside, the grass was browner than the dirt of west Texas, and Austinites stayed indoors). But what drove buyers to endure the heat when sellers would have none of it? The Perfect Storm. Interest rates remained low all year, prices have remained low, and mortgage payments are now a fraction of what they would have been just a couple of years ago. Ergo, The Perfect Storm.

Average Sales Price

This graph is the child of the first two graphs I create for you. Prices are driven by supply and demand and are completely predictable. As we noticed the supply remaining relatively flat in May and demand increased, the only outcome that could be produced for pricing is indicated in the graph above: they increased. This fall, if supply continues to fall and demand follows suit, we can anticipate that our average sales price will remain relatively flat. However, if supply of homes for sale level out and demand continues to decline with the seasonality, our average sales price will decline as well. Let’s watch this evolve and study the different possibilities as fall continues to bring better weather and rain for our aquifers!

Want specific data pertaining to your neighborhood? We have it! Please let us know if you would like a neighborhood-specific analysis by emailing us at experience@goodlifeteam.com or calling us at 512.892.9473.

Simple Summary

Want to sell your house more quickly than your competitor?

Get really good help from proven professionals

and

Price your house accordingly.

The data provided to create these graphs are available to you by FREE subscription to our monthly update service.  Please email us experience@goodlifeteam.com to receive your monthly update. Or, catch the wave and follow @GoodLifeTeam on Twitter.

Tags: Market Statistics

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 11:54 am and is filed under Market Statistics, Market Statistics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.