Develop Austin Texas

The Austin-American Statesman reported last Thursday that new home starts in the Austin area were up 11% in the second quarter of this year.  The new home starts were mostly in the $200,000-$400,000 dollar range, with many people taking advantage of the recently expired tax credit.  According to Residential Strategies, the median price of a new home increased 3 percent to $203,476 in the second quarter but that’s still off 4.3% from the same quarter last year.

The Austin market has remained one of the strongest real estate markets in the country.  We have not seen the big dips in prices that other markets across the country have seen.  This can be attributed to restraint by area builders who did not create an oversupply of housing and to our strong local economy which is still creating jobs.  Just recently Samsung announced they were investing $3.6 billion to expand its semiconductor business here.

Although it’s going to be a slow recovery, it’s good to see that signs are definitely pointing in the right direction.

I just watched the Texaplex video that has been floating around lately. It presents some great facts about our strong economy, job growth and population in the triangle formed by Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Austin and San Antonio. I don’t agree with the blanket term “Texaplex” used to describe the triangle since these are all vastly different cities with their own economies and more importantly their own social and cultural identities. Watch the video and let me know your thoughts…

According to the Austin Board of Realtors, last month, June ‘09, Austin’s home sales were at their highest level in a year.

April’s sales in ‘09 were down 18% from April ‘08. May ‘09 sales were down 19% from May ‘08. But June had a 4% decrease from ‘08, the smallest decrease since the 2% drop in June ‘o8 from June ‘07.

Also in June, Pending Sales (sales set to close in July) were up 4%.

Reasons for the upturn include

• $8,000 tax credit (for homes closed on before December 1)
• Population increase – numbers of people moving from other cities or states
• People looking for lower risk investment opportunities (Real Estate is historically considered a strong investment choice)
• Builders have been building fewer new homes, affecting the balance of supply and demand, and putting more demand on resales.