samarcher’s blog

Check out the Stats: Juice...

nobody@vox.com(samarcher) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:31:13 -0800

Check out the Stats:

We have a higher production per agent than any of the top 10 largest agencies in Austin... We're at close to 3 million in production year to date on average. Good stuff. For a better link on the market share graph below click here

Total Volume per producing agent by office

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PMI Ranks Austin as Minimal Risk - Meaning Great Opportunities for Buyers

nobody@vox.com(samarcher) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:51:13 -0800

So PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) produces a newsletter called Economic and Real Estate Trends that covers a pretty wide gamut of economic risk and models projecting residential real estate risk for the top 50 MSAs, and Austin is among the best performing of these MSA's.

So what does this mean for buyers in this market? Well for those that can qualify under the more stringent lending requirements, it means that you'll be able to take advantage of a buyers market (buying at a discount) with little risk of a downside in the next several years....below is more information related to the data here. I've provided a link to the original report from PMI below.

PMI provides a range of financial products for residential mortgages, public finance obligations, and mortgage-backed securities. This includes residential mortgage insurance and structured finance products to mortgage lenders, depository institutions, commercial banks, capital market participants, and investors in the United States.

What do they say about current trends and risk for the MSA's?

Basically there's a significant amount of risk in three large pockets, California, Arizona and Florida. Austin came out ranked a minimal risk (see map below) and performing 2nd best in appreciation among all MSAs.

Price Risk Map PMI

What are the Numbers they track?

The numbers they track relate to risk which ties in the present housing industry strength, extent of economic and population growth and the exposure to prior hyper appreciation and exposure to sub-prime loans. Basically the Austin-Round Rock MSA performed really well in this context with a minimal risk ranking, and the second best performance in appreciation of all the tracked MSAs.

MSA Risk Chart

The full report that this information is drawn from can be found at http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/63/63356/pmi_eret_fall08.pdf

Let me know if you have any questions about this and what it means for buyers or sellers in the Austin market.

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East Austin, Artists, Early Adopters and Appreciation

nobody@vox.com(samarcher) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:30:32 -0800

There was a great article in Business Week about real estate trends and looking at patterns in appreciation following artists moving into neighborhoods. Basically, it asserts that artists can act as the forerunner for re-development of neighborhoods and are a pre-condition in many cases setting the foundation for the run-up in appreciation of an area. The article mentions specific cities where this is the case and Austin's own eastside is among these. Below is the link to the article.

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/sep2008/bw20080923_944330.htm

There are numerous ways to spot this trend in action, most of it just simply by driving around and being in transitional neighborhoods. In East Austin in particular, the early signs of this change were when the East Austin Studio Tour http://www.eastaustinstudiotour.com/ got underway - which has been around for over 5 years now. The seminal event in this case was the need for large spaces where artist could expand into (and ply their trades) with low overhead.

I'll try to expand on this topic in a future post.

Sam

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The Changing Economic Landscape

nobody@vox.com(samarcher) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:44:06 -0700

November 2008

My family and I just returned from a 12 day overland journey into Mexico for a pretty amazing adventure. There were so many incredible things to share about the special time that we spent there and the absolutely incredible beauty of San Miguel de Allende, Patzcuaro, Zacatecas and the Pacific Coast. I think the most profound thing was the way that we were so completely disconnected from the busi-ness of our daily lives and the way that we were able to really re-connect as a family. Our boys Niko and Gabe are now 8 and 12 respectively and it’s pretty clear that we’re living on borrowed time before the teenage years hit.

On that Friday we came back through San Antonio on our final leg to Austin from Zacatecas (a stunningly beautiful colonial city), and we tuned into the local NPR affiliate there and learned of the complete economic meltdown happening in the stock market and in the financial sector. What a change 12 days can make.

So what does this mean for the housing market? Well, the housing market has fared one heck of a lot better than the stock market generally on the national scale, and in a few pockets (Austin being one of them), the housing market has stayed pretty robust, thank you very much. There was an article that just came out the other day in Forbes that I’d like to share with you that gives you a picture of what’s happening in Austin as a stark contrast to the rest of the country. Below is a snapshot and enclosed is the full article.

The economic storm sweeping the country has left Americans with few places to hide. But those looking to hunker down might want to head to Texas, where they can get the best value for their dollar. That's because Austin and San Antonio lead our list of places where your money goes farthest. Residents of both enjoy affordable housing and promising prospects for job growth in coming years.[1]

If you have any questions about the current status of the housing market in Austin or would just like to talk about what’s happening in your neighborhood, I’d be happy to hear from you. Feel free to call me at 512-633-4650 or email me at Sam@ArcherAustin.com. I’ve invested in some new tools that I think will help give you a better picture of Austin on a per neighborhood basis - with data provided on a weekly basis. If you’d like to receive these reports on an ongoing basis so you can keep on top of local real estate trends let me know. I’m really excited to share this with you. Even if folks aren’t thinking of buying or selling in the near term everyone seems to be perennially curious about the market. It seems to be handily outperforming the stock market at this point.

Thanks and All the Best!

Sam

[1] Forbes Best And Worst Bang For The Buck Cities, 10/10/08

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So the September home sales for Austin just came out....

nobody@vox.com(samarcher) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:26:26 -0700

So the September home sales numbers came out and it looks like Austin's numbers have taken a fairly big dip (down 8%), see below article from the Austin Business Journal...what this means is that a buyers market is being accentuated even more.

Monday, October 20, 2008 - 1:49 PM CDT

Sept. home sales down 8% in Central Texas

Austin Business Journal

Austin area home sales dropped 8 percent last month compared with September 2007, new data shows.

Some 1,670 homes sold last month, contributing about $407 million to the local economy, according to the latest multiple listing service report from the Austin Board of Realtors.

The average amount of time homes are spending on the market rose 18 percent in the last year to 71 days. Meanwhile, active listings are up 2 percent to 10,217 and pending sales have dropped 10 percent to 1,520.

The tougher sales market has put area prices—which had been rising steadily prior to the downturn—in check. The median home price is the same as it was last September, $186,600.

“National economic troubles and limited access to credit continue to impact the local housing industry,” says Socar Chatmon-Thomas, the chairman of the Austin Board of Realtors. Still, Chatmon-Thomas says Austin is managing to avoid some of the pitfalls other cities in the country are seeing and should be able to help lead the economic turnaround.

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First Time Homebuyers Tax Credit

nobody@vox.com(samarcher) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:28:37 -0700

Seems like there’s a whole lot to talk about these days with regard to housing nationally and locally. With all the national attention focused in on the housing crunch, here in Austin we’ve had some reasons to consider ourselves (at least relatively) pretty fortunate. Consider Forbes’ assessment of Austin as its number two pick for where to buy real estate:

The University of Texas campus provides young blood and research-related jobs to No. 2 city Austin. This state capitol is a hip area on the rise. The vacancy rate has fallen by 37.5% in the last 24 months to just 1.5%, despite a lot of building in recent years. Forbes July 14 Issue

Consider also new opportunities arising out of the new housing bill that provides for a tax credit for first time home buyers. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (H.R. 3221) allows first-time home buyers to take a $7,500 tax credit from the purchase of a single-family home, townhome or condominium apartment. This is a fantastic opportunity for a buyer to actually reduce federal income tax exposure while purchasing a home in a market where buyers have more leverage than has been seen in the last ten years.

First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit at a Glance

The tax credit is available for first-time home buyers only.
The maximum credit amount is $7,500.
The credit is available for homes purchased on or after April 9, 2008 and before
July 1, 2009.
Single taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 qualify for the full tax credit.
The tax credit works like an interest-free loan and must be repaid over a 15-year period.

How Does the Home Buyer Tax Credit Work?

This credit offers a $7500 reduction in taxes for first time home buyers. And even if your taxes for the year amount to less than $7500, this is a refundable credit, which means that if the new homeowner pays less than $7,500 in federal income taxes, the government will write them a check for the difference. For example, if $5,000 in federal taxes is owed, the taxpayer would pay nothing and a $2,500 payment would be received from the IRS. If a qualifying home buyer were owed a $1,000 tax refund, they would receive $8,500.

How Do I Get More Information?

Here’s a link (http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/faq.php) to the frequently asked questions about the tax credit. If you or someone you know might like more information on this credit, please feel free to email me at sam@archeraustin.com or call me at 512-633-4650.

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Downpayment Assistance program for first time homebuyers

nobody@vox.com(samarcher) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 10:48:50 -0700

There's a great resource for the City of Austin Downpayment Assistance Program. Check out the details at the link below:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/ahfc/first_dpa.htm

Sam

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Foreclosures up in Austin

nobody@vox.com(samarcher) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 08:07:04 -0700

Foreclosures rise in the Austin area

Postings climb 31% in November.

By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, October 18, 2008

November foreclosure postings in the Austin area jumped 31 percent compared with a year ago, and climbed 26 percent year-to-date, the latest figures show.

Foreclosures could remain high for the foreseeable future, two experts predicted. But they added that the situation wouldn't be nearly as elevated as in many other places in the country, such as Nevada, California and Florida.

In the Austin area, 884 properties were posted for the Nov. 4 foreclosure auction, compared with 673 properties in November 2007, according to Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service Inc, which tracks the numbers. Through November, 8,225 properties have been posted for foreclosure compared with 6,543 from the period from January to November of last year, the company said. The Austin-area figures are a combined total for Travis, Williamson, Hays and Bastrop counties.

In Travis County alone, 457 properties were posted for foreclosure, a 44 percent jump over November 2007, and year-to-date postings have risen 31 percent.

Foreclosures have been on the rise locally and nationally, fueled by factors that include lenient lending practices that made it much easier for many homebuyers to qualify for mortgages they ultimately couldn't afford.

George Roddy Sr., president of Foreclosure Listing Service, said foreclosure postings most likely have peaked, but he added that he expects the current levels to hold through 2009. The average loan on November postings was made four years ago, and problematic loans continued to be made through early 2007, leaving at least a couple years of troubled loans to be weeded out.

Robert Grunnah, owner of Castle Hill Investments LLC, an Austin-based residential investment property brokerage, said foreclosures probably will rise in Central Texas in the next 12 to 18 months as credit markets right themselves.

But Grunnah added that Austin should be spared the foreclosure fallout that many other markets are seeing, because properties didn't appreciate wildly during the boom.

Grunnah said the vast majority of foreclosures are occurring in outlying suburban areas such as Kyle, Buda, Elgin and Manor, where homebuilders sold homes with zero-percent down payments "to people who couldn't afford to make their payments."

Roddy said the 2009 foreclosure outlook is somewhat tentative because it's unknown whether or how the government might aid homeowners who are behind on their mortgages. If there's no help, "we could see high foreclosures for up to two more years," Roddy said.

Grunnah also said that just because a property is posted for foreclosure doesn't mean it will be foreclosed on. Experts advise homeowners with delinquent mortgages to talk with their lenders.

snovak@statesman.com; 445-3856

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Austin on Best Bang for Buck Cities

nobody@vox.com(samarcher) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 07:44:42 -0700

Best and Worst Bang for the Buck Cities

Abha Bhattarai, Forbes.com

Oct 10th, 2008

The economic storm sweeping the country has left Americans with few places to hide.

But those looking to hunker down might want to head to Texas, where they can get the best value for their dollar.

That's because Austin and San Antonio lead our list of places where your money goes farthest. Residents of both enjoy affordable housing and promising prospects for job growth in coming years. Houston and Dallas also land in the top 10, at Nos. 4 and 7, respectively.

In Depth: America's Best-Value Cities

"Texas, as a whole, is one of the few economies that's performing extremely well because of the energy and technology sectors," says Andrew Gledhill, an economist at Moody's Economy.com. Plus, he added, military bases in San Antonio have continued to draw a steady steam of personnel and federal employees to the city, spurring widespread job growth.

The state's manufacturing sector has also grown in recent years, and a reputation for affordable housing continues to lure people to the South. When accounting for median household income, a house in Dallas, for example--with a median price of about $150,000--is four times more affordable than a house in Los Angeles, the worst-ranked city on our list.

A house in New York is three times less affordable than in Charlotte, N.C., and four times less than in Denver, two cities where your money goes far and where the median house costs $245,000, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Housing has remained affordable in the South and Midwest, thanks to growing populations, relatively lax building regulations and "lots and lots of land," said Daniel McCue, a research analyst at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Plus, he added, housing in cities like Houston "grew at a more controlled pace and didn't go overboard like in Phoenix or Las Vegas," which means houses won't lose much value in coming months.

Three Midwestern cities round out the top 10: Indianapolis; Columbus, Ohio; and Minneapolis. The worst-ranked cities, after Los Angeles, were Providence, R.I.; New Orleans; Philadelphia; and Cleveland.

Behind the Numbers

To ensure that our list reflected future value instead of past bargains, we began by looking at projected job growth through 2012 in the 40 largest U.S.-Census-defined metropolitan areas of the country with data from Moody's Economy.com.

Texan cities were a clear winner, with economists predicting job growth of at least 2% by 2012 in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Houston. By comparison, job growth in cities at the bottom of our list, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Cleveland, is expected to be about 0.2%.

We then calculated the ratios between each city's median house price and median household income, using 2000 U.S. Census figures, the latest available, and 2007 data from the National Association of Realtors. Next, we compared median income to Moody's cost of living index.

Final factors included the average gas price in each city on a given day in October as collected by AAA, and year-over-year inflation growth as calculated by Moody's and Forbes.com.

Top Spots

The factors that make the cities on our list valuable--affordable housing, relatively low gas prices, sluggish inflation, a job market that's more vibrant than most--are more than an indication of cheap deals. Instead, they give us a glimpse of the cities that are likely to offer value. Cities like Detroit (which didn't make it to our list) are cheap, but low-income figures and a fading job market won't do much for sustaining worth.

The cities where you'll get the least value include areas like Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C., where median house prices are more than $400,000 and relatively few people can afford them. Cities like Providence, R.I., and Philadelphia are suffering from large waves of out-migration as more and more residents decide to pick up and leave. As a result, local economies stagnate, and prospects for job growth seem bleak--economists predict the number of jobs in Philadelphia will grow by 0.2% by 2012 and by 0.1% in Providence.

But, economists say, no state has been as hard hit as California.

"California is being faced with a combination of a zillion things--the state's been in a prolonged recession, and at the same time, you have some of the least affordable housing in the country," says Gledhill. "We'll probably start seeing a bottom in the housing market late next year, but it'll be a while until we see a real recovery."

Los Angeles' misfortunes, however, have helped boost the economy in cities like Portland, Ore. It and Seattle have become attractive alternatives for those looking to leave California in search of affordable housing and lower costs of living.

The value of a dollar in different cities is also closely linked to local inflation rates. In Austin, for example, year-over-year inflation rates rose by 5%, while in Portland, that figure was nearly 5.7%. Local inflation rates ranged from 3.2% in St. Louis (No. 8 on the worst list) to 5.82% in Dallas (No. 7 on the best list).

But keep in mind, even cities that ranked well on our list aren't immune from the forces of today's downturn. Gledhill says economic growth in Portland, which has already begun to slow, will be compounded further by California's slowdown.

Things won't be much better in Columbus, according to Bodhi Ganguli, an economist at Moody's. So far, the city has weathered the storm better than its local counterparts. But he said, "an extremely high foreclosure rate" and bleak expectations for job growth will begin to take their toll on the city's economy.

Things may turn for those in Charlotte, which has fared relatively well so far. That's because housing prices never reached exorbitant highs, which shielded the city from a major housing bust.

But as the Charlotte-based Wachovia gets swallowed by Wells Fargo, Gledhill says, "a more measured deterioration is on its way."

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