2006 Austin Home Sales Sizzled

AUSTIN (Austin American-Statesman) – December’s Multiple Listing Service report from the Austin Board of Realtors shows single-family home sales were higher than during the same period in 2005, capping another record year for the area housing market.

Single-family home sales for the month were up 3 percent from last year, totaling almost 2,000, with the year-end total sold at almost 27,000, a 10 percent increase from 2005.

The December single-family median price rose 4 percent to $177,500, and the year-end median price rose 6 percent to $174,500.

Average days-on-market was 63 days, the lowest time span in four years. The number of active listings declined by 4 percent to just over 7,800, marking the lowest number since 2001.

See all Austin Homes For Sale at Austin Home Listings.com

Austin is #1 in my rankings!

The annual magazine rankings are out and Austin has faired quite well again. For the last five or six years, it seems like the bevy of business and personal magazines that do these rankings have been pretty hot on Austin.  Who can argue with them? Austin is a great place to live.

BEST PLACES TO LIVE - Kiplinger.com

1. Nashville, TN
2. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
3. Albuquerque, NM
4. Atlanta, GA
5. Austin, TX

BEST BIG CITIES - CNN.Money.com

1. Colorado Springs, CO
2. Austin, TX

SMARTEST CITIES - Austin Business Journal

1. Seattle, WA
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Austin, TX

What is the MLS?

What is the MLS?
The MLS, or officially the Multiple Listing Service, is an agreement among cooperating REALTORS® to share their agency’s listing information for the benefit of their clients. REALTORS® do this using a professionally run database of information about homes for sale within the area that their Board serves. For instance, Austin and surrounding area properties are served by the MLS system managed by the Austin Board of REALTORS®. Because the MLS system is run by a local REALTOR® organization with permissions and rules regarding its use, the accuracy of information in an MLS system is far greater than a open community database could ever achieve. Funds to maintain the MLS system come from REALTORS® in the form of dues paid throughout the year.
How It Works
REALTORS® hired by home sellers to represent them, list the clients’ property in the MLS. The REALTOR® includes all types of information that a buyer would need to evaluate a property including price, square feet, location, bedrooms and more. Other REALTORS®, representing people who wish purchase property, search the MLS for properties that meet the needs of their clients.

How can I list my home on the MLS?
Hire a REALTOR® to represent you, the property seller. A REALTOR® who is member of the board where you wish to list your home is the only person who can access the MLS.

When I am using AustinHomeListings.com, am I searching the MLS?
No. A subset of the listing data entered in the actual MLS is made available to other REALTORS® for use on their websites. This subset of data comes in the form of a data feed called the IDX exchange usually once a day in the middle of the night. This data refreshes sites such as http://www.austinhomelistings.com/. Savvy Real estate professionals have learned to build websites that allow online users to search area homes for sale but the online users are NOT searching the actual MLS. Again, they are searching a subset of the data. In fact, the actual MLS system will always have more up to date information because the REALTOR® websites and sites such as REALTOR.com, have to wait for information via the IDX data feed. Once the IDX data feed comes in, it still doesn’t contain all the valuable data, such as days on market, how to access the home, when was it last sold. Only a REALTOR® will have access to all the information that will help you find the best home and negotiate the best price by accessing all the data in the MLS.

Will my home achieve a higher valuation if its listed on the MLS?
Research says yes. Sellers that work with a REALTOR® with the home listed in MLS, typically achieve a 20 percent higher valuation than those that do not. This information was provided by the Austin Board of REALTORS.
I want to sell my home on my own, but want it listed on the MLS, too. Can I do that?
Yes and no. In Texas, real estate agents are required to provide a minimum level of service to clients. If a REALTOR® lists your home on the MLS, at a minimum they must also help you evaluate and negotiate offers you receive from buyers. However, when you use a REALTOR®, their time and experience are working for you as well. In addition to selling your home for a higher price than you’ll likely achieve on your own, REALTORS® save you time and will protect your interests.

Austin Homes Sales set records

The latest MLS report from the Austin Board of REALTORS indicates that the Austin real estate market continued to grow at a record pace in Nov 2006. Single family home sales increased six percent from one year ago, a record for the period. The median price for single family homes in the Austin area was $175,000, a 3% increase from last November. The $454,953,216 these sales contributed to the local economy reflects a 12% increase from last year. Current active listings increased by 3%, while new listings decreased by 3%.

This is what is known as a Seller’s Market. Plain and simple, seller’s are in better position to sell their home today than almost any other time in Austin’s history.  You may have heard that the nation is experiencing a housing slow down. Why is Austin different?  Well for one, the Austin housing market was hit pretty hard by the dot.com tech bust in 2000 which caused homes to drop significantly in value in a very short time period. In the subsequent years, the Austin housing market was slower to make a “come back” than other areas around the nation. So while cities on both coasts were experiencing one of the most rapid increases in home prices from 2002 - 2005, Austin housing price increases were much more moderate. Fast forward to 2006 and it appears that we have caught up the nation in the ‘mad dash’ run up in prices.  Are we now at the top and headed towards correction in Austin? No one knows for sure, but the economic indicators continue to point towards another banner year in 2007.  Attached below is a link to the City’s short term economic forecast.  In summary, the city economists are saying the following…

• All aggregate indicators of the Austin economy are very positive at this point – job growth, tax revenue, retail sales, building activity, etc. 

• Virtually every sector is growing, with the exception of manufacturing – should change in the near future. 

• In-migration and economic recovery have combined to create record levels of activity –reminiscent of several past booms.    

• Real estate and construction are especially hot…      

 Source: www.ci.austin.tx.us/budget/06-07/downloads/20060427_budgetpres_2007_forecast_realestate.pdf    

Welcome to AustinHomeListings.com

Thank you for using www.AustinHomeListings.com. This site was built to simplify and empower your Austin home search. How do we do that? Let me explain.

1. Your Search Simplified - We spent a lot of time (and money) designing a nice, clean layout with serious thought as to how a user would interact with the site.  We talked to friends and asked them what home search sites they have used in the past and what they wanted in a new site. For example, many people told us that they already know what neighborhood they want to live in, but there was no online tool to find homes for sale for their desired subdivision. For those users, we built the Quick Search with pre-defined queries for homes in over seventy Austin neighborhoods. We are adding neighborhoods to this list all the time. If you don’t see the neighborhood your looking for, email us and we will add it.

2. Your Search Empowered - With Austin homes selling at a record pace, I want you to have the information before your competition, the other guy who wants the same home you want, knows about it. Using our site, you can create a custom Austin Home search that matches your parameters exactly and then tell the site to email you when a new listing matches your criteria.  In many cases, knowing about the home as soon as it is listed can be the difference between getting the home you want and losing it to someone else.