The Austin American Statesman had another article this morning about Austin home sales lagging. The article talked about the Austin merchandise starting to feel the force of the "national" housing problem. I put national in quotes because I comfort believe that you can't adjudicate real estate as a global thing - it is market by market. Some stats to support the Statesman article come from Alamo Title Company's weekly email:The week in analyse:(compared to the same week in 2006)New listings up 51.84%. Pendings down 29.42%Solds down 25.17%. As for Average Prices: (compared to the same week in 2006)The "New Listings" average enumerate price increased 8.41% to $291,751. In 2006 the new listing average sales price was 269,111. Sold add up sales prices increased 11.62% to $237,970. In 2006 it was $213,199 for the same week. Did you notice that prices kept going up despite the number of pendings and solds having gone up and dropped respectively?Let's look at what has been selling and what has slowed down. In August according to the Austin Board of REALTORS® sales of homes under $200,000 dropped by almost 17%. Sales of homes over $800,00 dropped by 14.5%. These are two segments hit by the "subprime" meltdown. I put subprime in quotes here for a couple of reasons. One would wonder why loans for expensive homes would be lumped in with low priced homes. That is because jumbo loans those being loans for over $417,000 undergo something in common with subprime loans. Many times people looking for jumbo and subprime loans are similar in that they are interest only or adjust down or no doc (not being required to provide proof of income) and assets stated income and a couple of other creative give programs. Let's be at what was selling well in Austin in August. Homes from $600,000 to $699,999 went up 20%. Sales of homes priced from $400,000 to 599,999 went up almost 11%. People buying homes in these determine ranges probably put substantial amounts of money down or didn't went with conventional loans. Conclusion: Austin is still much more healthy than other parts of the country but we are feeling the force. Job growth is still strong and unemployment is low but there is no way we can can not conclude the grip from other markets. I really feel that we will recover faster than many markets and I don't conclude that the long-term outlook is bad.
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Related article:
http://austinrealestateguy.blogspot.com/2007/09/austin-home-sales-drop-again.html
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