August 2007 - Posts
I had a comment left after posting about why Floridians are moving to Texas. The comment stated that there are many other southern states and Midwestern states in which the cost of housing and the cost of living wasn't expensive. That is true, but
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Home sales plunged again in July across the country. The National Association of REALTORS® stated that existing (resale) home sales dropped 3.8% in July, 2007. The press loves this stuff. They love to print how bad things are. Face it, good news doesn't
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I was talking with Ken Smith, a Chicago REALTOR® , about the recent rain in his area and it got me thinking again about all the rain Central Texas has seen this summer. Some of you may have seen my posts about Lake Travis going from 42 beet below
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Condos here, condos there, Austin condos everywhere. How many units are planned? There are around 1400 being built mow with another 3000+ over the next few years. Just as we saw back in the mid 80s and late 90s, there are cranes all over downtown Austin.
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The Austin area had a 2% decline of home sales in July. We are also down 2% for the year compared to 2006, which was a record setting year. Is this a cause for concern? I don't think so. The tightening of requirements for buyers to get a loan probably
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The Lakeway - Lake Travis Rotary Club is revving up our drive to raise money for scholarships. Our annual car raffle kicks off September 6 at Buster's BBQ in Bee Cave. Free food, live music by the Magnolia Band and lots of fun will be had. Come out
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Highway 71 is busy - very busy. Now another subdivision planned for the stretch of 71 between Bee Cave and the county line could add another 1000+ homes to that part of Western Travis County. I drove to Marble Falls and back last week and saw that construction
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I got my registration renewal notice from the state of Texas in the mail a couple of weeks ago and saw that Texas has an online renewal option. Somewhat sceptically, I did the online renewal. I had an email within 24 hours telling me to look for my renewal
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Two different numbers just came out that are significant. They have nothing to do with each other, but hey - why break this into two posts. First, the Fed dropped the discount rate to 5.75%. This is the rate that the Federal Reserve charges banks to borrow
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I had a call from a lady in Florida a few days ago. She was asking about home prices in Austin and the overall health of the market. She told me that she just had to get out of Florida and that Austin looked like the best place to be in. I asked this
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Central Texas has seen more than its share of rain this year. Many places have already received double their annual amount of rain and that was before Tropical Storm Erin decided to hit Texas. San Antonio appears to have been absolutely swamped today.
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I saw an interesting update on the Austin real estate market this morning that was put together by a local research firm. Some of the highlights for you numbers people: 1.7 million square feet of space absorbed and rents up almost 6%. A lot of that was
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The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization wants to upgrade some Austin highways. The problem is that they are short of money needed for the upgrades. The answer may be more toll roads for the Austin area. Many people hate the idea of having
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The LCRA is thinking about raising the price it charges for water in some rural areas of Central Texas. They claim that the topography of the Hill Country is such that their cost to run water lines is very expensive. because of this, the LCRA wants to
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Strange title, I know, but read on. An article from Bloomberg News talked about how housing woes are putting a squeeze on corporate profits. The gist of it was that slowing home starts have reduced the demand for everything from lumber to counter tops
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A Canadian developer has plans for a very large development in the southeast Austin area. Over the next 20 or so years, Carma Texas, Inc. plans to add around 7,500 single-family homes, over a million square feet of retail space and around 3,500 condos
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