We have many Russ Phillips Team clients looking for properties, both homes and land, in Travis County. According to The Austin Board of Realtors, at the county level, home sales have decreased 12.3% to 1,102 sales as of last month. The median price in Travis County rose 23.8% year over year to $530,000. During the same period, new listings decreased 14.7% to 1,206 listings, while active listings also dropped 25.7% to 603 listings. Pending sales declined 0.7% to 1,511 pending sales as monthly housing inventory decreased 0.1 months year over year to 0.4 months of inventory.
To go one step further, our President, Russ Phillips’ most recent blog post, “A Note From Russ On His 20th Real Estate Anniversary: Inflation, Supply vs. Demand, Beating of War Drums & More,” discusses the overall state of Central-Texas real estate inventory. It's really low across the board, not just Travis County. Check out this snippet from Russ’ realty wisdom to get a better viewp ...

As many of you know from reading our President, Russ Phillips’ most recent blog post, “A Note From Russ On His 20th Real Estate Anniversary: Inflation, Supply vs. Demand, Beating of War Drums & More,” real estate inventory is low right now. Really low. Check out this snippet from Russ’ realty wisdom to get a better viewpoint on the current marketing inventory:

“A neutral/balanced market between buyers and sellers is thought to be enough homes on the market that it would take SIX months to sell all available inventory (if the pace of sales remained constant and no new listings were added).   

But we don't have 6 months' worth of homes to buy. The current supply across many price points and regions is below 1/2 a month. There are niches (like 1-3 acre lots with custom homes in West Georgetown for example) where literally the cheapest available home fitting this criteria is $1.1 million, and the SECOND CHEAPEST is $3.3 million. Everythin; ...

Bell County is currently a sellers market, meaning that there are more people looking to buy than there are homes available. The median listing home price in Bell County, TX was $249.5K in January 2022, trending up 21.7% year-over-year. The median listing home price per square foot is also $131. This means that if you have a great piece of property, with or without a home, it's a great time to sell (& we have clients looking exactly in this area!)
As many of you know from reading our President, Russ Phillips’ most recent blog post, “A Note From Russ On His 20th Real Estate Anniversary: Inflation, Supply vs. Demand, Beating of War Drums & More,” real estate inventory is low right now. Really low. Check out this snippet from Russ’ realty wisdom to get a better viewpoint on the current marketing inventory:

“A neutral/balanced market between buyers and sellers is thought to be enough homes on the market that it would take SIX months to sell all; ...

This is an hour long presentation on local economics, given this week by David Tandy, CEO of Texas National Title.  For those of us who enjoy geeking out on economics (and like them presented in layman's terms), this is pretty awesome.  

I'll bet you didn't know this, but I am officially an Endangered Species. I am a native Austinite that is over 40 years old. I was here before hipsters, Starbucks, and skinny jeans. According to statistics I made up last Wednesday, I am one of only FOUR native Austinites at this age or older that you are destined to meet in your lifetime.  

Why should you care? (My kids ask this too....just silently with an eye roll....) 

Well, I grew up in a Real Estate family here watching and learning as we navigated the last significant inflation the news keeps referring to. I remember the Carter Administration. I remember the Miracle on Ice at the Lake Placid Olympics (which I watched in shorts because hey...I was in Austin). I remember when mortgage rates were flirting with reaching 20%. I remember that we had not one, but TWO boom and bust cycles in Texas Real Estate in the 1980s. The second one was particularly challenging to my family's sphere of influence, and I remembe ...