Austin Real Estate News

by Ben Morton

All economic signs point towards rates going down.The stock market is down, weak economic growth (GDP), and consumer sentiment is down. Although these would indicate a break in interest rates, we saw rates increase by .125% this week.

Why is this?

Clearly we are in uncharted waters with the opposing forces…declining economy and the stimulus package(s). The traditional economic announcements don’t have near the impact they used to. This week the Fed Funds rate was not lowered as it doesn’t have much more room to go at 0-.25%. Furthermore, the majority of the mortgage backed securities that the Fed is buying are 30 Yr. 5.0% and 5.5% coupons. That is why we’re seeing rates between these 2 numbers. A small percentage of the bonds being purchased are 4.5%, this allows the Fed to continue the purchase programs through June if need be. To sum it up, this practice prolongs the ability to sustain rates around 5% for a longer period of time, as opposed to 4.5% for shorter period of time.

For now, rates are as follows:

CONFORMING
30 Yr Fixed    5.125%, 1 pt.
15 Yr Fixed    4.875%, 1 pt.

JUMBO
7 Yr ARM    5.550, 1 pt.

Note: The Austin Mortgage Rate Update is provided by Ben Morton. Great Austin Properties, LLC does not receive any monetary gain nor do we guarantee the rates quoted above. We provide this information to you to help keep you informed of the Austin market.

We just added new neighborhood profiles for the Balcones Woods Neighborhood and the Mesa Park Neighborhood. Both communities are conveniently located in Northwest Austin between The Arboretum and Domain shopping areas, and both neighborhoods are established communities with strong home owners’ associations. Learn more about these Austin neighborhoods and search for Balcones Woods homes for sale and Mesa Park homes for sale in our Austin Neighborhoods Guide.

If you are ready to see homes or sell an Austin home, please call Great Austin Properties at 512.600.1800 – we would love to help you with your Austin real estate needs and help you learn more about great Austin neighborhoods.

by Ben Morton

Rates remain low, but not quite as good as last week. The Fed still has $450 billion to purchase mortgage backed securities which would lead towards interest rates going down. However, this week, earnings like GE and Google coming in at expectations provide resistance.

What can we expect? As the government announces another injection of funds into the mortgage market we can expect rates to go down. Something to consider is, as these stimulus programs continue it very well could lead to inflation later in the year. While things are very good right now, it won’t last forever; hopefully for most of the year, but…! The market is still volatile, so I recommend any purchase locks waiting on deck to lock when rates dip.

Rates as of Friday, January 23, 2009:

CONFORMING
30 Yr Fixed 5.00%, 1 point
15 Yr Fixed 4.75%, 1 point

JUMBO
7 Yr ARM 5.550, 1 point

Note: The Austin Mortgage Rate Update is provided by Ben Morton. Great Austin Properties, LLC does not receive any monetary gain nor do we guarantee the rates quoted above. We provide this information to you to help keep you informed of the Austin market.

We just found a great tool to help you decide how to arrange furniture in your home. Check out the Icovia Space Planner at http://www.icovia.com/design/. Use it to determine if your current furniture will fit in your new home, or if a new piece you’ve had your eye on will work in your current space. You first define your room size, then choose from hundreds of predefined furniture types and shapes to place in the room. You can even customize pieces with length and width dimensions and add windows and door openings to your room as needed. Here’s a screen shot of a room we created with Icovia:

Have fun with this great design tool! 

We have had a Great Hills Neighborhood Quick Search (see top right of every page) on our site for some time now, but just today we added a Great Hills Neighborhood profile. Through our research for the profile, we discovered our Great Hills Austin Quick Search needed a change so we updated it. Check out the new Great Hills Neighborhood Profile, and use the Quick Search to see the 28 Great Hills Homes for Sale that are on the market today. If you would like to see any of these homes, please call us at 512.600.1800 – a REALTOR on our Great Austin Properties team would love to meet you!

We just added Anderson Mill, Angus Valley, and Champions Forest to our Northwest Austin Neighborhoods Guide. Both Anderson Mill and Angus Valley are established neighorhoods in Austin with homes built mostly in the 1970s-1980s, while Champions Forest is newer with homes built between 1980 and the early 2000s. While homes in Angus Valley and Champions Forest range from $200,000-$300,000, you will find some less expensive homes in Anderson Mill. All three areas are in great NW locations with easy access to shopping and central Austin.

Let us know if you want to see more in these or other great Austin neighborhoods. Call Great Austin Properties at 512.600.1800 to learn more about Austin real estate – our Realtors are ready to serve you.

Freddie Mac said today that “the average rate on 30-year U.S. fixed-rate mortgages dropped for a 10th consecutive week as of Thursday, to 5.01 percent, after the Federal Reserve launched its plan to lower home borrowing costs.” Freddie Mac’s chief economist elaborated by saying “mortgage rates have dropped nearly 1.5 percentage points since October, creating a savings of about $184 per month on a $200,000 loan.” This is good news if you are in the market to buy a home…and good news for those of you selling with new refinancing opportunities, and hopefully more buyers interested in taking advantage of the unprecedent rate drops. Read the full article at CNBC.com.

Call Great Austin Properties at 512.600.1800 to buy and sell Austin real estate – rates won’t stay this low forever!

We’ve just added three new neighborhoods to our Austin Neighborhoods Guide: Lewis Mountain Ranch, The Estates of Lewis Mountain, and The Overlook at Lewis Mountain. These communities are all off 1826 in Southwest Austin, a ranch road that connects Hwy 290 W to Hwy 45 (which turns into South Mo-Pac). It’s a great SW location to call home, and the scenery in the Lewis Mountain neighborhoods is beautiful hill country. Homes sit on at least an acre, and range in price from $500,000 – $1M+.

Read more about Southwest Austin Neighborhoods in our Southwest Austin Neighborhoods Guide, and be sure to call us at 512.600.1800 if you want to tour communities or homes. We hope you will allow Great Austin Properties to help you with your next Austin real estate sale or purchase!

We’ve blogged about it before, but it’s always fun when we hear Austin is one of the top 10 places to live in the U.S., so we are blogging about it again!  MSNBC released their top 10 on January 4th and put Austin on the list at #8.  They created their list by looking at rankings released by Forbes magazine, Kiplinger.com, Money magazine, Fortune Small Business magazine and Relocate-America.com, and quoted Kiplinger.com as the reason Austin made the list: the Austin area offers “a strong economy, a solid, moderately priced housing market, a growing population and enough natural beauty to justify staying outside.” Got that right. Austin is an incredible place to live and work – we know – we live here!

Seems MSNBC is fond of Texas – Houston and San Antonio also made their list. You can read the full MSNBC Best Cities list here.

If you are ready to call Austin home, or already call Austin home and are ready to find a new home in our great city, be sure to call us. We are eager to assist you with your Austin real estate needs. Contact Great Austin Properties at 512.600.1800 today!

At AustinHomeListings.com we are always adding new neighborhoods to our Austin Neighborhoods Guide to help our visitors get to know the many communities in the Austin area. The newest addition is the Grandview Hills neighborhood in the Four Points area. Learn more about this established community and its new custom home section on our Grandview Hills Neighborhood profile page. You can search for Grandview Hills homes for sale directly from that page, or use our Austin home search tools to do an area wide search for Austin Homes for Sale. Find something you want to see? A member of our professional real estate team would love to show you homes. Contact Great Austin Properties at 512.600.1800 – we look forward to hearing from you!