Texas Realty Blog

Year end results: Houston real estate holds it's own

Are you ready for the annual Texas real estate market statistics or am I the only person who ever gets excited about these things?

Ready or not, most December 2007 market statistics for the largest Texas real estate markets will be released within the next 2-3 weeks. I'll discuss them here, of course.

Houston releases their market statistics earliest, so will probably be covered first.

I have to say that the Houston market is one of the best all-around real estate markets in Texas. I spent my holiday vacation in Magnolia, Texas on the far Northwestern side of Houston. If I had to move from Austin, I'd live in Magnolia. It's rapidly growing, has tons of acreage lots and land, and is not far from the popular Woodlands area.

HOUSTON PRE-ANNUAL MARKET UPDATE   

Here's a quick primer for what you're going to see during the official annual  real estate market reports for Houston.

Texas Real Estate Broker Spotlight: Castle Hill Investments and Crossland Team

By DeeinAustin™

I normally post a community or builder spotlight each Friday, but the short week led me to try something different. This week's spotlight is about two real estate investment rock stars in Austin, Castle Hill Investments and the Crossland Team.

Both Texas real estate brokers specialize in single and multi-family investment property. I chose these two companies because I respect how they do business.

I'm preparing for the upcoming year-end market update, so expect to hear from both Robert Grunnah, Jr. and Steve Crossland on how they think the Austin real estate market will perform in 2008. The 3rd Quarter Austin Market Update was a huge success with over one thousand views of my audio slideshow.

WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT STEVE CROSSLAND'S TEAM?

While the Copeland Group specializes in representing builders and investors in new construction, infill development, lots, land, flips, rehabs, and sale-leaseback opportunities, Steve's team works with many rental investors. Our rental investors, on the other hand, typically acquire portfolios.

Austin Board of REALTORS® Criticism Generates Results, Problems

By DeeinAustin™

Last week, I wrote a much talked-about article about the controversy surrounding the Austin Board of REALTOR®'s late launch of the new MLS tool, MLXchange. Top issues included:

• Numerous kinks and flaws set members back during these last few weeks of the holiday season.
• Mac users could not access automated home reports or personalized sites. Worse, agents were told the issue "may never be resolved".
• I wondered why ABOR limits access by consumers to MLS statistics and data that is provided in detail by Houston and San Antonio.

GOOD NEWS!

Although I didn't see a press release or announcement, my own tests showed that Mac/Safari/Firefox users should be able to see properties from MLXchange as of last Thursday. I was elated and felt that ABOR escalated the browser issue after the public made it clear that this fix could not be ignored or delayed.

MO' CONTROVERSY, MO' PROBLEMS

'Tis a Vacation for Texas Realty Blog

SEASONS GREETINGS from DeeinAustin™ (Dee Copeland) and her guest bloggers.

We wish you and your family a happy holiday season! We will be back on THURSDAY December 27th.

In the meantime, enjoy some of our favorite posts from the trips and traveling section.

FAVORITE TRIPS AND TRAVEL POSTS

Community Spotlight: Alamo Quarry Market and Quarry Village San Antonio

By DeeinAustin™

This week's community spotlight is the Alamo Quarry Market and Quarry Village in San Antonio.

ALAMO QUARRY MARKET and QUARRY CROSSING

The Alamo Quarry Market was part a previous article on North San Antonio shopping areas that incorporate residential living and office space along with entertainment, dining and shopping. Alamo Quarry Market is a mixed-use retail project incorporating retail, dining, entertainment, and specialty shops.

The Alamo Quarry Market website has the brief history of this beautiful development. The location is at the quarry of the old Alamo Cement Plant.

Quarry Crossing is an upscale project incorporating specialty retail and theme restaurants.

UPCOMING ALAMO QUARRY VILLAGE LUXURY APARTMENTS

Texas Lawmakers Take "Green" Boot Approach to Sustainability

By DeeinAustin™

Let's face it. Non-Texans sometimes perceived our state as being behind on the times. Lately, Texas is being recognized for being forward-thinking when it comes to green practices and sustainability. Texas is not just growing a green thumb, we're passing laws that put a "green" boot in the backsides of corporations, developers and new construction builders to encourage them to adopt new practices.

Here's what I mean.

A friend who works for Pepsi-Co International mentioned that large corporations have implemented more strict green requirements from suppliers. In order to supply products or services to Pepsi-co, your company must regularly report measures in areas such as recycling, carbon footprint and sustainable practices. Round Rock-based Dell Computers, Inc. has similar green guidelines for suppliers.

Green requirements are being adopted by Texas State Agencies in the areas of green building, sustainable development of subdivisions, affordable housing, and commercial construction.

COOL GREEN INITIATIVES IN TEXAS

U.S. Housing Market Gloom Lifting?

By Carey Eskridge

While  conventional wisdom has the housing market taking a beating, Texas has been largely immune to the slump that is hitting other parts of the country.

As Dee has pointed out recently, market indicators for San Antonio, Dallas,  Austin, and even Houston may not be the best we've seen in recent years, but there's no "sky is falling" scenario playing out in the Lone Star State. A few recent news items may indicate that recovery is on the way.

Last week saw two bits of potentially good news.

GOOD NEWS FOR THE U.S HOUSING MARKET

First, Freddie Mac reported nearly across-the-board drops in mortgage interest rates. Perhaps most importantly, the average rate on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage fell to it's lowest point since September 2005, resting at 5.96 percent, but rates on 15-year fixed and 5-year adjustable mortgages also fell.

North San Antonio Steps up Shopping and Entertainment

By DeeinAustin™

I visited my hometown of San Antonio this past Thanksgiving. It was fascinating to tour the city and see new mixed-use developments, shopping districts, and family entertainment complexes.

San Antonio has some of the best theme parks, historic architecture, and golf courses in the nation, so it's a great place for retirees, golfers and tourists. When growing up in San Antonio in the 80s and 90s, however, the city was a boring place to be for young people. That seems to be changing, especially in Northeast and Northwest San Antonio.

BEST "NEW" SAN ANTONIO ENTERTAINMENT & SHOPPING AREAS FOR ALL AGES

San Antonio is doing a great job of attracting large commercial ventures to fill in the need for family entertainment and shopping for all ages. Many of the shopping districts are attracting residential multifamily or building this component into the development during latter phases.

Austin Board of REALTORS® Shuts Agents and Mac Users out of MLS

By DeeinAustin™

If you haven't already heard, the Austin Board of REALTORS® (ABOR®) upset agents this month when they switched over from the TEMPO MLS system to the new MLXchange. The perception is that the switch was mishandled, causing frustration from licensed members, their assistants and consumers.

The #1 rule in change management is to thoroughly test your new system or process and roll out the switch in phases. Although ABOR® advised agents to start using MLXchange late summer, it quickly became apparent that the new MLXchange system was not ready for prime-time.

Complaints of the new MLXchange system include:

• MLXchange is not intuitive, even for the most "technical" agents.
  
• Constant system crashes. Crashes were part of the bug fixes last week, but my computer still freezes when using the program, making me less efficient.
• Client reports and external websites only work with Internet Explorer. This means that any client using Apple Safari, Netscape, Firefox Browsers, etc. cannot view MLS listings that we send them.

WHY AGENTS and MAC USERS ARE MAD AT ABOR®

Community Spotlight: Sonoma in the Village Houston

by DeeinAustin™

I was reading the Texas Recon from the Texas Real Estate Research Center and came across a mixed-use development called Sonoma in the Village, which is in the Inner Loop in Houston. Sonoma is this week's Friday Spotlight.

According to Colliers, Inside the 610 Loop in the affluent West University neighborhood, Lamesa Properties is developing Sonoma in the Village, a 4-acre mixed-use project on the north end of Rice Village, Houston’s premier shopping and entertainment district adjacent to Rice University and the Texas Medical Center. (Picture provided by RiceVillageOnline.com)

ABOUT SONOMA IN THE VILLAGE

The Rice Village Wiki states that Rice Village has been one of Houston's oldest and most-loved shopping destinations since the 1930s. It is an unplanned, high density hodge-podge of old and new retail stores. Rice Village was once an ad hoc cluster of retail stores, but has grown to become one of Houston's more interesting and variable shopping destinations with over 300 shops in a 16-block area.