The Hidden Factors That Could Hurt Your Home's Future Resale Value
One of the biggest mistakes I see buyers make is focusing so much on getting a great deal that they overlook the things that could impact their home's value down the road. In a buyer's market, there are absolutely opportunities to negotiate and find a bargain. But there's another dynamic that people don't always consider. Sellers who don't need to sell often decide to wait for better market conditions, which means you can end up with plenty of inventory but not necessarily a lot of great homes to choose from. If you're buying a starter home that you expect to sell within the next five to ten years, there are three things I'd pay particularly close attention to. Because the things you can't change about a house today could end up costing you equity tomorrow.
Should You Renovate Before Selling Your Austin Home?
Five years ago, fresh paint, new carpet and a few cosmetic updates could make a house feel renovated. Today, those things don't necessarily command a premium. In many parts of the Austin housing market, buyers simply expect a home to be clean, maintained and move-in ready. When buyers have significantly more inventory to choose from, torn-up flooring, beat-up walls and obvious deferred maintenance aren't things they have to overlook anymore. They can just go see the next house.
How’s the Austin Real Estate Market? It Depends Who’s Asking.
“How’s the market?” is probably the question I get asked more than any other when someone finds out I’m a Realtor. The problem is there really isn’t one answer. The real estate market is constantly moving between favoring sellers, being relatively balanced, and favoring buyers. One of the primary ways we measure that is months of inventory. Basically, if no additional homes came on the market, how long would it take buyers to purchase everything currently available based on the existing pace of sales? Lower inventory generally favors sellers. As inventory grows, negotiating power begins shifting toward buyers.
78749 Real Estate Market Update: What the Last 90 Days Tell Us
The 78749 housing market continues to be one of the more interesting markets in Southwest Austin. Looking at everything currently active, under contract and pending, along with the 113 homes that closed over the last 90 days, the market isn't necessarily slow—it's selective. The median closed price was $575,000, while the average was about $588,000. Closed homes sold for an average of 98.7% of their list price, so buyers are getting some negotiating room, but we're definitely not seeing sellers universally give their houses away.
Is Austin Still Growing? What Migration Trends Mean for the Housing Market
During the pandemic years Austin experienced one of the largest population booms in the country. Between 2020 and 2022 the Austin metro added nearly 95,000 new residents through migration alone, fueled largely by remote work, tech expansion, and people relocating from higher-cost states. 2021 in particular was the peak of that movement, and it played a huge role in why housing demand and home prices accelerated so quickly during that time. When thousands of people move to the same city at once, the housing market naturally feels that pressure.