Posts Tagged ‘Austin’
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Please email thedavemurrayteam@gmail.com to RSVP.
For more information on the home, see the listing or virtual tour.
Great Family Home in 78704!
You can walk to the Barton Hills Greenbelt from this home in the coveted Barton Hills area of 78704.
This well maintained home is a 4 bed/2 bath, 1,954 square feet, on a quarter acre lot.
Updates include a new roof, new gutters, new interior doors, new paint (interior and exterior), new carpet, new bath tile, and landscaping.
Inside the home is a big living area, with brick fireplace and doors to the patio. The kitchen is very clean, with wood cabinets and a breakfast area. 
At the entry is formal dining. The floorplan features a private, second floor master suite with walk in closet and full bath, and three bedrooms with a full bath in a wing of the home.
The patio is the perfect place for sitting in the shade, enjoying a view of the large, well maintained yard and mature trees. A rainwater collection system wraps around the home. The location is fantastic, 5 minutes to downtown Austin and a short walk to the greenbelt.
You can read more about the home, and see a slideshow of pictures, by viewing the listing.
Rainwater Collection System; Back of Home
The Best Time of Year to Sell a Home: It’s Not What You Think
- Bella Tesoro
Conventional wisdom tells us that spring is the best time to sell a home. Especially in late spring and early summer: families can move without uprooting the kids from school, and curb appeal is at its peak. Demand goes up that time each year – this has all been true every year in the past decade.
But Forbes’ latest analysis says that home sellers should forget this conventional wisdom, that the best time to sell a home will be different this year. According to them, the extended tax credit that now expires in June, paired with the historically low interest rates, will see a busy selling market as early as, this year, February.
Says Nicole Hall, editor-in-chief of lendingtree.com: “This year, we’re anticipating sales will peak earlier…The best time to get your house on the market will be February or early March, and maybe even earlier if you want to avoid competition.”
Ultimately, however, much of the housing market’s strengths or failures depend entirely on your area, and more specifically, your neighborhood. Ask your local Austin Realtor about the market in your area to see when might be the best time for you to get the most out of your listing.
Big Changes in the Month of March
The Fed reiterated last week that in March of 2010, they will be ending their Mortgage Security Buyback program, a big part of what has kept interest rates low throughout 2009. It won’t be a sudden drop-off, rather a slow decrease in these purchases until March, when there will be no more.
With the Fed no longer spending the tens of billions of dollars monthly on mortgage securities, we will only have the private sector to fill in the gap. When that happens, we can naturally expect mortgage rates to rise. “The difference in monthly mortgage payments of 5% or 6% can be measured in tens of thousands of dollars over the life of a loan,” one writer explains.
The Atlantic Monthly writes that the credit markets need securitization, and warns that it will only become more difficult to borrow money (and those loans will come at higher interest rates) as the Fed program ends. “If you think banks aren’t lending enough now, then you’d find a world with no securitization much worse. Yet, that might be what you get if the Fed ends its program.”
Why would the Fed remove such a successful program? The analogy of a bike with training wheels is often given – if you want an economy to strengthen, recover and stand on its own, at some point you need to take the wheels off. If the Fed keeps rates too low for too long, inflation will rise higher and you will expect to see rates rise anyway. Home loan rates will increase as demand is met, naturally, with or without the Fed.
We can expect the end of the first quarter of 2010 to be a telling time for the economy’s recovery, but the heavy favor of the buyer and borrower is going to change. These will be some of the last months we’ll see that are such great markets for buying a home or land. If you are considering buying, you should begin your search now.
Holiday Happenings in Austin
Shows
Classic Holiday Movies at the Paramount
Ballet Austin’s The Nutcracker
“Santaland Diaries” (and more) at Zachary Scott Theater
Lights
The Zilker Tree Holiday Festival
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Shopping
Keep Austin Bizarre Christmas Bazaar
Activities
Whole Foods Outdoor Ice Skating
Austin 360’s 2009 Holiday Guide
Courtesy of: The Dave Murray Team
Go Green While Saving Green
- 1611 Westlake makes use of shade and multi zone air conditioning
Austin architect Peter Pfeiffer and Dallas architect Betsy del Monte have devised a Energy Use Pyramid, to determine which strategies save or create the most energy for their cost. Like the food pyramid we learned about in elementary school, the Energy Use Pyramid has a base of the most efficient green tactics working up to ideas that, like icing on the cake, are nice to have but less important.
The base of the Pyramid may surprise many – it has nothing to do with solar panels or windmills. To keep your home the most energy efficient for your money, according to Pfeiffer, has to do with design of the home and landscape, and proper insulation. An ideal house is oriented to avoid direct western exposure (which creates even more heat in the summer) and to use southern exposure to capture heat in the colder winter months. Shade trees and strategic overhangs create much of the same effect. Houses created with this mindset are smaller, and insulated with no air leaks. These ideas to maximize heating and cooling are the best investments you can make to keep your house greener.
The middle of the Pyramid deals with appliances and other electricity using items in the house. For example, one Energy Star front-loader washing machine uses 75% less energy, 60% less water and reduces more dryer time than a standard top-loader. Another strategy is CFLs – florescent lights that use a quarter of the energy of traditional incandescent bulbs, reducing your electrical bill by around 10% if used throughout the home. They also create less heat for your air conditioner to cool – dropping that bill by as much as 15%.
The top spot of the Pyramid goes to the energy you can harness yourself with solar and wind power. While this is a great way to stay green, it is not the most cost efficient. Simple home improvements like correctly sized windows, efficient two-zone air conditioning, and big shady trees affect the aesthetic value of your home, resale value, and energy use. 1611 Westlake
Austin Texas: Get Hooked
There was one single second left on the clock. The kick wouldn’t be easy. The team was down by two points – this would give them the one point lead to win the game. Quarterback Colt McCoy inaudibly moved his lips into folded hands – probably praying. The ball was snapped, the play was clean – and kicker Hunter Lawrence just squeaked the football through the uprights. With that, the Longhorns of UT in Austin, Texas had won the game, the conference title, clinched an undefeated season and the spot to play in the national title game.
Moments like this one from last Saturday night exhilarate the residents of Austin, whether they are longtime football fans or locals who enjoy cheering for the home team and being part of the celebration. The unique, old traditions, city wide celebrations, and all the people involved in making a University of Texas game the spectacle it is are all part of the excitement of football season.
ESPN’s Doug Ward wrote about a Longhorns game day back in September (“The Eyes of Austin are Upon Texas Football,” 9/17/09). The southern Californian writer soon had that first-timers feeling of getting sucked into the atmosphere and the game. “On this, the first Saturday in September, there are 84,440 of us jam-packed into the stadium, approximately 84,439 of whom are wearing burnt orange, an unofficial stat that leaves me feeling a lot like a guy at a Halloween party without a costume,” he wrote. “But, at Texas, the sensation of being an outsider doesn’t last for long; even if you have no ties to the school, or the state. And even if you stick out more than an American tourist in Paris.”
Ward points out the variety of fans who enjoy UT games, and how family friendly the events are. As he says, “it’s there, at Darrell K Royal-Memorial Stadium, sandwiched on cramped bleacher space between a 5-year-old with an oversize, foam Hook ‘Em Horns hand and a pair of middle-age alums dripping in burnt orange and passion, that I feel the eyes of Texas upon me for the first time.”
As Ward explains, Austin offers many diversions that not only give it the “Live Music Capital of the World” title, but become part of the celebrations. “If, as they say, football is a religion at Notre Dame and a way of life in the South, here in the Southwest it feels a lot like one big party.” Football fans typically begin their day with tailgating, with tents and cars surrounding the university campus. Everyone from the children to the alumni can enjoy the warm weather, community, and good food at these pre-game events, whether formal or spontaneous. Inside the stadium, attendees enjoy the UT band performances (with “Big Bertha,” the one of the world’s largest bass drums), Bevo the Longhorn (the live steer is the easygoing UT mascot), the Texas sized cannon (“Smokey”), and “Godzillatron” the megatron replaying moments from the game. And after a win during one of the warm fall nights in Texas, celebrants can again enjoy the nightlife and the UT tower bathed in orange lights. “Then, many in the crowd will adjourn to Sixth Street, where an eclectic mix of musicians will play in some of the bars and clubs that made Austin’s music scene famous…They’ll have a tough act to follow.”
UT Football is just part of what makes Austin great – although, ask many locals, it’s a big part. We’re excited to cheer on our team in January at the national title game in Pasadena. Hook ‘em!
Austin and Texas are Looking Green
According to the EPA, the Energy Star program is celebrating reaching the one million mark throughout the nation. Even more exciting news for Texans, 28% of these homes are in the Lone Star State. The country’s fourth biggest city, Houston, tops the list of most Energy Star homes. Also appearing in the top 20 are San Antonio, and at #14, Austin.
Energy Star homes will save an average of $200-$400 this year on utility bills, and $270 million nationwide. They are at least 15% more energy efficient than regular homes and will save 4 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.
Call your Realtor today about your future Energy Star home.
Home prices most affordable in areas with land
Sandy Ranch
CNN Money’s article “What Housing Bust?” covers what areas of the nation have done well in the housing market, and why. According to writer Les Christie, areas with plenty of available developable land have smaller swings between home price highs and lows. This is because, when the demand for housing spikes, home builders are able to build more homes and keep the housing prices in check. Speed is also of the essence here, home builders need to be able to build quickly, thus, the need for available land.
“Elasticity of supply,” this is called, according to Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American CoreLogic. And Christie says, it is the definition of Texas real estate, and similar throughout all the metro areas.
“Texas is the poster child for these ‘steady Eddie’ states. House prices during the past three years rose in all 26 metro areas with gains ranging from 2.8% for Dallas, the second largest metro area, to 9.7% in Houston, the largest, to a whopping 32.5% in Odessa.”
This is part of what is causing the metro areas in Texas, including Austin, to grow so rapidly. Landowners in the Austin area should continue to see their investments in high demand for buyers and developers.
Halloween in Austin
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Austin, Texas always has exciting happenings going on for this fun holiday. If you’re in need of a costume to dress up, there are many Halloween stores to choose from, but your best choice might be South Congress Ave favorite Lucy in Disguise, full of top quality costumes, wigs, and accessories for sale or rent.
Then, there’s no better place to show off your costume and see others than 6th Street. There you can find any sort of live entertainment or dining to suit any taste. “Ghost Tours” in the the state capitol, rumored to be haunted, or through other hotels and buildings that are centuries old, can be a fun activity not for the faint of heart. There are also plenty of haunted houses created for Halloween, in the area, if you’re looking for a good show.
Many activities are available for families with little ghosts and goblins, as well, and run all weekend. If you are looking for some Halloween fun in Austin, try the Austin360 calendar.
And from the Dave Murray Team, have a safe and delightfully spooky Halloween!
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