San Antonio is still one of the strongest markets in the country. As a matter of fact, Forbes Magazine ranked San Antonio as one of the nation’s strongest housing markets, behind only Seattle and Oklahoma City. The reason, a 11.2% increase in home prices.

With that said, San Antonio has not totally escaped the economic times.  The sub prime issues have certainly affected us. Mortgage companies have tightened their parameters, thus taking a percentage of potential buyers out of the market. Many investors  have virtually disappeared from our market because of their exposure in other markets.  This has changed the dynamics of our market. Builders have stopped buiding spec homes. They placed large incentives on their inventory to move existing product. That inventory has for the most part been sold off, which now drives buyers back to pre-existing homes.

So really, how is the San Antonio real estate market?  Just as it is nationally, some areas are stronger than others. Another factor is price. There are certain price points that are stronger than others. The lower price points are more active than the more expensive properties.  So, is it a buyer’s market? It depends on the area, the price point, and the individual seller’s position. Every transaction stands alone.  The bottom line for a buyer: Find an experienced agent that knows the market that can convey good, current information to you so that you can make an educated buying decision. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions. 

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Its Monday morning and I am working at home today, I have emails to catch up on, and a jillion work related projects to get started on. But first, I had to clean out my refrigerator, YIKES!!!! (it is garbage truck day, those guys are heroes in my book, you should see what I gave them).   If there was a market for outdated fuzzy food, no doubt I could retire shortly.  My husband has an aunt that jokes (I wonder) about using her refrigerator as a penicillin incubator (we don’t eat at her house), I think that mine rivaled hers this morning.  I should definitely get a star at my weight watcher meeting this week, there is nothing left to temp me  in that fridge.  On to the deep freeze now.

Boy, what a nightmare that was.  I found my missing Thanksgiving turkey that I couldn’t find back then, which forced my husband to don his apron and cook steaks out.  My good deed to myself was to throw out the half empty 2 (OK, 3) gallons of Blue Bell Cookies and Crèam that no doubt I will miss in the middle of an upcoming night. Hallelujah Weight Watchers! And if anyone knows what I can do with a giant baggie of frozen marshmallows please let me know.  I guess I could make a crock pot stew out of all the odds and ends and un-identified, but I really don’t want to visit the ER this week so watch out garbage men, here it comes.  Um, I wonder how many points I get at Weight Watchers for carrying all this stuff to the curb.

This reminds me, all you sellers out there, CLEAN OUT YOUR CLOSETS.  When I show buyers they always want to check out the storage, closets are big on the “want” list, if your closet or pantry looks like my fridge and freezer, you are overdue for a good cleaning. It really impresses a buyer when they can open a hall closet and not have to dodge falling debris.  This week I saw some very creative collages of family trips to Disneyworld and the beach but I don’t think my buyers ever looked at the room, they got so focused on the pictures.  You are going to move anyway so pack it up and stack the boxes neatly out of the way.   Visit my website for additional info on getting your house ready to sell.

Now, on to my pantry.

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So, here’s how the process should work. Your agent should do a detailed market analysis of your area. There should be an inspection of your property, suggestions made as to the 5P’s, previews of similar homes which will be competing with yours(preferably with you so you see what the agent sees), and then a suggested price range for you to determine a list price.  Understand that the you must make a decision based on “TIME or MONEY”. If money is the most important factor, then price at the high end of the market, but be prepared to keep your home on the  market longer. If time is the key issue, then price towards the lower end in order to facilitate a quicker sale.  Or choose a price somewhere in the midde that you can live with.

In order to make  the best decision, please try to distance yourself. Remember, this is a business decision. While it is your HOME,  to a potential buyer, it is simply another house. You CANNOT  allow emotion to factor in to your pricing (or any other aspect of the process) FSBOs’  are notorious for uneducated decisions. They overprice the property because they have nothing to base their decision, they have no marketing to speak of, they  are not familiar with real estate documents, and do not understand the closing procedures. The rsult is that 67% of FSBOs’ end up listing with an agent.

BOTTOM LINE, choose yor agent carefully; make good decisions based on accurate information; FSBOs’ do your homework and don’t base your choices on emotion. PRICE will be a major factor on days on market or whether it will eventually sell or not.  As always, we are available if you have any questions.

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The second key is the PRESENTATION of your home. This is where the 5 P’s come in. PROPER PREPARATION PREVENTS POOR PRESENTATION. So, what the heck does that mean? When you get ready to sell a car, you typically start with the decision to detail the car. But, you first have to ‘prepare the car”. I mean, ya gotta get rid of the gum wrappers, the coke cans, the McDonalds sacks, the kids’ toys, and whatever else might be growing!

The same applies to your home! YOU have to prepare the home for sale. That means DECLUTTER and DEPERSONALIZE!! Selling a home is not exactly a fun process. People are are going to be looking in your closets, opening your kitchen cabinets, and looking who knows where! Remember this, you want them to see the house, not the pictures of your great aunt or your collection of coffee cups from around the country. (I once showed a home that had several hundred coffee cups hanging around. The only thing the potential buyer remembered was the mugs from the ALAMO and SEA WORLD SAN ANTONIO. Needless to say, that is not the house that they bought!)

Here’s the deal. You’re goin’ to move anyway. Start packing up the 20 years worth of “important stuff” and storing it, or better yet, tossing it! Guys, I’m sure that one day you intend to fix that chain saw that doesn’t work or organize your garage and arrange all those important tools that have two inches of dust on them! Gals, what about all those magazines that you intend to read when you get around to them or better yet, how about all the dishes and glasses in the kitchen. I have never figured out how you can use 50 plates, 30 coffee cups, 40 drinking glasses, and do you really need 15 frying pans or 18 cooking pots? Now, I’m not saying to get rid of all those pots, pans, cups, plates, or glasses. Just cut back to the basics and make your home look as attractive as possible.Rent a storage building for a while until your home sells. This is called “DECLUTTERING” (My wife Barbara who of course is also a Realtor will tell me that all this stuff is important and has a special use on special occasions. I can’t argue because I have the broken chain saw and tools that are hidden by the dust, but were I selling my house, I would follow my own advice. )

Okay, let’s talk about the personal stuff. We all have pictures of our family around the house. Just remember, we want buyers’ to PICTURE THEMSELVES in the house, not pictures of your 6 kids and 30 grandkids. Pictures should be minimized to show the home. The best way to explain this is to put yourself in the shoes of a buyer. Go look at homes on the market. Compare to yours. The more you do to prepare your home for sale, not only will you sell it faster, you will optimize your price. PROPER PREPARATION PREVENTS POOR PRESENTATION!

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The FHA program gives potential homebuyers many advantages, including the following: low cash investment (3% down payment), not credit score driven (allowing for less stringent credit requirements), extremely competitive interest rates, and now limits high enough to provide more choice in home sizes, locations, neighborhoods, and potentially higher quality construction and features. This move will obviously see an increase in FHA home loans and home sales, taking up some of the slack left by the disappearance of the subprime market.

In addition to this news, FHA also allows for seller funded down payment assistance programs, giving buyers an even greater opportunity to buy a home with little or no down payment, interest rates that are as competitive as any in the market, and relaxed credit requirements. Between now and the end of the year, Buyers have the ability and the chance to buy more house than in the past. We also have more inventory to choose from because of the slowdown in the market which gives buyers more leverage in negotiating a more attractive price.

With all that FHA has to offer, with the condition of the current market, and with interest rates as low as they are, it is hard to come up with a reason not to buy a home AT THIS TIME! If we can answer any specific questions, please let us know.

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But at the end of the day, does Zillow’s zestimates provide accurate information on the value of your home or the home you wish to buy?

The answer: not in Texas. And amazingly enough, Zillow agrees. Take a look at Zillow’s own accuracy information of their zestimates of some Texas counties, including Bexar and Comal county:

In Bexar county, only 27% of Zillow’s zestimates are within 5% of the homes value! Even worse, only 76% are within 20% of the home’s value.

Now think about this, if you are selling your home, and you use Zillow to determine your home’s value you, the odds are that you will be off by as much as 20%. On a $200,000 home that equates to $40,000 that you could overprice your home where it will never sell, or you undervalue your home and lose the equity that you you have built up over the years.

As a homebuyer, if you use zestimates to determine the offer you wish to make, you could be overpaying for a home.

The bottom line: while zestimates are fun for zillowing your boss’s home, it is not a tool that you should be using to determine the sales price of you home, or the offer you should make on a home you wish to buy. There is only way to do that, and that is to use a real estate professional that has access to local, property specific, and comparable home information. Greg Swan, a top real estate professional in Arizona, has done a great job of showing just how out of touch Zillow is with reality at his blog.

And if you don’t believe us, listen to Zillow’s own Sara Bonert, who wrote in her blog, “ At the end of the day, the consumer still needs a professional to help determine an asking price that is JUST RIGHT! “

If you are thinking of selling your home, and want an accurate value of your home, just fill out our Home Value Request page and we will send you a free CMA (Comparitive Market Analysis).

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“Texas is the most housing-affordable, high-growth state in the nation,” says Dr. Jim Gaines, research economist for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. “So far, skyrocketing home prices common to fast-growing states like California and Florida have not occurred in Texas.”

In mid-2007, the state’s median-priced home was $151,000 – some two-thirds the national median of $229,000 and about 75 percent less than California’s $589,000.

According to the Texas Housing Affordability Index compiled by Gaines, a Texas family earning the statewide median income has 152 percent of the income required to qualify for financing on the median-priced home. Nationally, families have about 16 percent more than is required.

Other measures show just how affordable Texas homes are. One expresses median house value as a multiple of median housing income. The lower the multiple, the more affordable the housing.

“In 2005, the national median home value was 3.62 times the median household income,” says Gaines. “In Texas, the median value was only 2.52. Current median prices to median household income multiplies are even higher, and the difference between Texas and the nation are even more pronounced.”

Gaines says housing affordability is just one card in a deck stacked in the state’s favor. The other winning cards include lower cost of living and cost of business, greater employment opportunities and an appealing lifestyle.

“Events and circumstances point toward a Texas-sized boom between 2005 and 2030,” Gaines writes in the latest issue of Tierra Grande magazine, a periodical sent to all the state’s real estate licensees. “The state’s population and economy — as well as its housing and commercial real estate markets — are poised to explode in volume and prices.”

Gaines says the real estate game is changing, and the stakes are getting higher.

“Things will change dramatically from what many Texas are used to,” he predicts. Population will be a key player at the table as Texas is projected to grow by 13.6 million by 2030.

“That’s the equivalent of adding another Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, another Houston metropolitan area, another San Antonio metropolitan area and another Corpus Christi,” he says.

“Growth and prosperity will spread throughout the state, but most of the growth will occur in the state’s urban areas,” says Gaines. “Four out of every five Texans will live in the Dallas-Fort Worth-to-Houston-to San Antonio triangle.”

New Texans will bring new jobs.

“Texas leads the nation in job creation. If Texas maintains its average employment-to-population ratio as expected during the next 25 years, the state will add another 4.5 to 5.8 million jobs,” says Gaines. “Job growth is expected to be stimulated by overall U.S. economic growth and enhanced by Texas’ employment-friendly characteristics.”

More people and more jobs will lead to higher personal income.

“Extending the long-term trend that began in 1969 suggests the state’s total personal income could increase by $1 trillion by 2030,” says Gaines. “The 2005 Texas median household income of $42,139 could reach nearly $68,000 by 2030.”

With the gains will come pains, says the noted economist.

“The projected population and employment boom will also strain local and state resources to provide public services and infrastructure,” he said. “Texas will experience the same growing pains as other high-growth states. State and local fiscal capacities will be stretched, and Texans will debate the level and type of growth they want in their communities.”

For more on Gaines’ Texas economic outlook for 2030, including his thoughts on what might disrupt the ideal game plan, see “Looming Boom: Texas Through 2030” available online at recenter.tamu.edu/pdf/1841.pdf.

The Real Estate Center (recenter.tamu.edu) has been providing solutions through research for 35 years. Funded primarily by Texas real estate licensee fees, the Center was created by the state legislature to meet the needs of many audiences, including the real estate industry, instructors, researchers and the general public.

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Here are some common mistakes when selling your San Antonio home:

1. Making small price reductions. Price you home right from the beginning or make one large price reduction, but don’t make make small price reductions.
2. Hiring the wrong agent. Having a competent, professional agent is more important than ever.
3. Waiting “out” the market. There are many, many, many people thinking that exact same thing.
4. Showing a cluttered home. The competition is stiff, folks. Clean, paint and unclutter.
5. Not taking the first offer. Two out of three times, the first offer is YOUR best offer!

If you’d like to forward this post to someone you think might be interested, simply click on the “Share This” link and click “E-mail.”

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As San Antonio was one of only 10 major metro areas that had positive home appreciation in 2007, this recent news about San Antonio employers and San Antonio’s job growth, should give us reassurance about the local market. In the simplest terms, positive job growth coupled with low interest rates means continuing demand for homes. Therefore if you decide to buy a home today in San Antonio it appears to continue to be a safe investment, because positive home appreciation, interest rates at 2 1/2 year lows and continued demand, and you will have a home in which you can build equity.

So I say to Rackspace…thanks for being a great employer…

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“Rates on 30-year mortgages fell for a third straight week to the lowest level since the summer of 2005. Freddie Mac’s weekly survey showed that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 5.69 percent from 5.87 percent last week.

On 15-year mortgages, rates dropped to 5.21 percent from 5.43 percent. Rates on five-year adjustable-rate mortgages declined to 5.40 percent from 5.63 percent, and rates on one-year ARMs fell to 5.26 percent from 5.37 percent. It marked the first time that the 15-year rate has fallen below one-year adjustable-rate mortgages in seven years. “

As the economy continues to show signs of slowing, the mortgage rates continue to make buying a home attractive. Combine that with competitive pricing for homes for sale due to bloated inventory, and now really is the best time to purchase.

If you are wondering how must you can afford, just click on our Home Buyer’s Calculators and you will know, and then visit our MLS search page and find homes that interest you in your price range, and we would be more than happy to get you more information on those homes.

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