Fl First Time Home Buyer Blog

Market Update with Kenn Renner & Kenton Brown – Austin Home Buyers & Sellers Market

Transcript:
Kenn Renner:
Hi, this is Kenn Renner, real estate broker with Keller Williams and my website http://www.BuyAustin.Com, thank you for visiting. Were going to be sitting here today, talking with Kenton Brown of Sente Mortgage. His website is http://www.MortgagesForAustin.Com and were going to be giving you an update on the current real estate market as well as the mortgage market and talk about our upcoming first time home buying seminar that will be coming up in a few weeks. Kenton, thank you for taking your time.

Kenton Brown:
Thank Kenn. What are you seeing in the Austin market right now in terms of multiple offer situations? I keep hearing about that and multiple properties having multiple offers. What does that mean?

Kenn Renner:
Well, what we see is that it depends on the price point. So the price point, lets say if youre looking at under $150,000 or if they look good and theyre priced where theyre supposed to be then were seeing a lot of activity with multiple offers. This is especially true with properties that are even just 3-5% below market value. Were seeing multiple offer situations and bidding up over the price of the house. Weve had situations where weve gone in for an REO and the property gets bid up over $10,000 more than the asking price on a $132,000 property. We bid $4,000 higher and it went for $132,000 and we didnt get the deal. So I think that us as real estate agents, what we talked about just three or four months ago on our Real Estate and Mortgage Update is that the tide is turning, especially on the low end. That starts the whole entire buying cycle. So I think that we really need to inform people that the buyers market is kind of disappearing and were heading back towards a sellers market, especially on the low end, which trickles up to the higher price range.

Kenton Brown:
So whenever people buy their first home, those people that sold the home to them are moving up and so on and so on. Its just trickling through out the market, which is causing prices of homes to go up and were seeing the beginning of that, which is what youre talking about.

Kenn Renner:
Yeah, I think the low interest rates really spurs things, I think that the implication that its a buyers market has really gotten people out there. But a lot of times when people think its a buyers market, they stay on the fence and they think that there is no urgency. And the first time homebuyer tax credit is another thing that has spurred some sales. But as we talked about in our last meeting, the window of opportunity is starting to disappear. The window on that perfect opportunity that we talked about is starting to close. Just as we said that the tax credit is going to go away at the end of November, the market will shift too. They might extend the tax credit, but you cant depend on that. Actually, if you started to build right now, youre basically not going to have that window of opportunity because it has to actually close before December 1st to get that $8000 tax credit. It is a gift; its a non-repayable gift from the government for $8000. Its amazing that people dont take advantage of it. We also have the interest rates as you know. We talk every day about interest rates, Kenton, and weve seen a bump up from a low of 4.75% to 5.5%. Thats an indication that the market and the economy are getting stronger as the interest rates start jumping up. That puts pressure on people and gets them off the fence. The buyers that would have been buying notice the interest rates are going up and all of the sudden theyre in the market where they werent before, which gets a lot more pressure on the inventory of homes that are available. So the buyers market that we talked about is quickly turning into a sellers market, especially with this low interest rate. So were encouraging first time homebuyers to take advantage of this closing window of opportunity. We talked a little bit about you cant really see the timing when it comes to real estate. You only see the turn, and thats actually when you have to jump in and get in and get our buyers to get off the shelf.

Duration : 0:4:53

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