Austin Real Estate (Unnamed Copywriting) 2 of 10

Unlike the rest of the nation, the Austin real estate market is a very volatile place. Home prices nationwide are continuing to fall. An the average, American home values have dropped by over 20%, and more importantly, have steadily been falling for the last 2 years. But, in Austin, the home prices didn’t fall by nearly this amount, and have, in fact, been back on the rise for the last 10 months.

It is because of this that buying a home in Austin can be a tricky situation. It is very hard to know whether the asking price is a fair price, an absolute deal, or a total rip-off. There has simply been too much movement in the market to be able to know with confidence what you should be paying for any individual house.

Coupled with this volatility is the difference of individual neighborhoods. While Austin, on the whole, has preformed considerably better than the rest of the nation, individual neighborhoods have performed in much different manners. Because of this, it’s very difficult to know that value of a home just by having a good idea about the past performance of the Austin real estate market as a whole. Buying a house in Hancock is obviously not going to be the same thing as buying a house in Bryker Woods.

A lot of people deal with this problem in one of two ineffective ways. Some will talk to their realtors and make a bid based on the listing price. This may seem like a solid approach. Most sellers will consult their realtor before listing the house to determine a good listing price. The realtor will give their opinion of what the house can sell for, and they will come up with a number. The problem, however is twofold. First, it is the listing realtor’s job to sell the house for as much as is possible. The number that they will come up with will, almost certainly, be on the high side of the value range because of this. The second problem is that in a lot of scenarios, especially now, homeowners will owe enough on the house that they have to set their price higher than the actual value in order to cover what they owe.

Another approach is that people will get online and try to get a feel for the area’s value. There are numerous programs and websites that are designed to give homeowners and potential homeowners an idea of what the value of a particular area is. Most will show you past sale prices for homes surrounding the one in question. The problem is that these websites are almost never accurate, and making matters worse, use dated sales and family transfers that are simply not good indicators of a home’s value.

If you want to have a good idea of what an Austin home is worth, and thus make an offer accordingly, you really only have one good option. You need to hire a real estate appraiser. An appraiser is the only one who has the expertise to really give you an accurate idea of what you are getting in to. For a very reasonable price, you can find out exactly what the house is worth and what you can expect it to be worth in the near future, and will be able to make an educated bid to keep yourself from paying too much.