If you read the real estate national news, you’ll see articles singing roughly the same tune: the housing market is making a dramatic recovery (or is poised to) and pundits are predicting a housing shortage. We already have that at Mueller Austin, TX.
The shortage in the country is due to the drop in housing starts – construction of new homes – and the predicted increase in demand due to lower prices. One representative article is here at Realtor.org.
At the end of the article is the following passage:
“Buyers will show up looking for a house in a subdivision, and all the houses will be sold. The builders will tell them it will take six months to deliver a house… But they™ll want the house so bad that they™ll bid the prices up.”
Welcome to my real estate market. Anyone showing up at Mueller looking for a market rate David Weekley Garden Home will be told there are waiting lists on all the homes. Then they’ll be told that new pricing has been released for the last three rows of homes.
People looking for Standard Pacific Homes Mueller House Condos will see a similar picture – waiting lists and possible price increases in the next market rate homes released.
There is no “bid the prices up” scenario though – both builders are extremely fair in my experience with waiting lists.
So what does this mean for buyers at Mueller? Get in touch with a Realtor and get on a waiting list.
And for sellers? Low inventory and high demand means shorter times on market if you decide to sell your homes. If you’re thinking about values, don’t pay too much attention to the national picture of falling house prices, and think more about the builder’s price increases in the last few months. Get a local expert to give you a price analysis.
Garreth Wilcock is a Realtor living in Mueller and helping people buy and sell homes here and in Central Austin.