Housing Market in SW Austin (Cedar Park: for sale, real estate market, apartment complexes)

[LookingatFL]

Last summer where ever I inquired the apartments complexes were at near 0% vacancy. Homes were selling quickly, often with multiple offers.

Lately I am seeing apartment complexes have vacancies and homes for sale seem to be listed at lower prices than last year and are on the market for more days.

Is this because of the time of year or is the real estate market slowing down?

[centralaustinite]

Time of year would be my guess. Real estate market shows few signs of slowing.

[hillcountryheart]

Originally Posted by LookingatFL

Last summer where ever I inquired the apartments complexes were at near 0% vacancy. Homes were selling quickly, often with multiple offers.

Lately I am seeing apartment complexes have vacancies and homes for sale seem to be listed at lower prices than last year and are on the market for more days.

Is this because of the time of year or is the real estate market slowing down?

Time of year and some new housing and apartments coming on line... but people just keep on a'comin'.

If you're looking to buy, winter's always a good time. If you can get a 12-month lease at a good monthly rate, might be worth moving apartments. But not a six-month.

[TR95]

Originally Posted by LookingatFL

Last summer where ever I inquired the apartments complexes were at near 0% vacancy. Homes were selling quickly, often with multiple offers.

Lately I am seeing apartment complexes have vacancies and homes for sale seem to be listed at lower prices than last year and are on the market for more days.

Is this because of the time of year or is the real estate market slowing down?

No sign of slowing that I see. Every listing I save on Redfin in the 78732, 78739, 78749, 78746 area codes goes to pending or sold pretty quickly.

[EzPeterson]

Market is still good, but not running a fever like it was about 6 months ago - pretty typical. This is the best time of year to buy if you're looking at a new build, somewhat so for a resale. For rentals? Not sure. There's definitely more complexes now than there were last year.

[llkltk]

Originally Posted by EzPeterson

Market is still good, but not running a fever like it was about 6 months ago - pretty typical. This is the best time of year to buy if you're looking at a new build, somewhat so for a resale. For rentals? Not sure. There's definitely more complexes now than there were last year.

Not running like a fever because it is winter. Home sales always slow down in winter.

[JT-3]

I recently noticed many price reductions on some of the local sites, I think either the homes are over-priced or it's time of the year as others have suggested. Maybe both.

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by JT-3

I recently noticed many price reductions on some of the local sites, I think either the homes are over-priced or it's time of the year as others have suggested. Maybe both.

Definitely some over-priced (or "speculatively priced") homes on the market right now. In my SW neighborhood, towards the end of "fever" period people just started adding huge amounts to their asking prices. And some of those homes have stayed on the market. Perhaps they expect them to move in spring, but we'll see.

From my experience, rentals typically see a bump right at the beginning of the year, but the big bump happens through spring and summer. There are plenty of new units coming on-line, but there are probably even more people moving here... at least that's what it seems like from anecdotal evidence like traffic (I've noticed a big bump in non-rush hour traffic -- like weekends). Also, most of the new rental stock I see is premium, so rents may continue to be rise even if the vacancy rate goes up a little. I doubt these luxury complexes will be discounting big just to fill up; they'll probably just wait a little longer and leave some units empty.

[EzPeterson]

I think there may have been a bit of a run-up last spring/summer, driven by normal market conditions and some uncertainty around interest rates. It will be interesting to see what February/March brings, as inventory right now certainly feels lower than it did this time last year.

[mark311]

Agree with everyone else in that I really don't see the slowdown for quality listings. Inventory is extremely low right now. It's still to the point now that if something is actually priced correctly according to actual sold comps and is in move-in condition with desirable features (single story, covered patio, etc.), it will sell in a matter of days. There might be some reasons why a home isn't selling and needs a price reduction. For example, a 2000 square foot single-story home seems to command about a 10% premium over a similarly sized two-story home even though it normally comes with a smaller yard. If the comps used to price a two-story home were all single-story homes then it would be priced too high.

In regards to apartment vacancies, I temporarily moved my family into an apartment in Cedar Park in order to make our house hunt easier. Our short term lease rate for a 2 bedroom apartment was about $1400 per month in a nice complex. They informed us that our new month to month rate if we were going to stay would be $1880 per month (again this is a very nice complex, but only a 2 br/2ba with a single-car garage--1050 square feet). So maybe some of those vacancies are people moving away from the higher apartment rental rates. I have to say that it helped accelerate our home search. Even a similar lease term renewal would have been about $250 more per month.