A good friend of mine in California emailed this story to me today. In yet another vote of confidence for the Austin, Texas real estate market, HousingPredictor.com has ranked Austin #6 on its list of Top 25 Appreciating Markets!
I hadn't actually heard of this site before, but here's the description I found there for their service/research:
"We examine more than 20 micro market characteristics in each market place, including income levels, employment trends and changes, school enrollment, business trends, regional political influences, real estate sales history and current housing market velocity. The factors are all considered to come up with each local market forecast."
They are predicting that Austin will experience 4.0% appreciation in 2008. This may prove to be an optimistic estimate, but we did get about 2.0% or so when many other markets around the country were dropping precipitously.
I was speaking with someone today at lunch about the fact that sales activity was down overall, yet prices went up. I guess the averages can be a little deceptive sometimes. Either way, I feel that Austin is poised for great things in the upcoming years. Here's a recent post that I wrote on this topic:
"How IS the Austin Real Estate Market these days?"
Interestingly, they noted in the article that no one area of the country contained the lion's share of good potential markets. Rather, they are just sort of spread out across the U.S. If you are interested in seeing the entire list of the top cities, visithttp://www.housingpredictor.com/top2008.html.
I would love the opportunity to speak with you if you are sincerely considering a move to or from Austin. Please feel free to give me a call anytime on my cell phone at 512-796-7653 or email me - Jason@austintexashomes.com. I look forward to hearing from you soon! You can also search the entire database of available at our website, www.austintexashomes.com.