Doug Mellen's Austin Area Real Estate Blog

If you're in the market to buy, there hasn't been a better time in several years.  Interest rates are still relatively low and the inventory is high--in short, it is truly a Buyer's Market.  As we enter the traditional "selling season", the period in time between Memorial Day and Mid-Summer, activity normally ...

There are lots of different ways to look at the Austin housing market.  Some make it look frightening, some are much more optimistic.  To me there are three things that present a meaningful indicator of the overall health of the Austin, Lake Travis, Cedar Park, Leander, Round Rock and ...

Tierra Grande, a publication from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M discusses some recent changes in the IRS Tax Code regarding capital gains and includes some examples of how they apply.  A portion of the article follows: Tax rules for home sales were greatly enhanced in 1997 and have been improving ever since. Several new IRS rulings ...

A recent Forbes.com article placed the four largest cities in our great state in their list of "10 Recession Proof Communities".  To reach their findings, Forbes.com examined the 50 largest U.S metro areas and examined several key indices. They examined U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics of unemployment data for the year ending ...

I've been getting a lot of inquiries and thought I'd pass along this information for anyone who might need it.Important Information About Your 2008 Tax Appraisal Check your mail: Appraisal notices in Travis and Williamson County have been mailed and you should have received them by now. In Hays County, notices are ...

Move over Steiner Ranch!  There's a new place to live that offers a completely unique and exciting lifestyle! An article in a special section of today's issue of The Austin Business Journal names The Hollows at Northshore, an exclusive luxury and second home community on the north shore of Lake Travis outside of Austin as "Best ...

The Austin Business Journal reports that a new research report questions whether some of the new condo projects projected for Central Austin will move forward under their original timelines, or at all, given the decline of available financing. The report from Residential Strategies Inc. shows that there are more than 5,800 condo units ...

Courtesy of Alamo Title Company The Week in ReviewMarch 23 - March 29, 2008(compared to the same week in 2007)New listings up 33.07%Pendings are down 75.27% Solds are down this week by 55.45%As for Average Prices: Mar. 23 - Mar. 29, 2008(compared to the same week in 2007) The "New Listings" average list price increased ...

COPY OF THE PRESS RELEASEMACFARLAN CAPITAL PARTNERS ANNOUNCE PURCHASE OF CENTEX DESTINATION PROPERTIES ASSETSMacfarlan Forms TerraMesa Resorts to Manage Exclusive Destinations andSecond Home Communities Located on Lakes, Ocean front and MountainsDALLAS, March 25, 2008 — Macfarlan Capital Partners, L.P. a Dallas-based private real estate ...

February 15, 2008By CLIFFORD KRAUSS and RON NIXONAUSTIN, Tex. — The real estate market these days is a tale of two Americas, and one of them is not doing too badly. In the America of big-city housing markets, especially on the coasts and in the struggling industrial Midwest, the huge run-up in values in recent years has given way to big ...

Best Places America's Fastest-Growing Metros Brian Wingfield and William Pentland 01.30.08, 2:20 PM ET  It's no secret that the Southeast and Western United States are booming. The costs of living and doing business there are often cheaper there than in big coastal cities. But where and how much those cities are thriving might ...

In a report today, The Austin Business Journal wrote that after a cautious slowdown in new construction late in 2006 and early this year, Austin homebuilders are forging ahead, starting more than 1,100 more homes during the second quarter of 2007 than during the first quarter, according to a report from housing research group Metrostudy. The ...

The Austin Business Journal reports that austin area home sales for May increased for the second month in a row. A new record was set for May, single-family home sales (2,679) were up two percent compared with May 2006, according to the latest Austin Multiple Listing Service report. Last month’s single-family median home price ...

The Texas A&M Real Estate Center publishes a Tierra Grande, a monthly Journal of a wide variety of interesting basic and advanced articles related to Texas real estate.  This Journal is available to the public. An interesting recent article in the July 2006 issue focuses on issues related to foreclosure.  As the article state, there ...