Cool Austin Texas Real Estate Blog

As a six-year resident of the Blackhawk area and a 13-year resident of Pflugerville, I like to keep an eye on the market values here in the area.  When the toll roads opened two years ago, the prices started trending upward and they have continued to appreciate overall, although more slowly right now, with some tough economic factors at play.  As a fellow homeowner in Blackhawk, this stuff is important to me, too!

Currently, there are 14 resale homes available on the MLS in the Fairways, with an average asking price of $239,303.  The average square footage for these homes is 2,750, for an average price per square foot of $89.10.  

Over the past calendar year (January 1st through today), there were 19 sales closed within the Fairways of Blackhawk.  The average listing price for these sold homes was $243,102 and the average sales price was $231,955, which means that homes sold for 95.4% of the asking price.  This does not account for any seller-paid closing costs on behalf of the buyer.  Average square footage for sold homes was 2,703, for an average price per square foot of $86.31.

In other area news:

Located at the southwest corner of the intersection of the aforementioned toll roads (45 and 130), Stone Hill Town Center is slated to open within a few months, and it promises over 1,000,000 square feet of shopping and entertainment.  Home Depot, Verizon Wireless, and Mattress Firm are now open, soon to be followed by Best Buy, Super Target, Chili's, several retail clothing stores, a large Cinemark theater, 24-Hour Fitness, and much more. 

The Target and Best Buy stores are slated to open in February 2009.

To read more details about this center and to see a list of stores and restaurants, check out my recent article here:

Stone Hill Town Center - Pflugerville, Texas Shopping - UPDATE!

If you would like to see the proposed layout, you can visit the developer's website and see the site plan here:

http://www.newquestproperties.com/property_retail/property/Stone%20Hill%20Town%20Center/SitePlan/pfu5-07.pdf

If you are a consumer living in another area around Austin and you are interested in seeing the trends in your particular neighborhood, please don't hesitate to contact me, and I can create a custom report for you.  All of my contact information is below. 

If you are considering selling your home in the Fairways of Blackhawk (or anywhere in the general Austin area), please feel free to give me a call.  I would love the opportunity to help you get it sold quickly.  You can visit my primary Austin real estate website at www.austintexashomes.com.  You can also reach me anytime on my cell phone at 512-796-7653 or via email at jason@austintexashomes.com.  Thanks for checking out this brief analysis!

As a resident of the Meadows of Blackhawk for just over six years now, I like to keep an eye on the property values in the area.  Ever since the toll roads opened a couple of years ago, demand has been strong despite a rocky real estate market in 2008.  

Currently, there are 22 homes available in the Meadows, with an average asking price of $210,576.  The average square footage for these homes is 2,450, for an average price per square foot of $87.59.  

Presently, there are 5 homes under contract in the subdivision, with an average listing price of $214,754, and an average square footage of 2,912, yielding an average price per square foot of $74.80.  This is slightly lower than the quarter before.

Over the past calendar year (January 1st through today), there were 39 sales closed within Meadows of Blackhawk.  The average listing price was $217,074 and the average sales price was $210,815.  This means that homes sold for approximately 97.1% of the list price.  This number does not account for any seller-paid closing costs, nor does it include any price reductions.

The average number of days on the market for the entire year was 78, which is about the same as the average for the entire Austin MLS.  The square footage of the homes sold averaged 2,630, and the price per square foot for the sales was $80.97.

In other area news:

Located at the southwest corner of the intersection of the aforementioned toll roads (45 and 130), Stone Hill Town Center is slated to open within a few months, and it promises over 1,000,000 square feet of shopping and entertainment.  Home Depot, Verizon Wireless, and Mattress Firm are now open, soon to be followed by Best Buy, Super Target, Chili's, several retail clothing stores, a large Cinemark theater, 24-Hour Fitness, and much more.  

It is my understanding that Target and Best Buy are slated to open in February 2009.

To read more details about this center and to see a list of stores and restaurants, check out my recent article here:

Stone Hill Town Center - Pflugerville, Texas Shopping - UPDATE!

If you would like to see the proposed layout, you can visit the developer's website and see the site plan here:

http://www.newquestproperties.com/property_retail/property/Stone%20Hill%20Town%20Center/SitePlan/pfu5-07.pdf

If you are a consumer living in another area around Austin and you are interested in seeing the trends in your particular neighborhood, please don't hesitate to contact me, and I can create a custom report for you.  All of my contact information is below. 

If you are considering selling your home in the Meadows of Blackhawk (or anywhere in the general Austin area), please feel free to give me a call.  I would love the opportunity to help you get it sold quickly.  Also, You can visit my primary Austin real estate website at www.austintexashomes.com.  You can also reach me anytime on my cell phone at 512-796-7653 or via email at jason@austintexashomes.com.  Thanks for checking out this brief analysis!

As I have shared repeatedly here, my kids have a knack for making me laugh.  The Christmas season is no different, of course.  I just wanted to share a few of the humorous things that they said this year.

Abby is two and a half years old now, and she is a natural performer.  Several times lately, she has appeared on top of the ottoman in our living room, or perhaps behind the puppet stage upstairs, proclaiming, "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!  WELCOME TO DA SHOW!"  When I then ask her to perform, she seems to be out of ideas, but she will sing if prompted a little.

Abby actually loves to sing, and my wife still swears that she heard her harmonizing to a song a few weeks ago.  It would not surprise me.

In fact, over the past month or so, Abby has developed her own very special rendition of "Jingle Bells":

Jingle bells jingle bells

Jingle all the way

Nobody has ANYthing, Yes and all the way.

I guess she takes after her father, since I am notorious for making up different lyrics to popular songs (please see these previous posts for more on that topic: Why do I have so much trouble with song lyrics? More about my "lazy ear syndrome" and MORE song stuff - Am I hard of hearing? My Lazy Ear Syndrome).

My son, Brandon, made me laugh pretty hard with some of his Christmas commentary.  Two days ago, he said this to me:

"Dad, I really hope it's not foggy this Christmas Eve.  Otherwise, we might have to call Rudolph.  Who knows if he's even still alive?  If he is, he has to be in his 40's by now!"

To those of you who say, "life begins at 40", apparently my son would beg to differ with you.

Last night, as I was putting the kids to bed, Brandon mentioned an interesting idea:

"Hey dad, you know how they have Elvis impersonators?  There should be Santa impersonators, too.  In fact, what if Santa sang songs and Elvis came to your house with presents?" 

Actually, that would jazz up the holidays a bit, wouldn't it?

When he was five, my wife took Brandon shopping at a local mall, and there was a Santa there taking pictures with the kids.  To understand how funny this is, you must know that we never pretended that Santa was real or really talked about it very much, since we wanted to be able to always tell our kids the truth.  This stemmed partially from the fact that my wife was traumatized as a kid by someone who lied to her telling her that she was going to see Big Bird on a TV while she was having a medical procedure.

At any rate, when Brandon finally met "Santa", he said, "I think you're real."  Santa replied, "Well, of course I am.  What would I be if I weren't real?"

"A puppet." 

Enough said.

Sometime soon, when I get sufficiently motivated, I will share some photos of our special day together today.  In the meantime, I hope that you had a terrific Christmas.

May God bless you richly in the upcoming year!  Thanks so much for reading.

Each year since 1975, the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar has been open for fun, live music, and art shopping.  My wife and I try to go every year, and we usually find a few "treasures" there that we can't live without. 

In a nutshell, the Bazaar provides an opportunity for local (and not-so-local) artists to showcase their work.  Yes, you can buy stuff, too!  There is live music during most hours of the event, which is typically open every day for 12 hours for about two weeks leading up to Christmas.

One year, we purchased a beautiful painted photograph of archways which now hangs in our entry near the stairs (see photo at right).  Other years, we have purchased watercolor original pieces, hand-painted notebooks, jewelry, and decorative scarves. 

My mom was in town to celebrate with us again this year, so she came along.  She bought several small, old-fashioned toys for our kids.  We picked up some very cool ceramic tile coasters with pictures from around Austin, including the front of the Driskill Hotel downtown, which is where we had our first date!

This is a cool place to shop for gifts for those who have everything.  Be forewarned - you may have to spend some time looking around to find the more "affordable" gift items.  I saw an amazing painting of the 360 bridge with metal work integrated into the piece, but it was $1800, so I passed on it, for obvious reasons.  That being said, if I could have afforded it, I might have purchased this, too.

They moved the event from the Austin Music Hall to the convention center this year, which made it much more comfortable (read: not as hot and crowded feeling).  The Armadillo Christmas Bazaar is well worth the trip, and it's one more reason that we love living in Austin.

If you want more information about this annual event, you can visit their primary website here:

http://armadillobazaar.com/

Here are a few other pictures that I took with my iPhone when we were there.  The quality is not the best, I suppose, but it will probably give you a feel for things.

If you are considering buying or selling Austin real estate, I would love the opportunity to help!  Feel free to call or email me anytime.  Thanks!

December 2008 is one that has presented a few challenges for my family.  I am ready for Christmas (well, not totally ready), because it has to be an improvement over some of the stuff we have dealt with this month.

For example:

1. My wife and I both experienced a stomach virus (she had it worse than I did, which was compounded by the fact that she is five months pregnant).

2. My son's Nintendo DS case and all of his games were stolen from our van as we ate at one of our favorite restaurants in north Austin on December 11th, which was the day before his birthday.  Many of my ActiveRain and Twitter friends stepped in to help by sending money and games for him.  You can read my post here about that: How My Twitter/ActiveRain "Family" Made My Son's Difficult Day a Little Brighter

3. Six days after that theft, my daughter's actual DS was stolen from the TABLE at another restaurant when my wife took the kids to the bathroom.  Apparently, she left it sitting there for a couple of minutes.  When they returned, it was gone.  Elizabeth Golden went above and beyond by sending a second check for my daughter (she sent one for Brandon previously).

4. My wife accidentally backed into the vehicle of one of the maids who was cleaning our house.  Our car had damage - hers did not.  After that, while I was working upstairs, I overheard the maids using profanity (some in Spanish, some in English) while talking about my wife.  I made them leave my home immediately, and called the owner of the company, who is a longtime friend and a current client of mine.  Needless to say, they will never return.

5. Yesterday, our refrigerator decided die slowly.  We had to go out shopping for a new one, which answered the "what should we do today?" question.  It will be delivered tomorrow.  Tonight, thankfully, it is very cold (for Texas) outside, so much of our perishable food is sitting in boxes on our back porch.  It looks like we left it out for Santa so that he would have plenty to choose from.

In the midst of that, we had to get our house decorated, shop, plan for relatives who are going to visit soon, plan my son's birthday party, and keep our three children alive.  I also got two new contracts in place, thankfully.

Overall, it could be a lot worse.  I am blessed beyond belief. 

Thanks for listening to me whine for a minute. 

Truly, none of this stuff has put a damper on my Christmas spirit.  After all, it's just "stuff", right?   

 I first posted this just over 13 months ago, which was about 3 months after I started blogging here on ActiveRain.  I thought it was timely, so I decided to re-post it tonight, as we are fast approaching 2009.  I think the message is still a good one.

I have been working from home most days lately, which is a real blessing in my opinion.  I could go to the office, but many days my work involves catching up on emails and perhaps a few phone calls (and blogging, too, of course).  As a result, I often get my writing inspriration by watching or playing with my children or from some conversation with my wife. 

Tonight, I noticed that my six-year old daughter was in the upstairs bathroom playing in the sink area, since I can see that room from the place where I typically blog.  She was kind of quiet, so I went to see what she was doing.  As I approached, she was energetically smearing lathered up soap all over the counter.  She looked like a master artist, perhaps Pollock? 

I asked her if she was planning to clean it up, and she said that she would.  I then asked her about how her very first piano lesson went, since it was today.  I have not seen a child that excited in awhile.  She began energetically jumping up and down, and she yelled, "It was great, great, great!  I loved it!"

My daughter's enthusiasm for the simple joy of soap suds and the absolute joy that she shared with me over the piano lesson inspired me to write this post. 

I have been in real estate almost eleven years now, which seems hard to believe sometimes.  At any rate, I realized that when I started, I used to get listings just from being hungry and excited about selling homes.  I don't know when that stopped being the case, but I don't feel that fire in my belly nearly as often.  Maybe this comes simply from being a veteran of this industry, but something tells me that I could do better. 

I am not leaving it at that.  This is just a starting point for me. 

If you follow my blog, you know that I have a lot on my plate right now.  Even with that in mind, I am planning to take a fresh look and a fresh approach to my business and my career starting today:

• I am going to treat EVERY lead with care, even the ones that are not thrilling. 
• I am going to stop procrastinating when it comes to follow up with past clients. 
• I am going to seek that energy that I had in 1997, when I was geared up everyday and anxious to sell something to somebody. 
• Clients will sense this in me and they will look forward to working with me, and ONLY me. 
• I am planning to treat every day as important - I don't ever get one back.  Once it is gone, it's gone. 

Every day that we are here is important, and every day should be treated as such.  I have a friend who is very sick right now, and if he can bear it out and make his life count, then I have nothing to complain about, and I should be squeezing the most from every single minute of this life.

I have my health, a beautiful wife, awesome kids, enough money to keep my head above water, my own business, freedom to choose how I spend my day, and the list goes on and on.  I need to be jumping up and down!  I am going to make it....playful. 

This business is unique in so many ways, and I truly feel that this is where God wants me right now.  I can look back and see jobs and experiences that I had as a younger man that ultimately all served to prepare me for this moment in time.  I feel like my skills and my personality are perfect for real estate, and I am uniquely talented as a salesperson and as a broker, teacher, and manager.  I am not bragging here - just evaluating.  My real point is: I can do better with the gifts I have been given. 

This may sound odd to you, but since I started blogging (about three months ago), I have been better able to express myself to my friends and clients.  I was already okay in that department with my family, but writing is a kind of catharsis that allows me to organize my thoughts sometimes.  Consequently, I have seen a benefit when dealing with issues of everyday life.  I feel more centered, and I feel accepted.  This may be a bit melodramatic, but I assure you that it's genuine.  I plan to use this newfound gift of communication.

Where am I going with this?  Check back with me sometime in the upcoming months.  You might just find that I have become a new man.

Copyright 2007   Austin TX Real Estate     Jason Crouch   All rights reserved

A few people had recently asked me about how our church plant was proceeding, so I thought it would be timely to give a quick update on things. 

For those of you who don't already know, I am involved as a core member of a brand-new church that we're starting in Georgetown, Texas, called ChristChurch PCA.  We are part of the Presbyterian Church in America.  I felt strongly led to participate last spring when my spiritual mentor and friend of 13 years passed away at age 49.

One of the biggest hurdles has been cleared at this point: we have secured a more permanent place to begin meeting!  Tippett Middle School will serve as our meeting place for 1-2 years as we grow.  The school is located in south Georgetown, just off of Leander Road, about 1/2 mile west of I-35. 

We are planning to begin Sunday morning services on Easter Sunday 2009 (which is April 12th), which is when we will make the move to Tippett.  Right now, we have about 12 or 13 committed core families involved.  Our goal is to have 25 or more families by the time we begin meeting in the mornings this coming spring. 

I was very involved in the site selection process, and I think it will suit our needs quite well.  According to our pastor, Whit Anderson, it's very hard for a church to grow beyond about 200 people while meeting in a school setting.  With that in mind, we are planning to stay at Tippett for at least a year, but probably not longer than two years, depending on how quickly we grow. 

The location seems like a good one for traffic/signage, and it's conducive to having a good childrens' ministry program, since there are a number of classrooms available as well as the "cafetorium" where we will be holding the actual worship services.

Overall, I am very excited at the prospect of getting things rolling and I look forward to the direction that God will take us. 

As a bonus, we had a Christmas party last night, and during our "white elephant" gift exchange, I scored an authentic fossilized shark's tooth necklace said to be millions of years old.  I gave it to my son - you would have thought I handed him a gold brick.  Sweet!

A few months ago, I heard about www.budurl.com, and how helpful it was.  They are based right here in Austin, and the company is run by one of my web hosts.  I first heard about it from someone at my SEO company.  I was not particularly enthused.

Later, while I was on Twitter, someone else recommended it, but I still resisted because I assumed that anything truly useful couldn't be that easy to set up.  Now, I'm not sure how I got along so well without it for so long.

So, what IS BudURL and how can it help your business?

BudURL.com is a site which allows you to easily "shrink" URLs to a more manageable length.  Here's one recent example of mine.

I turned this URL:  http://activerain.com/blogsview/827695/Jason-I-dont-mean-to-be-difficult-but   

into this:

http://budurl.com/h6t6

Needless to say, this comes in handy when you want to post links with limited space, such as the 140 characters allowed on Twitter. 

"But Twitter automatically shrinks URLs, right?"

Well, yes, but how do you track the number and source of the clicks?  This is one reason that BudURL is worth your time.  They offer extensive tracking (source, time, etc.) for these URLs that you have created.  Here's a screenshot from the last few that I set up there:

As you can see, it allows me to enter a brief description with each one, and I can see the total number of times that each one has been accessed.  There are more detailed stats available, too, complete with graphs, starting a $4/month.

BudURL would be a great tracking device for an email campaign, or anywhere that you are curious about who actuallly looks at your links.  Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and your own website are all great places to use this site.

I tested it the other day, and I found that you can call the link whatever you like (e.g. "Austin Homes for Sale") and still have it link to the BudURL of your choice.  Cool! 

Thanks for reading - enjoy!

My RSS feed is http://activerain.com/jasoncrouch/rss.

I took the day off yesterday, so that I could just spend time with my wife and kids.  My son Brandon's 10th birthday is today, and we also wanted to spend some time cleaning around the house in preparation for his party.  We went to a book fair in the late morning, then had lunch at Golden Wok in north Austin. 

The lunch was lovely, and Brandon even tried sesame chicken for the first time, which was a hit.  We were going to head home and do dishes, laundry, etc. to get a jump on tomorrow's festivities. 

However, our day took a turn for the worse as we were leaving the restaurant.

It must first be noted that Brandon and Aleah (our two older kids) are big fans of their handheld Nintendo DS video games.  Brandon asked where his DS case was, which contained all 16 or 17 of his games.  I didn't remember seeing it at all during our time running around, but he had apparently switched games while we were out and about, which meant that he had it in the car before we ate.  I knew he hadn't taken it into the restaurant, and neither my wife nor I recalled seeing it at the book fair.  Brandon thought it must have been stolen.

Of course, my first reaction was to assume that he was incorrect, or that he'd left it inside (no) or inside at the very low-traffic book fair (also no).  We tried to re-assure him that we would find it, but after some detective work, we determined that it was in fact stolen from our vehicle in broad daylight as we enjoyed the food inside. 

I am still dumbfounded by this, since it seems like such a bold move for someone to make.  Also, it seems like an odd choice to steal since there were other "valuables" in plain sight.

Since Pam had the keys, I figured that the car was locked.  She is the more responsible member of our marriage on stuff like that.  Perhaps she was distracted by our two-year-old and forgot to lock it.  Either way, this was shocking to all of us, especially on the eve of such a great day.

Since I didn't have a lot of time to write an actual blog post when we got home, I went to Twitter and wrote the following "tweet":

My son is very upset-all of his Nintendo DS games were in his case, which was stolen from our vehicle today. Tomorrow is his birthday. Damn.

The response there was overwhelming and swift.  Several of my friends (who are also here on AR) offered to help by sending replacement games and/or used games to help make Brandon's birthday a little brighter. Our insurance company will cover part of the cost (about 1/2 in my estimation).

Clint Miller was quick to offer support by offering to purchase a game for Brandon.  He ordered two of them from Amazon on my recommendation, one of which will be paid for by Elizabeth Ramsey Cooper.  Elizabeth is also sending another game or two that her daughter was willing to part with.  Tina Merritt's son heard about what happened, and they also donated two games to the "cause".

So, who are these Good Samaritans, anyway?

Clint Miller has become a good friend of mine over the past few months, and he has always struck me as a stand-up guy.  His company, Real Estate Client Referrals, provides "warm" leads for agents all over the country.  I used this service for a short time and the leads were pretty good, but some unrelated financial issues made it tough for me to give it a fair shake, so I had to discontinue.  I might resume this service in the spring.  If you are looking for a reputable person/company in that arena, I would recommend speaking with Clint first.  He does what he says.  Period.  

Elizabeth Ramsey Cooper is another friend of mine.  She and I have actually discussed starting a charitable cause benefitting children that would leverage our "audience" here on ActiveRain.  She is a great lady, and although we have only spoken once on the phone, it was like speaking to an old friend.  We are still working on the direction that we would like for this to take.  She has already claimed the Oprah spot if it takes off.  :)

I will admit that I don't know Tina Merritt very well yet, which makes her gesture even more special to me somehow.  I so appreciate this generosity on her son's behalf.  She is clearly a great mom who is raising her son correctly.  Kudos to you, Tina!  Thanks to Plaxo.com, I also know that tomorrow is Tina's birthday.  Stop by her blog and wish her a happy birthday if you have a chance.  Happy early birthday!

There was another member whom I think is sending two more DS games, but this was via word-of-mouth and not yet confirmed. 

I cannot overstate how touched I was by the kindness of my friends.  More importantly, my son was incredibly thankful.  We both got a little emotional at the thought, truth be told.

THANK YOU!  God bless each of you. 

You have helped to make a newly minted 10-year-old boy very happy!  I hope to have the chance to re-pay your kindness someday. 

I realize that many of you reading this will not find the idea of snow appealing or noteworthy, but my two older children have only seen snow ONCE in their lives.  Keep in mind that my son will soon turn 10 years old. 

I have never seen snow this early in the season before.  I think every other time that it has snowed (at least in my memory) it was in January or February.  The last snow which accumulated here was on Valentine's Day about five years ago. 

Unfortunately, it didn't really "stick" very much at all, but it was beautiful to watch it coming down for about an hour or so last night.  I got a picture as proof (see below).  Actually, I got several, but since it was dark, this is as good as any of them:

I was sincerely hoping for some accumulation, but it didn't happen this time.  Maybe we'll have a white Christmas for the first time in my life?  As a native Texan, nothing is more elusive or interesting that snow on Christmas day.

Thanks for reading!  Have a great week!