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 12 resale homes available on the MLS in the Fairways, with an average asking price of $237,104.  The average square footage for these homes is 2,737, for an average price per square foot of $88.74.  

There are 6 homes under contract presently in the subdivision, with an average asking price of $211,695, and an average size of 2,691 ($78.67/square foot).

Over the past quarter (January 1st through today), there were only 2 sales closed within the Fairways of Blackhawk.  With such a small sample set, averages wouldn't really mean much in this case.

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 now partially open, and it promises over 1,000,000 square feet of shopping and entertainment upon completion.  Home Depot, SuperTarget, Best Buy Verizon Wireless, and Mattress Firm are now open, soon to be followed by Bealls, Dick's Sporting Goods, several retail clothing stores, Chick Fil-A, and much more. 

If you are 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 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 remained reasonably strong despite a rocky real estate market in 2008.  

Currently, there are 19 homes available in the Meadows, with an average asking price of $204,915.  The average square footage for these homes is 2,455, for an average price per square foot of $84.57.  

Presently, there are 5 homes under contract in the subdivision, with an average listing price of $176,598, and an average square footage of 2,258, yielding an average price per square foot of $80.74.  This is about six dollars per square foot higher than prices for 2008.

Over the past three months (January 1st through today), there were 10 sales closed within Meadows of Blackhawk.  The average listing price was $183,119 and the average sales price was $181,915.  This means that homes sold for approximately 99.3% 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 this initial quarter was 111, which is higher than the average for the entire Austin MLS.  The square footage of the homes sold averaged 2,328, and the price per square foot for the sales was $79.19.

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 fully open within a few months, and it promises roughly 1,000,000 square feet of shopping and entertainment.  Home Depot, Best Buy, SuperTarget, Verizon Wireless, and Mattress Firm are now open, soon to be followed by Bealls, several retail clothing stores, a number of restaurants, and more.  

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!

Thankfully, this month has been a whirlwind activity with my buyer clients, and I also managed to get my last listing sold in the meantime (guess I need to get some more!). 

Today, for the first time in (mumble mumble) months/years, I will be writing two offers, and I just had a closing two days ago as well.  Things have picked up mightily in March for us, and I am hopeful that it will carry into the summer and fall months ahead.

Rather than focusing strictly on the good stuff that has happened for me this month, I wanted this post to illustrate the importance of networking, both in person and online.  To that end, I did some thinking about the source of each of the aforementioned transactions.

Each of these deals came from different sources:

• Family
• Open House
• ActiveRain
• Localism

"Wait....back up a second....did you just say Localism?!?" 

Yes!  In fact, it was almost surreal when the buyer contacted me. 

He said simply, "Hi, Jason, I've been reading your blog on Localism for awhile now, and my wife and I would like to work with you to buy a new house and have you sell our current place."

Please note that he didn't just say "your blog" or "your blog on ActiveRain".  He specified Localism, which was the first time that someone has said that to me during an initial call.  It doesn't mean that there weren't others, but this guy was so specific about it.  Please also note that he had already decided to work with me exclusively.

So far during 2009, I have been contacted by at least half a dozen home buyers who came straight from my blog, and who don't have any intention of speaking to other agents at all.  What a good feeling!

I wrote a post awhile back that touched on this topic, and I'm happy to see that my theories are coming to fruition now:

Blogging is a Long-Term Strategy with the Potential for Short-Term Results

Projecting forward, I would anticipate that at least half of my business for 2009 will be coming from my blogging and social media efforts.  Thankfully, I no longer have to answer the question, "Is all of that time you spend online really worth it?" 

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

Ken Cook and I have been hosting a one-hour online radio show called "Twitter Tuesday" every week since November at 11am Central (noon Eastern, 10am Mountain, 9am Pacific) on BlogTalkRadio.com. 

We have a guest or two each time, and we talk about various social media topics and using them to grow your business.  

Sometimes, we just riff on each other and use funny sound effects and music to make each other laugh.  It pretty much depends on our mood.

Recently, we have added a regular segment with Mike Mueller, called Mike's Moment (or Mike's Minute, or Mike's Affirmation of the Week, again depending on our mood). 

Mike spends a few minutes during each show talking about his personal "tech tip of the week".  What a great guy!

I am please to report that we averaged 262 listeners per show for February (so far), making us one of the top social networking shows for online radio!

This week, we are very excited to welcome James Shiner, CEO of Zipvo.com and founder of the newly launched TweeplePages.com.   Zipvo is one of the premier real estate video sites around, with a membership of over 13,000 now.  TweeplePages.com allows you to join and use hobbies/interests to help others find you, and you can find and connect with them, too!  James is also a contributor at GeekEstateBlog.com.

You can access the live show OR listen to our recorded shows anytime right here:

http://blogtalkradio.com/jckc

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

I have been posting about our church plant for several months now, and we continue to grow and move forward with our plans of launching our "official" Sunday morning services in September. 

In the meantime, I am pleased to announce that we will be beginning our first public services on Sunday, April 19th.  This simple evening service will begin at 5pm, and it will be held at the Georgetown Public Library, at 402 W 8th St, Georgetown, TX 78626.  This is just one block west of the square!

After searching extensively for the right larger venue to accommodate us until September, we settled on the library for a number of reasons - cleanliness, size of rooms, cost, etc.  There were some small hurdles to overcome, but we are really looki forward to getting started there.

We have also assembled some terrific musicians for our worship team, and I am excited to see how they will sound!  I say "we" as if I were somehow involved in the process, but I am nonetheless thrilled that we have some talent available.

Our services should last about an hour (perhaps 75 minutes), and child care will be provided for kids up to age 5.  When we start our Sunday morning services in the fall, we are hoping to integrate a "kids' church" program for older kids during the sermon time. 

Come join us anytime if you are interested! 

For March 29th and April 5th, we will still be meeting at the RunTex location just south of the town square on Main Street, from 5-7pm.  From April 19th until September, it will be from 5-6ish at the library.  If you have any questions at all, feel free to let me know, or you can contact:

Whit Anderson, Pastor
whit@cpcgeorgetown.com
(512) 784-5868

I have lived in Pflugerville now for 14 years.  My wife and I bought our first home here in 1995, and our second, much larger home in late 2002 in the Blackhawk area. 

Over the years, the landscape has changed far more dramatically than we could have anticipated.  Back then, I still remember my mother-in-law saying, "Enjoy this farmland around you while you can.  It probably won't last."

While much of the open land is still there, we have seen the addition of two major toll roads which intersect about 1.5 miles from my home.  At this intersection (45 & 130), there is a giant new commercial development which is now open with many more stores and restaurants to come. 

When we moved here years ago, we had to drive at least 10 minutes to get to the nearest grocery store.  Now, there are FOUR grocery options within about 5 minutes, including three different H-E-B stores and a SuperTarget, which one new home sales rep claimed is the largest in the country (although I haven't confirmed this yet). 

While there has been a lot of new development in the past couple of years, I noticed over the past week or so that there is still a LOT of open land for sale along all of the major arteries in Pflugerville, marking the swift conversion from large residential tracts to commercial development. 

Today alone, I noticed at least 10 "FOR SALE" signs along 45 on my way to and from Round Rock's La Frontera shopping center.  Behind the new Stone Hill Town Center, there are several tracts in a row of varying sizes for sale.  Here's my latest update on Stone Hill if you are interested:

Stone Hill Town Center - Pflugerville - UPDATE! (Video Included) 

If you have any interest in purchasing land for development in the Pflugerville area, let me know and I would be happy to help you find the right property.  I can be reached anytime at 512-796-7653 or via email at jason@austintexashomes.com.  My primary Austin, Tx real estate site is at www.austintexashomes.com.

In case you don't normally read my blog, Ken Cook and I have been hosting a one-hour show called Twitter Tuesday every week since November at 11am Central (noon Eastern, 10am Mountain, 9am Pacific) on BlogTalkRadio. 

We have a guest or two each time, and we talk about various social media topics and using them to grow your business.  

Sometimes, we just riff on each other and use funny sound effects and music to make each other laugh.  It pretty much depends on our mood.

Recently, we have added a regular segment with Mike Mueller, called Mike's Minute!  Mike spends a few minutes per show talking about his "tech tip of the week".  What a great guy!

I am please to report that we averaged 262 listeners per show for February (so far), making us one of the top social networking shows for online radio!

This week, we are very excited to welcome Steve McGranahan, "The World's Strongest Redneck"!

Steve has appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, as well as having a regular segment on CMT's "Country Fried Home Videos".

Steve is not just a strongman - he's also a role model. Although the current state of stand-up comedy seems at times to be mean-spirited, hateful, and filled with vulgarity and crudity, Steve is dedicated to performing routines that are not only appropriate for the whole family, but actually makes people feel encouraged, inspired, and challenged.

You can access the live show OR listen to our recorded shows anytime right here:

http://blogtalkradio.com/jckc

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

Today, we took our kids along for a very cool experience.  We had our first 3D ultrasound (see pictures below).  It was a small splurge (around $100), but we hadn't ever had a chance to have one of these.  It took around 20 minutes or so, and they gave us a CD with a bunch of pictures, as well as a DVD with video and some audio of the baby's heartbeat.

Our baby girl still appears to be very healthy.  In fact, she looks huge to us!  My wife's "tummy" is bigger than she has ever been at this stage in the pregnancy, which probably doesn't sound all that alarming until you realize that two of our babies were 9-6 and 9-9 (Aleah was our smallest, at a robust 8-1).  Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if this is our first 10+ pound baby (hear that, Greg Nino?).  Time will tell, I suppose.

Here's a picture that I took of Pam yesterday:

 Needless to say, no one has any qualms about asking our due date anymore! 

By the way, I don't want to come across as though I am asking for baby gifts, so just send money if you feel led to do so.  :)  I am kidding, of course.  However, some of you did ask about baby "stuff".  If you have any interest in this, we are registered at Target now, and it should be under my name and/or Pam's.  Thanks!

Now, on to the cool baby pictures!  I actually stole these from Pam's blog tonight.  I'm sure she won't mind.  ;)

Not Smiling:




Teeny Smile:




Big Smile:




Happy Baby Grin, "Hi, Mom and Dad!" - this is the clearest one to illustrate that she shares my personality:




Tail-End of Smile:




With Pursed Lips:

I have four current clients who are going to be receiving the entire $8,000 tax credit offered to first-time homebuyers.  Surprisingly, I meet people every week who haven't even HEARD of this gift.  Yes, I consider it a gift, because it doesn't have to be paid back at all! 

I decided to look for a comprehensive video to explain the ins and outs of this program, which is valid through the end of November 2009.  I found this one from the National Association of Home Builders which seems to cover all of the bases:

Coupled with exceptionally low interest rates and plenty of inventory to choose from, this tax credit is just one more reason to buy in the upcoming months.  Why not take advantage of this free money?

There has been a lot of new commercial development over the past several months right here in Pflugerville, including the opening of Home Depot, SuperTarget, and Best Buy.  One smaller business may not garner as much attention as the big guys, but Pflugerville Donuts will be opening its THIRD location very soon.

Interestingly, I have had a number of emails from local residents who read my blog asking if I know when this latest location will be making its debut.  It's my understanding that it will be opening within the next week!

Located in the strip center next to Radio Shack near 685 in front of Wal-Mart, Pflugerville Donuts will be the sole donut location in this general vicinity.  I haven't had a chance to try their other locations yet, but I understand that they also offer kolaches and breakfast tacos, so I am already a fan.

Lovers of the old Round Rock Donuts location (which closed up shop awhile back) will likely welcome this opening.

Since I am actually trying to lose weight (again), I probably won't be able to frequent this location as much as I would prefer, unless they offer a fat-free version.  On second thought, I don't think I would like a fat-free donut at all.  Yuck.

Other businesses in that center include Baskin-Robbins, Gamestop, Subway, Taco Bell, and Starbucks. 

The physical address is 1616 FM 685, Suite 104, Pflugerville.