South Austin Texas Real Estate blog: September 2007

  Except for most realtors, weekends are workdays!!! But that doesn't mean we can't sneak in a few hours of something special. So find an hour or two and relax, renew, re-energize!! then check out the fabulous Open Houses in the area, the Circle C area has some wonderful pricing happening now, go see them.

   If you are hungry and need some fun try on the all you can EAT PANCAKES breakfast for $5.00 a person at the Twin Lake Fellowship , 1150 S Bell Blvd, Cedar Park from 7am to noon. 

   Cheap and fun .. what a combination..  "Featuring Loretta" the end of a 3 week run at the Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W 43rd St...  $15-17, http://www.hydeparktheatre.org/  is described as a witty entertaining play.

   The Old Pecan Street Festival is this weekend.. lots of food, shopping and festival fun. Downtown Austin, while there a tour of many condos downtown is happening this Saturday.

  This weekend in Austin is a HOME GAME for the UT Longhorns, 2:30pm at DKR stadium, lots of tailgating will be going on ...its Texas vs Kansas State. HOOK EM HORNS.

Football season is off and running.  Even if I dont follow the stats I know its here because everywhere I look people are dressed in Burnt Orange,  I mean Tshirt, Shorts, sweatpants, headbands, carrying umbrellas, sitting in chairs, EVERYWHERE its the Longhorn Burnt Orange.

This is not a bad thing, its one of the things that pulls Austin together, the masses the everyday everywhere everyone wearing Burnt Orange in support of the local University of Texas football team. You go to the supermarket, its there, to the car wash, to the mall, uptown, downtown..  Fall is definitely in the air when Mack Brown the head football coach appears weekly on the local radio call in show.

Austin has festivals, rollergirls, Broadway shows, art exhibits, and so many food festivals I couldn't name them all.. here are a few for this weekend.

9-22&23 Moon Festival Celebration  Chinatown Center/North Lamar  www.chinatownaustin.com

9-23 Family Museum Day: Make a Toast to Art! Austin Museum of Art  www.amoa.org

or preplan for next weekend...

9-29-30 Old Pecan Street Fall Festival, East 6th Street  www.oldpecanstreetfestival.com

9-29&30  Texas Rollergirls Shootout Championship @convention center  www.txrollergirls.com

9-27-30  Ballet Austin: A Midsummer Night's Dream  www.balletaustin.org

9-29 It's A Nano World, Austin Children's Museum www.austinkids.org

9-30 Austin YAM JAM, Threadgills's Downtown-Riverside  www.AustinYamJam.com

So get out there and have some fun, life isn't all work work work.  and HOOK EM HORNS!!!!!

THE UT Longhorns play at home this weekend vs Rice , 6pm, DKR Stadium @ 6:00pm.

Integrity... websters describes it as...integritat-, integritas, from integr-, integer entire
1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY
2 : an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : COMPLETENESS
synonym see HONESTY

 It should be synonyism with REALTOR.  We are in the business of TRUST, we must gain trust from our clients in order to do a transaction, we must TRUST the title company, the inspector, the surveyor, the loan officer and the list goes on... we all hear  " build a team of trustworthy people and companies".

Yesterday I received an email that puts real estate in a shady light, it was  "Buy a foreclosure in your area starting at $10,000. "   well folks, I don't believe those exist in my area.  Of course I could be wrong and I wasn't going to spend the money to prove it to myself.  But, listen to the ads on TV now, I just heard one.." real estate agents dont tell you about these because they can't make enough money on it"... talk about shadiness and perpetating the image of shadiness.  so, how can we REALTORS combat this? 

 Thru our personal integrity one client at a time?  That does work, its slow and its pure...maybe NAR could talk about INTEGRITY in the next ad campaign? 

 Personal integrity is something we all have ... its a given when we are born, its not for sale, it can only be given away.. .once its gone its very difficult to regain.  Integrity .. what we all live and earn by. Keep it yours forever and you will reap those benefits of being known as the realtor with honesty and fair values to all clients.

With all the media telling us daily how the real estate industry is a dying venture I would like to share a few things about Austin Texas, my home. 

This week my buyers didn't act fast enough and a Condo they really wanted sold out from under us within 4 days of coming on the market.  two weeks ago another client had a lovely home sell out from under them within 2 days of a price reduction.  By out from under I mean .. while the client is thinking it over that home/condo went under contract to someone else.  Multiply these experiences a dozen times and you are seeing the current trends this year in Austin. 

Granted earlier this spring homes sold in hours, this week its days.  so I guess our market has slowed a tiny bit, but Austin hasn't had the explosive growth of major cities in other states.. we just keep plodding along.  The overall economy in Austin is great..  new industry arriving monthly, jobs are up..so the housing market has been steady.  Will it last you ask?  Everything cycles, styles, trends, housing markets.. ours will too.