Austin Real Estate Scene

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Tour 8 of Austin’s Master Gardens on October 21, 2006

October 16, 2006 · Leave a Comment

On Saturday, October 21, 2006 from 9AM-4PM you can tour 8 of the coolest gardens from the City of Austin Master Gardeners. My wife’s garden is on the tour and I invite you to come check it out. You can also check out great educational seminars on Gardening. My wife is presenting her program, “7 Design Secrets for Your Outdoor Living Space” The cost is only $10. For more information go to www.tcmastergardener.org or call 512-854-9600 for ticket information.

Categories: Uncategorized

Hotel-condos have twice the staying power

September 12, 2006 · Leave a Comment

There is another hotel condo project getting ready to start their development next year. Austin-based Ardent Residential has land under contract next to the Four Seasons Hotel, where plans are in the works for a mixed-use tower with 200 to 240 apartments on the lower floors and 70 to 80 condos on the upper levels. Construction could start in the second quarter of 2007. see the article on it below. Hybrid residences on the rise in Austin

More condo-hotels are being built simply because they make financial sense, experts say. Hotel developers can spread risk to condo owners and earn income from condo sales when projects are finished. In some cases, developers can break even upon completion.

Categories: Business Growth · Buying · Downtown Austin Projects · Real Estate Trends · Uncategorized

Million Dollar Listing — Priceless!

September 7, 2006 · Leave a Comment

I read this on the www.luxuryclues.com blog the other day.

Last week’s episode of Million Dollar Listing on BRAVO was priceless. At the conclusion. I too wept along with the LA blonde bombshell agent. However, mine were not tears of sadness. She got what she deserved. The episode sadly illustrates how anyone who can apply lipstick and nail polish could find their way into a multi-million dollar transaction. So what if they bust up the deal. There’s always tomorrow. Hit the tanning salon and try again. Is that what being a luxury agent is all about?

During an open house, a non-represented buyer makes an offer and decides to use our protagonist as her agent. Wow, the intoxicating power of TV. You don’t need a playbill to know what came next. Buyer instructs our bimbette to present an offer $100,000 under listing price along with an idiotic list of repair demands cultivated from the home inspection. She can’t get her seller to agree to anything. She can’t get her buyer to back off. Buyer demands her agent to stand up and represent. That means doing two things at once. Oh my God!

The seller decides he’s not going to sell. Buyer laments over using a dual agent, especially one that “has a relationship with the buyer” Duh. Our little missy pours herself a Mimosa. Laments over the loss of a $114,000 commission and a dream shopping spree at Sephora. Making $57,000 just wasn’t enough for her apparently and recommending that the buyer get a competent agent was beyond her grasp.

Million dollar listing is just another, in a long line of exploitations of all that is wrong, tacky, and sad about our business that serve to cast dispersions across the entire industry. The only way to distinguish yourself as above this heap, is to take every piece of marketing collateral you have and determine if even a molecule of it bears any resemblance to the traditional, stereotypical agent. If so, find the nearest bonfire. Hire a real marketing firm and re-brand yourself. The more the lowest common denominator is cast as the majority, the more you need to remove yourself from it.   

Posted by: Narro Verum via www.luxuryclues.com

My comment here as I watched last night’s Million Dollar Listing was horrible. This show sucks beyond belief about real estate agents! It makes real estate agents look like all we care about is getting our commissions. It makes real estate agents look like we don’t care about the client. The agents on this show come off arrogant and cocky. Sure this show is edited to only show the embarrassing moments and failures of agents. It’s another very bad Reality show which is ruining TV in my opinion. But that’s another rant for me later on. They should take this show off the air or people will start to think million dollar real estate agents are full of crap and don’t care about anything but the $$$. OUCH!

Categories: Buying · Comedy · Rants · Resources · Selling · Uncategorized

This Week in Downtown Austin Events

August 24, 2006 · Leave a Comment

Click here for the latest edition of This Week in Downtown. All little kiddos on the go will want to check out “Kid Metro,” the newest exhibit at Austin Children’s Museum, where you can take an imaginary ride on a=child-sized Capital Metro Bus. As Dr. Seuss once said…”Oh the places you can go!” Check it out – This Week in Downtown.

Also happening this week:

Comedy – Lots of hilarious Improv comedy Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at the Hideout Theatre. Plus there’s some great stand up comedy at the Velveeta Room and the always famous sketch comedy of Esther’s Follies.

On Stage – 10 MINUTES MAX, 70mm splendors, workshop performance of unproduced play.

Music Scene – Angelic strings, Bad Roger, Los Flames, Texas 4000 Tribute

Gallery Watch – Several new shows opening that will open your eyes to new perspectives; Explore the Story at the Bob Bullock; Science Sunday delves into DNA; ice cream social and movie at LBJ Library promotes Future Forum for young Texans.

Special Events – Bamboo Festival, Hot Sauce Festival, Keepin’ Austin Weird, BarCampTexas, The Peddler Show

Street Closings – Click here to learn about traffic changes coming up.

DAA – Streetscapes & Transportation and Security & Maintenance Committee meetings

If someone forwarded this eNewsletter to you and you would like to get all that’s happening downtown delivered to your desktop weekly, just go to downtownaustin.com/news/thisweek/.

For everything you need to know about downtown Austin (living, working, playing, developing, parking, calendar of events, venue links and more) keep

downtownaustin.com on your desktop, in your pda, on your phone.

Categories: Austin Music · Comedy · Downtown austin events · Uncategorized

The latest on the Downtown Emerging Projects

August 18, 2006 · Leave a Comment

AUSTIN (statesman.com) Aug 11 – Work has started in the downtown area on six projects, with several more projects expected to break ground in early 2007. So far, these developments would add more than 3,000 living units.

Work should start Feb. 1 on Spring, a 36-story condominium tower at Third and Bowie Streets, said Robert Barnstone, one of the project’s developers. Rafii Architects of Vancouver, British Columbia, are the designers of the tower. Dick Clark Architects of Austin will design the interiors of the 220 units.

Just south of downtown, Crescent Resources LLC, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, plans to start work in early 2007 on Aquaterra, a 19-story, 173-unit condominium tower at 210 Barton Springs Road. The project will cost almost $50 million and should be finished in late 2008, said Steven Brandt, vice president of Crescent’s Texas operations.

These represent the first wave of large condo projects for downtown. Lots more is on the way. So stay tuned….We have a map of all the downtown projects underway at our office. If you want to recieve a copy of it contact us at tfischer@aveone.com

Categories: Business Growth · Buying · Downtown Austin Projects · Uncategorized

ZERO ENERGY COULD BECOME CODE

August 6, 2006 · Leave a Comment

Are we going to have sustainable energy homes in our near future? Why can’t we do this now? It just boggles my mind when I see how things could be but aren’t because of old tired ways of thinking. Here’s the story below about the plan for “zero-energy”  homes.

(Austin Business Journal) – Austin’s city council will create and appoint a “zero-energy” task force on Aug. 10, piloted through the Green Building Program of Austin Energy, the city-owned utility company. The task force will study the pros and cons of adopting building code changes requiring all new single-family homes in Austin to be “zero-energy capable” by 2015.

A zero-energy capable home, which is efficiently able to power itself with on-site energy generation, is approximately 60 percent more efficient than homes built to current code, according to the utility company.

Along with representatives of the City’s Resource Management Commission, task force members will be culled from various sectors of the residential construction industry, including advocates for affordable housing, energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Categories: Buying · Design · Real Estate Trends · Resources · Uncategorized

Techniques for balance in our crazy world

August 1, 2006 · Leave a Comment

This comes from a great consultant named Alan Weiss   use what you think is relevant for you….there;s always some good nuggets here!

- If you’re having trouble in networking or social situations, simply
ask the other person, “What do you think about….?” Others may be
bored by your point of view, but never by their own.

- Don’t be afraid to tell someone they are doing something annoying
(such as sending irrelevant stories or newsletters). Otherwise, how
are they to know, and you’re just enabling their behavior through your
silence.

- Here’s a great question to separate fact from opinion: “How do you
KNOW?” Opinion is fine, but it shouldn’t be confused with fact. Just
ask Dan Rather.

- There comes a point of diminishing returns for everything (there is
such a thing as too much lobster), and nothing symbolizes that better
than technology. You’re a slave to your technology when its upkeep
approaches ten percent of its actual utility. (That’s opinion, not fact.)|

- No matter how controversial the person or the viewpoint, it’s insufficient
trying to debate their views if you haven’t read, first hand, their statements.
I’ve found relatively few people who are 100% wrong or 100% right.

- The most inane thing I’m ever asked to do in a meeting or conference is
to “give yourselves a round of applause.” I find that it’s silly for the audience
and represents a speaker who has simply run out of ideas and energy.

- With due respect to every low-cost, web-based alternative for air fare and
accommodations, do you really want to make decisions by least cost or, at
least occasionally, by going for best quality? (It’s simple to purchase a computer
more cheaply on the web or through a catalog, but try to get help dealing with
problems, as opposed to the help you would get from a local retailer.)

- There has been an overwhelming amount of “junk science” of late about what
we eat, how to lose weight, exercise, etc. Here’s something quite factual:
Moderation in eating and consistent exercise help, period.

- No one in any audience, to my knowledge, has ever complained about a
meeting ending slightly early, but they all start to lose attention once it’s
sixty seconds late in ending

- If you don’t see a sunrise or a sunset weekly, no matter where you live, you just may not be getting out enough.

Balancing Act® is a monthly electronic newsletter
discussing the blending of life, work, and relationships,
based on the popular Balancing Act workshops and
writing of Alan Weiss, Ph.D. Contact us for further
information at:
http://starkserious.wordpress.com/wp-admin/balancingact@summitconsulting.com

Categories: Business Growth · Motivational · Uncategorized

There is discord on the edge of downtown Austin

July 28, 2006 · Leave a Comment

This was an interesting read in Statesman about the downtown development of condos and high rises. Read Discord on the Edge of Downtown. Is this going to hurt or help us in Austin? The land prices are rising fast for developers.

Land prices along South Lamar and South Congress average $25 to $35 a square foot, though prices near the lake can reach $45 a square foot.

Some developers say rising demand outside downtown is pushing land prices up. They say future developments will have to exceed 60 feet, or about six stories, to maintain affordability because they will need to spread the land cost over more units.

“If you are paying $100 a foot for a piece of land and can only build 60 feet, with the current construction costs, those units are going to average $600,000 to $700,000 apiece,” said Bobby Nail, the Bridges on the Park developer.

Some residents of these areas outside of downtown are complaining that heights of these building projects don’t belong in their area. Even City Council members are chiming in about the consequences.

Why would you ever pay the land premiums downtown to build higher if you could go do it outside of downtown?” Council Member Brewster McCracken asked. “This could really damage downtown if we don’t protect the core unique asset of downtown, which is the ability to build taller structures.”

Look it’s just a matter of economics for the developers. if the land costs keep going up which they will, they will want to build taller structures to offset their land costs and MAKE MORE MONEY. The big question is whether the City Council and the Area residents will rise up and strike them down from doing it. This will be an interesting battle we’ll have to track.

Categories: Buying · Downtown Austin Projects · Infrastucture · Real Estate Trends · Uncategorized

Seller’s Disclose or you might be sued!

July 25, 2006 · Leave a Comment

In a recent article in the Statesman, a lawsuit has irrupted over a cliff side home in which the buyer’s claim the claim the previous owners concealed problems caused by falling boulder.

This is a problem for everyone now that the lawyers are in on it. The big lesson for Seller’s is DISCLOSE, DISCLOSE, DISCLOSE or you could end up getting sued.

The big lesson for for Buyer’s is it is their responsibility to do their own due diligence and they should have gotten a structural inspection during their Option period. Not after they bought the house! That’s stupid! You don’t go spend million dollars on home that you might think is unsafe! They found out after they bought the house and felt ripped off thus causing the buyer’s to file a lawsuit. Even the listing agent was named in the lawsuit. OUCH!

Categories: Buying · Rants · Selling · Uncategorized

Taking Responsibility is for everyone

July 13, 2006 · Leave a Comment

Lately I’ve encountered a number of situations in the real estate business where no one wants to be responsible for what’s going on in a transaction. There’s lot of finger pointing and blame cast about. Then I realized if a deal fails I’m responsible for it failing. Now you say how could that be. We’ll I decided to be responsible for the deal and take ownership of whatever challenges we might face. This allowed to be more proactive and getting things done. But guess what? I still keep getting new problems and I want to blame someone for them, but it’s not going to do me any good. I’ve been reading some great email tips from a well-known management consultant on Responsibility, Christopher Avery. In a recent email he writes,

How much of your time and attention do you spend in have-to mode? You know: I have to go to the dumb meeting; I have to go to work; I have to go to my kids school play; I have to go to my in-laws for holiday; I have to, I have to, I have to! We say it a thousand times a day, don’t we? The unstated message is I don’t want to but I have to or else (fill in the consequence). And the meta message is I live my life in a trap.

We don’t live our lives in this trap unless we believe we do. So maybe it’s best if You can attack this monster from different angles. First, examine all of your have-to’s and ask yourself what it would require on your part to take 100% responsibility for those choices. A Fortune 500 executive did that and re-wrote his meeting calendar, vowing to fully engage in every meeting he attended, not go, or change the meeting to be more valuable. Second, catch yourself saying the words have to and stop. Insert one of the following choices: want to, get to, am (as in I want to go to my boss’s dumb meeting, or, I am going to my boss’s dumb meeting). Say it with ownership to remind yourself that you designed this situation for yourself and you have the power to change it when you are ready. Then forgive yourself for being so human and vow to catch yourself sooner next time. (for more information and to read the rest of his article go to: http://www.christopheravery.com/etips/july2006.html

This isn’t always easy to do and it feels good to get mad blame other people sometimes. But ultimately we’re still responsible. At least we’re responsible for how we handle ourselves, not the other people. Let’s face it some people are just lazy and stupid and they get blamed for a lot of stuff because they don’t own up to being responsible. My problems aren’t going away anytime soon, so I figured I might as take ownership of them and work them out. Let me know how it works for you!

Categories: Motivational · Rants · Uncategorized