A recent article by The Real Deal shows how foreign buyers boost the Austin, Texas housing market. Here are the important takeaways:
There was $609 million spent by international homebuyers in Central Texas in one year, and international homebuyers accounted for 3% of those sales.
Interestingly, one in six new Austin-area residents are from abroad.
India was the primary source of international homebuyers for the second consecutive year, making up 21% of transactions, while Mexico accounted for 17% of international transactions, followed by China (6%), Brazil (6%), and Canada (5%)
Median home price for international buyers increased to more than $573,000, up by more than $50,000 from the 2022 median price.
This median price significantly exceeded the overall median price in the Austin region, which was just more than $478,000 during the survey period.
毎年恒例の HAR Advisory Group の昼食会が 11月30日にメディカル センターの Wolfgang Puck レストランで開催されました。 HAR.com には、ヒューストンの不動産メンバーで構成される多数のグループがあります。彼らは自ら時間を割いて定期的に集まり、業界の問題について話し合い、会員、協会、消費者に利益をもたらす解決策や新しいプログラムを提案します。委員会は、YPN (若手専門家ネットワーク)、グローバル (スーザンは元委員長)、MLS、リスク軽減、政治問題、リスク管理などの特定の専門分野に焦点を当てています。1 年間のボランティア活動を記念して、HAR は全員が参加する年次昼食会を開催します。 Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) には現在 50,000 人を超える会員がおり、これらの諮問グループは組織をより良くするために常に取り組んでいます。
The annual HAR Advisory Group holiday luncheon took place on Nov 30 at Wolfgang Puck restaurant in the Medical Center. HAR.com has many advisory groups comprised of Houston realtor members. They volunteer their time to meet regularly to discuss problems in the industry and also ro suggest solutions and new programs that will help benefit the members, association, and consumers. Committees focus on particular specialties such as YPN (Young Professionals Network), Global (Susan is past chairman), MLS, Risk Reduction, Political Affairs, Risk Management, etc. To commemorate a year’s worth of volunteering, HAR holds an annual luncheon where all advisory group members come together. The Houston Assocation of Realtors (HAR) has over 50,000 members now and these advisory groups constantly work to make it better and better.
The most exciting news of all is a special closing that took place on Friday, Dec 1. After nearly 1.5 years of marketing, showings, and negotiating, Annoura Realty sold the Japanese Government’s official residence in 77024. This special home was home to all of the Japanese Consul Generals from the past 35 years up until Hurricane Harvey when the home unfortunately flooded and was destroyed. Many official parties, meetings, and events had taken place in this beautiful home, giving it great significance in Houston history with Japanese relations. Special thanks to Consul General Mr. Murabayashi, Dennis McQuitty, and the entire Japanese Government staff for your trust in Annoura Realty. It was an honor to represent Japan and to get the home finally sold! While the sale of the official residence was the most exciting sale these past two weeks, we also had a lot of other real estate action take place. Susan and Mik got Olympic Forest under contract and through the option period for our investor in California. Susan also got her cute red barn house in Damon under contract and directly into pending status. We are now just waiting for the appraisal to come through and for the buyer’s loan to be approved. On the leasing front, we welcomed a new Mitsui expat to the Memorial area and had a new expat doctor from Saga move into the Medical Center area. On the listing front, we were super busy the past two weeks, taking to market Mario’s waterfront condo for lease on Clear Lake, a 5 bedroom home in Bay glen for lease, and a home for sale. The home for sale is tenant occupied until next summer and is zoned to popular Clear Lake High School: www.har.com/38179541. On the horizon, we will be bringing to market a home in League City for sale. It is currently tenant occupied but will be vacated by the end of January, so it will be ready for an end user to buy it. Mik and Susan will be helping a newcomer from DMG Mori find housing this coming week, and Susan and Mariko will be getting two more condo units to sell inside Ponderosa Forest. We will be looking for an investor to buy this 10 unit portfolio! The year might be ending but we are not slowing down!
Thanksgiving break provided the Annouras time to go on a family vacation! One of our favorite things to do is to go on a motorhome trip. As usual, we rented from American Dream Vacations, the branch in Boerne, TX. This year we rented a 26 foot Class A type motorhome and visited four different state parks. If you have never visited a Texas State Park, I highly recommend you buy a Park Pass for all the discounts! Booking so late in the game, we had to grab whatever parks that were open, but that allowed us to check out many different places! We started out our first two nights at South Llano River State Park, getting to hike along the beautiful Llano River. Good Friday we spent hiking up and around Enchanted State Park, just outside of Fredericksburg. In the evening, we stayed at Lady Bird Johnson RV Park (the only non State Park), and the following day we went out to Blanco State Park (Koh caught a catfish!). After dropping Joe back to Austin (UT started school the next day), we wrapped up our trip with a final night at McKinney Falls State Park, just 20 minutes from downtown Austin. Our favorite parts about the trip were all the different beautiful hikes, celebrating Koh’s birthday on top of Enchanted Rock, and planning/cooking all of our own meals. It helped to have two Eagle Scouts with us for all the cooking and fire building! All in all, it was a great trip for everyone!
The real estate industry is currently facing a multi-front assault from consumers and regulators across the U.S. And while it remains to be seen what will ultimately happen, the industry is increasingly bracing for major disruption.
Sitzer | Burnett Sitzer | Burnett has been the highest profile case lately because it went to trial in October in Missouri and the verdict was recently reached. A jury ultimately ruled in favor of the homeseller-plaintiffs in the case, agreeing that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and various large franchisors conspired to keep commissions high. At issue was NAR’s cooperative compensation rule, also known as the Participation Rule, which requires listing brokers to make an offer of compensation to buyer brokers in order to submit a listing to a Realtor-affiliated MLS. The jury awarded $1,785,310,872 in damages, which, under the law, will be automatically trebled to $5.356 billion.
In the days following the verdict, several ‘copy cat’ lawsuits have come out, including a suit against Texas Realtors, HAR, MetroTex, ABOR, and many other real estate companies and even individual agents. Although NAR just lost the Sitzer Burnett case, it is not named in this suit. The target is only state and local associations saying they are guilty for overseeing compliance with the NAR MLS rules. Potentially, this lawsuit could seek class action status and represent home sellers in Texas from Nov 13, 2019 to present, who used a local association’s listing broker and paid a buyer’s agent commission. NAR defended the current system of cooperative compensation, stating it benefits both sellers and buyers by allowing homes to be sold for more, providing more choices for buyers, and facilitating transparent and efficient marketplaces. NAR emphasizes the value Realtors bring to clients during the complex homebuying process.
This is my opinion only, but if we change the current system where sellers pay their listing agent and their listing agent splits their commission with the cooperating buyer’s agent, then what system will we go to? Will we follow New York, where sellers are committed to paying their listing agent and will now pay the buyer’s agent directly? Will we change to a Colorado system where the seller often pays their listing agent and the listing agent is in the middle, representing the seller and just helps the the buyer (with no buyer’s agent)? Will we change to a Japanese system where the seller pays the listing agent and the buyer pays his own agent? There are many options of what the system could become after these lawsuits are worked out.
