HometownGeorgetown.com

According to a press release from the Economic Development Department, Georgetown’s new Texas LifeSciences Commercialization Center opens officially today. I learned quite a bit about this Center during a recent Leadership Georgetown class. Recruiting the biotech industry is part of Georgetown’s push to create high paying, low polluting jobs. Each of the companies in the Center are small, and part of what attracted them to Georgetown was the promise of shared resources. For example, the building developers put in a laboratory with cutting edge equipment that the companies couldn’t afford on their own. By leasing space in the TLCC, they will be able to do the necessary research for their product development. It’s the city’s hope that one or more of the companies will eventually take off and employ 200 or more of our local citizens in jobs with excellent salaries. There are currently three companies in the TLCC: Radix Biosolutions, Quantum Logic Devices, and Orthopeutics.

I love working just one block from the historic square here in Georgetown, Texas. This morning, I met with four Leadership Georgetown cohorts to interview Shelly Hargrove, Georgetown’s Tourism Director and head of our Main Street program. The sky was blue, and the weather was crisp enough to redden my cheeks but warm enough that I could unbutton my jacket. The courthouse looked so beautiful and Christmasy as I passed that I couldn’t resist taking a couple pictures.

Ms. Hargrove’s enthusiasm for her job was apparent from the moment she entered the conference room at the Visitor’s Center. (The Visitor’s Center is located on the corner of Main and 7th Streets.) Her heart lies especially with the Main Street program because of its focus on revitalization combined with historical preservation. “I’m a downtown girl,” she told us. Every time she goes to a new city, the first place she stops is the downtown because it tells her a lot about the community and how much value its citizens put in the quality of life. When I told her that Georgetown’s downtown area is what cinched the deal for me when I was considering where to live, she said that a lot of residents here feel the same. Our square is something special, and we should all fight to keep it vibrant and healthy.

Ms. Hargrove and others in the city have high hopes for our downtown area. She would like to see the square become more of a 24-hour center of activity. She thinks the way to accomplish this is to encourage more upper floor residential. The more people who live downtown, above the shops, the safer and more lively a place it becomes. When their front yard is the sidewalk, people are more concerned about keeping it clean and attractive. She anticipates a lot of this type of growth along Austin Avenue in the coming years. One tidbit that I found very interesting was that the city of Georgetown is soon going to take over the ownership of Austin Avenue from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). I was surprised to learn that Austin Avenue isn’t already a city street. It’s currently owned by the state, as is University Avenue. TxDOT is making some promised repairs to Austin Avenue, and Georgetown plans to take it over at the beginning of next year. When they do, they are going to add more historic lighting and more pedestrian zones from the bridge over the San Gabriel River up the hill to the square, to extend the reach of our downtown.

Our meeting ended around lunchtime; it was a quick walk to at least six delightful restaurants, each with its own unique menu and ambience. Today I chose Wildfire. I ordered the portabella and spinach enchiladas for myself and pork roast for my sick husband at home. (I feel annoyingly smug for getting a flu shot!) Both were delicious. I asked the folks at Wildfire whether they sell gift certificates, and they said they do sell them in $25 increments. So right there, that’s the first gift idea that I am presenting. Beginning December 1 and through the Christmas season, keep your eye on this blog for a lot of great gift ideas from local businesses. Let’s keep as much of our money as possible right here in Georgetown!

Serenada is a lovely established neighborhood east of Williams Drive, just north of the airport. Driving through Serenada is like taking a drive in the country because the houses are set well back from the road, and most of the trees have had at least two decades to mature. Did you know that Serenada is not within the city limits of Georgetown? It’s almost fully surrounded by city land, but it hasn’t yet been annexed.

This means, among other things, that the residents of Serenada do not pay city taxes. Nor do they reap the benefit of city services such as water and sewer. Homes in Serenada are on septic systems. That’s not a bad thing at all; just something that buyers need to know when purchasing a home there. Which, in the past six months, sixteen buyers have done. Sixteen homes sold in Serenada. Eleven properties are currently on the market, and three properties are pending sale. Twenty-seven of these thirty homes were built in the 70’s and 80’s, and three in the 90’s.

Let’s compare the active properties with those that have sold. I’m including the pending sales with the actives because we won’t know the sale price until the deal closes.

The current list price of active properties and the sales price of the properties that sold over the past six months are not all that different, nor is the square footage. So why did the properties that sold sell in an average of 35 days, when the active properties have been on the market for an average of 75 days without selling? Obviously, there’s more at play than price per square foot (as there always is.) The house that sold the quickest went into pending status in May, with closing in June. This home’s kitchen had been recently remodeled, and the house had been freshly painted. The house that’s been on the market the longest without selling has been listed for about five months. In that time, the list price has been reduced by almost $10,000. It looks beautiful in the pictures, but the perfect buyer has not yet walked through the door. Maybe $10,000 was not a big enough reduction to get the house sold. The homeowners have to weigh their motivation to move against the need to get a higher price. It might make sense to stay right where they are for now, or they might decide that they need to accept a lower price to get on with their lives.

What a great day yesterday was! I love the Friday after Thanksgiving. Shopping, football to keep the man occupied, leftover turkey sandwiches, and the Lighting of the Square here in Georgetown. My husband and I walked down to the Square just after dark, so it was already lit when we got there. It looks like a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting, the perfect picture of an idyllic small town Christmas. The courthouse was strung with lights, and even the dome was colored red by spotlights on the roof. The carolers were in fine voice as they sang from the courthouse steps. Families gathered around on the lawn and sidewalks to listen. The Christmas tree on the corner of Main and Seventh towered above the passing shoppers, and a wreath encircled each of the old-fashioned street lamps. If you haven’t seen the Square at Christmastime, you really should make a point of visiting.

As we walked home, we passed a line of happy people waiting to get into the Palace Theatre for their musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol, which will be running for the next month. I overheard one little girl say to her mother, “You know what I want to do now? Go to a show. This very instant!” Too cute. The stores around the square have outdone themselves with Christmas-themed gifts. Outside the County Seat, a placard advertised prime rib and shrimp.

Don’t forget that next Saturday, December 1, the Christmas Stroll will take place here in Georgetown. The festivities start at 10 a.m., with the parade at 11. You can get pictures with Santa from 1 to 5 in the afternoon. Over 100 local vendors will be selling arts and crafts, so you’re sure to find some great gifts and stocking stuffers. Be sure to stop by the Moreland offices just one block off the square for a cookie. We’re the gingerbread house on the corner of Austin and Ninth Streets.

Tonight, I searched the system with the following criteria:

1. Status: Active or Active Contingent
2. Property Type: House (excludes condos, garden homes, mobile and manufactured homes, and townhomes)
3. Area: GTE and GTW

A very broad search, I know, and that was intentional. I wanted to give you a snapshot of what’s on the market here in Georgetown right now. There are currently 547 houses for sale in GTE and GTW. In GTE (Georgetown East), the prices range from just under $85,000 on up to over a million, with an average list price of $207,494. In GTW (you can probably guess what that means), they go from about $115,000 up to almost two million, with an average of $338,650. About one quarter of the homes for sale are in GTE. In the chart below, I’ve compiled all the homes in both areas to show the range of price points available in Georgetown. We truly do have something for everyone, from the starter home for the first-time homebuyer up to fantastic luxury estates that any Fortune 500 CEO would be proud to call home.

When I get a new listing, I generally put a lockbox on the front door. I link that specific lockbox to that specific address by going to the website of the company that makes the lockboxes. By having the lockbox linked to a specific address, I know which REALTORS have shown my listings, and when. At the end of the day, when the REALTOR uploads the data from their electronic key, the system sends me an email to let me know that house has been shown.

Moreland has an excellent online feedback request system. I log in to the Moreland site and add the showing to the database. The system then sends an email to the REALTOR who showed the place, asking whether their buyers liked the place, what they thought of the price, if they were thinking of making an offer, that sort of thing. It takes about one minute for the REALTOR to provide this invaluable feedback through the automated system. As soon as they click OK, an email is shot to both me and to my sellers, keeping us both informed about how the market is reacting to this listing. It’s a fantastic tool.

 Another advantage to the lockbox is that my sellers and I can dictate when the house can be shown. The sellers don’t have to worry that some REALTOR will walk in on them and their rubber duckie in the bathtub at ten o’clock in the evening. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing for everyone concerned?

Ah, Sunday. A good day to dig in for a closer look at what’s happening in the Georgetown, Texas real estate market. We did that yesterday, too, but we looked at our entire area for just a one-week period. Today, we’re going to go a different route - we’re going to look at the real estate market in a specific location over the past twelve months. (From November 18, 2006 until today.) Here’s the area I searched:

As you can see, a number of subdivisions are encompassed in this area: Churchill Farms, Georgetown Crossing, Indian Creek, the Meadows of Georgetown, Raintree, Stonehedge, Summercrest, and University Park. I was going to do one neighborhood at a time, but it’s more fun to work with larger numbers. As long as you have Excel to do the math for you, that is.

Currently, there are 37 properties active on the market in this area, plus six properties in pending status. (This means that an offer has been made and accepted, but the deal hasn’t closed yet.) During the past twelve months, a whopping 92 properties sold. Not bad. One of the properties sold on its first day on the market; the longest time on the market was about five months. Did the cheapest house sell the quickest? Nope. In fact, the house that sold on its first day was priced at about $10 higher per square foot than the average price per square foot. The average price per square foot of the homes currently on the market is higher than the average price per square foot of the homes that sold. (It’s probably easier to look at the charts below than to try to interpret my explanations.)

I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense to compare the highest and lowest asking prices to the highest and lowest sales prices, except to satisfy our curiosity. We can’t really make the comparison when we don’t know how the specific houses themselves compare. (When I’m sending out information to the general public like this, I can’t mention specific addresses and link them to sales prices. That’s a service I can provide to clients when we’re trying to ascertain a good price for their home or a home they’re interested in buying.)
The average prices, though, makes a good point for comparison. You’ll note that the average list price of properties currently on the market is about $12,000 higher than the average sales price of properties that sold. Most likely, many of the homeowners who are trying to sell right now will need to come down in price - at least a little - in order to sell. Of course, a lot of sellers start out high, thinking that they want to have some wiggle room for negotiation. That’s okay, as long as they don’t price it so high that people are afraid to even make an offer. It’s a tricky task, putting a price on a house. It takes a lot of research and analysis to do it well.
In this chart, we compare the price per square foot of the homes currently on the market to the price per square foot of the homes that have sold over the past twelve months. (I didn’t factor pending deals into the equation.)
You can’t really use this figure as an absolute, but you can use it to help you narrow down the range at which you should price your house. For example, if you price your house higher per square foot than any of the competition, your house had better be outstanding. Even then, buyers might hesitate. You certainly don’t want to give away your house, but neither should you price it so high that you chase away prospective buyers.I am taking on new clients. If you’re planning to sell your home, please give me a call so I can do a free comparative market analysis for you. No obligation, I promise. I would simply love the chance to earn your business. My number is 876-6544, and my e-mail address is jenel@moreland.com.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know by now that I’m a big cheerleader of Georgetown, TX. We enjoy a fantastic quality of life, thanks in large part to citizens who have worked to make our city what it is. We have a chance now to get involved, too. The City of Georgetown is now accepting applications for positions on the many Boards and Commissions. There is something for every area of interest: