HometownGeorgetown.com

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.