HometownGeorgetown.com

In a recent letter to parents, Interim Superintendent of the Georgetown Independent School District (GISD) George Garver discusses the coming changes to the district boundaries map. A tenth elementary is being erected at the corner of Inner Loop and CR 110, and GISD anticipates opening it for the 2008-2009 school year. The new 9th grade campus should also be ready to go by then. So what will happen with the current 9th grade campus? Eventually, it will become Georgetown East View High School, but not until a large addition is built. The timing will depend on whether and when a new bond initiative is passed, and how long it takes to build the addition. Population growth will be a factor, as well. We all know that the growth is coming, but no one knows exactly how fast our new neighbors will arrive.

You can see the current district boundaries on the GISD maps page. Click on the links in the lower left to see elementary and middle school maps in PDF format. The district provides another tool that I find very helpful. You can search the bus routes by address to find out which school your children would attend if you purchased a new home. Access the tool here, and sign in using “guest” as both the username and password. Then click “Students” at the top of the next page. You should see a link titled “School Transportation Search.” Click the link and then input the address of the home you’re considering buying. Just remember the point of this post: the boundaries will change in the near future, perhaps multiple times over the course of the coming years.

Let’s dig into the numbers to see what’s been happening over the past week in Georgetown. For your benefit, I pulled up the hotsheet going seven days back for the MLS areas known as GTE and GTW (Georgetown East and West, as you probably guessed). Take a look at the area encompassing Georgetown on this map from the Moreland website.

During this time, 22 properties went into Pending status, and 5 became Active Contingent. What do these terms mean? In both cases, an offer has been made or accepted, but there’s one key difference. The Austin Board of Realtors defines Active/Contingent as a listing where an offer has been accepted on the property but is contingent upon “something” else happening either on the buyer or seller’s side. The offer is frequently contingent upon the buyers being able to sell their own home. While they are trying to sell their home, the sellers of the first property continue to market their property to try to get another offer. When a property goes into Pending status, it is essentially taken off the market, although back-up offers are often accepted during this period.

Even better than this figure is the fact that 27 properties sold over the past seven days. The buyers and sellers closed the deal. The inspections are done, the financing came through, and the keys changed hands. What a great feeling! Right now, someone is unpacking boxes and dreaming about the holiday season in a new home.

There were also a number of properties on which the price changed. 58, to be exact. 55 of them are houses (excluding townhomes and manufactured homes). These homes have been active on the market everywhere from eight days on up to 253, with an average of 81 days. The average original list price is $265,848, with an average reduction of $16,184, or 5.88%. Is that a big enough reduction to convince buyers of the value of these homes? Only time will tell. Unfortunately, if a home isn’t priced right when it’s first put on the market, a buyer may be more difficult to convince. Think about it. When you see a house that has been on the market for five months or more without selling, isn’t there a part of you that wonders what is wrong with the house? In truth, there may be nothing wrong with the place other than that it was priced too high in the first place. But that taint of time can mean that, in the end, the home sells for less than it could have.

Do you want to be in the know about the Georgetown, Texas real estate market? You can subscribe to the RSS feed for HometownGeorgetown so that you will always know when I’ve posted a new article. RSS feeds can be found right next door to your Favorites.

Notice the little orange box with the white symbol in it? Now take a look at the top of this page. Do you see the same symbol next to the search box?

When you click on that button, it will take you to a page that shows you all of the headlines from HometownGeorgetown. At the top of that page, you’ll see a link that invites you to subscribe to the feed.

Click the link, then click the Subscribe button, and that’s pretty much it. Now all you need to do is remember to click on the “Feeds” button from time to time. You’ll know there are new headlines if that particular feed title is in bold letters.

You can probably tell that I love technology tools. As a REALTOR, I have lots of tools at my fingertips, and I have the skills to use them to help sell homes. Almost all homebuyers these days go first to the Internet when looking for a home, so sellers need a strong online presence. Please call me at 512-876-6544 if you’re thinking of selling  (or if you’re in the market to buy). I’d love to meet with you to show you how I can help!