Archive for May, 2008

The hunt for the perfect tomato

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

The Georgetown Farmers Market is back! Locally grown produce is the freshest you can get without growing it in your own back yard.
The farmers market returns to Georgetown, TX
The downtown farmers market will take place every Thursday from now through November at the corner of Austin Avenue and 4th Street. (May I put in a plug with the Powers that Be to move the market back to the courthouse square?) The market will operate from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Georgetown farmers market at the corner of 4th and Austin Ave
The farmers market will also make a special weekly trip to Sun City on Tuesday mornings. The Sun City market is open to the public; you do not have to be a resident of Sun City to attend. For more information, visit the Georgetown Farmers Market Association website.

Georgetown ISD Career Connections

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

I spent my day today with four lovely young 8th-grade students of Georgetown ISD. They are participating in a program called Career Connections, and today they came along with me and my colleague, Sheila Evans, as we toured a number of model homes in the community. One young lady, Haley R. from Tippitt Middle School, is still with me, and I asked her which home is her favorite.

Haley said, “I liked the Berry Creek home.” (Note from Jenel: That was a Drees model home, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Haley has excellent taste!) “It was huge. The movie room was my favorite feature.”

Haley is thinking of becoming an interior decorator, as were the other girls in the program. “I’ve always liked designing homes, so my mom said interior designing is for you,” Haley said.

Career Connections is a program started by Partners in Education as a way to inspire kids to think early about how they want to develop their lives. With hard work, they can do anything they put their minds to!

April sales

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

April home sales comparisons in Georgetown, TX
April sales this year weren’t far off from those of previous years, with the obvious exception of April 2007, a record-breaking year. In fact, the total value of our sales this year exceeded 2004, 2005, and 2006. However, homes took longer to sell this year (on average) than they have in any of the past five years.
As you can see, the median sales price has dropped significantly from last year. I attribute this to the sluggish sales of higher priced homes. This April, only 9 homes sold for $300,000 or more, which equates to about 9%. Last year, 22 homes - or roughly 17% - of the homes that sold in April sold for more than $300,000.
At least one economist posits in the Wall Street Journal that the national housing slump may have bottomed out. Just to be clear, this is the national housing slump. I don’t feel that we’ve experienced a “slump” here in Central Texas. Maybe a slight slouch, a minor case of bad posture, but not a true slump.

This week (and last week) in residential real estate in Georgetown, Texas

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

I didn’t write last week since I was attending my brother’s wedding, so this week’s report will include data from the past 14 days in home sales here in Georgetown. We saw $11.6 million in residential sales over the past fourteen days in MLS areas GTE and GTW, with 53 sales. That’s still behind 2007 during the same period, when $17.7 million sold, but we’re slightly ahead of 2006, when $11.3 million sold between April 20 and May 4. I was surprised by this because 2006 was a fantastic year, overall, and I would have thought this year would be behind that record year.

With 87 new listings, supply still outstrips demand locally, making it a buyer’s market. However, 8 of those listings are already in Pending status, which goes to show that well-priced properties can still sell very quickly. That doesn’t mean “cheap.” In fact, four of the properties are listed for more than $250,000, one of which is more than $500,000. Note also that there are 10 homes listed as Back on Market, so they were under contract, but the deal didn’t close. Residential MLS activity for Georgetown, TX for the two-week period ending May 4
The average sales price in GTE over the past two weeks was $162,624, while it was $266,350 in GTW, a difference of more than $100,000. At a recent Leadership Georgetown class, one of our guest speakers commented on the difference in home values in these two areas, east of the freeway and west of the freeway. He said that it wouldn’t matter if someone built a fancy subdivision with beautiful homes in GTE; they would still be worth less than similar homes in GTW because people want to live in rolling hills. GTE’s landscape is more flat. Some of the subdivisions west of the freeway really do have incredible views.

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