I received this great article from Castle Hill Investments that I thought I would share with you:
It is quite an unsettling, historic time in the equity markets.
It seems difficult to decide where to put your money these days. The stock market or Mutual Funds? Yikes. The bank? Nope. Real estate just anywhere? Probably not yet.
Central Texas real estate? Consider this:
Despite all of the national headlines, property values in The Austin and Central Texas market - surprising even to us - continue to gain in value (though sales have slowed) - Click here for the full article.
A third party entity called The PMI Group has recently ranked the four major Texas cities as the "least likely to decline in value in the coming year" with a less than 1% chance of decline. Click here for the full article.
Though we do expect continued mayhem in the markets up until the Presidential election, we continue to encourage value hunters to consider buying this year, because Central Texas sellers are generally more willing to deal than any time in the past several years, and the selection of available inventory would make buyers of the past few years salivate.
Austin continues to benefit from record unemployment, rising rents, and supply constraints preventing new real estate development (read: competition bad).
Though we are not crystal ball wielders, we can reasonably project that this season offers some of the best deals in some of the best areas of town.
Robert Grunnah, 10/8/08
