State of affairs

Good afternoon everyone.

Hope you are all well and finding opportunities in the crazy market conditions we are all facing.

I am sure all of our respective markets are experiencing different levels of activity and change. Here is Austin we feel somewhat fortunate that we remain active in selling and buying at most price levels.

Our most effective market in Jumbos as we did not see a bump in the rates in our area and our buyer pool was probably 70% reduced from one year ago. (The 500,000-$1 million market).

It will be very interesting to see what effect recent government initiatives will have on interest rates now that the makers of interest rates have been fully backed by the government (for all intensive purposes). It is amazing to see rates up .25% over the last 10 days. I have heard form some in the financial services markets that they are expecting further rate increases over the next month.

How are your collective markets doing? Are regional banks still supporting locale real estate purchases? What banking entities are active in your market transactions? We see some locale banks talking up programs but qualification is tenuous and a lot of deals falling off at the 11th hour.

I have personally seen BOA do a few loans in the last 6 weeks. Transactions seemed to go smoothly and close on time. We are starting to see some mortgage brokers testing waters with creative packages. I have not personally seen any of these complete a transaction but some agents reporting they are able to find the niche financing needed for most transactions.

While the purpose of this group is to develop a referral network around similarly minded agents/brokers, I think it is important that we share market news and trends from our respective markets so that we collectively as a group can be more knowledgeable and better able to advise out clients about markets in other parts of the country.

I wish you all a good weekend and good luck in your real estate ventures.

Regards

Robert Kenney, RDC, CRP, GMS, TRC
Realtor®

Turnquist Partners Realtors, Inc.
3700 Bee Cave Rd., Suite 102
Austin, TX 78746

512-922-4922

robertkenney@turnquistpartners.com