Hollis Lopez, Austin Realtor

02/02/2022

These development announcements just keep coming. This will be 3 minutes up 183 north of the new Apple campus.

"At full buildout, the property will include approximately 2.6 million square feet of class A office space; 200,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and community and cultural spaces; two hotels; thousands of upscale residences; and 30 acres of parkland. Pearson Ranch is expected to be fully complete in 10 to 15 years.

For comparison, The Domain is roughly 300 acres with thousands of apartments, about 1.8 million square feet of retail space and multiple office towers."

This will be a huge mixed-use development just down the road from Apple: A corporate campus, restaurants, residences and multiple hotels are planned.

01/25/2022

Recent business headlines suggest that Austin’s previously established international semiconductor “computer chip” presence is growing stronger. If you’re like me, you’re no expert in semiconductor chips but all you need to know is that they’re essential to all tech products from smartphones and computers to medical devices to vehicles, either in storing memory or giving critical processing power. You’ve probably heard there’s a global shortage of these chips due to pandemic supply-chain constraints.

Central Austin has been a hub for semiconductor development for decades. Companies here in Austin include NXP, Infineo, Ambiq Micro, Vorago Technologies but the industry is led by South Korea based company Samsung which has operated a semiconductor factory for the past 25 years. Samsung recently invested $17B to develop a new plant in Taylor TX, about an hour northeast of Austin. It’s the largest foreign development in Texas and is expected to start operations in 2024. This development further cements Austin as an international semiconductor powerhouse, which inevitably attracts supporting businesses to the area like Moov Technologies who connect buyers and sellers of pre-owned semiconductor equipment. Moov Tech has established a second headquarters here in Austin.

As the world becomes more and more dependent on technology, Austin and central Texas will help the world reach its supply-side goals of the microprocessor market.

The tiny town of Taylor just got noticeably bigger — and it ain't seen nothing yet.

11/03/2021

Hi all, want to get some data on Austin's real estate market?

I've got two images below that I hope will give you some perspective on what's going on in Texas' capitol. Everyone has heard that Austin is a hot real estate market. What makes it hot?You've heard stories of all the multiple/cash/over-asking offers with appraisals and inspections waived. What is that all about? Why was there such frenzy? There's so many factors that you can write a college thesis on. There was "a lot" of relocation of companies and migration of people from more expensive states to less expensive, more business friendly states, bringing their big cash filled wallets, the work from home trend which placed the country in sort of a COVID-style musical chairs. A healthy market should've been able to handle the marginal increase in demand to Austin. The short answer of why Austin got so hot and competitive is because there was historically low inventory of listings that buyers had to compete over.

This graph on top represents Travis County's active inventory of listings (blue) and the median close price (green). You can see the relatively steady increase in median home value since 2011 until mid 2020 when appreciation rates spiked just as active inventory dropped to record lows, all the way to just 1,100 listings in March 2021, compared to 3,686 listings in March 2018. When COVID hit, naturally, there was a lot of uncertainty and many didn't want to list their homes for sale which further reduced the number of listings and drove up the prices.

As you can see, active inventory is cyclical in a year. Most homes are listed in the summer and least in the winter, so what's interesting to me is: what direction inventory will go from here, the beginning of November 2021 approaching the heart of the winter months.

Since Summer 2021 had extremely low inventory will the winter have even less? In a typical year, yes, that logic makes sense but things haven't been "typical" the past two. Inventory crept back up to 2,306 listings in September (remember it was 1,100 in March) which in turn prompted a 8% drop in median closing price that you can see on the top right of the graph. It went back down to 2,070 is October.

Many people in the real estate industry say prices will stabilize. With active inventory and prices so intricately connected does that mean inventory is also projected to stabilize at near record lows?

The blue line of that graph doesn't fully account for all inventory. What about new home construction? Take a drive around Austin and you'll see a lot of cranes in the sky and builders building in the suburbs. Most builders have separate data bases for their listings.

Addressing future new construction inventory: the graph on the bottom illustrates how many housing permits have been authorized for the various counties that Austin consists of: Travis, Williamson and Hays County. You can clearly see that Austin is building a lot. 28% more housing permits where authorized in 2020 than in 2019 which, yes, is massive. Permits don't mean shovels in ground. Permits take a long time to become completed housing projects, a year to two. This inventory should be hitting the market in more full force in 2022.

Given what I'm looking at here, and not even to mention rising interest rates, it's looking like there's going to be a much needed dose of inventory coming our way: both resale and new construction listings.

I'd like to hear your thoughts. Comment or message me!

10/06/2021

From Freddie Mac:

"Mortgage Rates Jump Above Three Percent- September 30, 2021

Mortgage rates rose across all loan types this week as the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield reached its highest point since June. Many factors led to this increase, including the Federal Reserve communicating that it will taper its support of the capital markets, the broadening of inflation and emerging energy supply shortages which compound other labor and materials shortages. We expect mortgage rates to continue to rise modestly which will likely have an impact on home prices, causing them to moderate slightly after increasing over the last year."

Mortgage rates rose across all loan types this week as the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield reached its highest point since June. Many factors led to this increase, including the Federal Reserve communicating that it will taper its support of the capital markets, the broadening of inflation and emerging....

06/28/2021

With greater-area Austin median home prices breaking records on a monthly basis and the great California exodus to reach cheaper, more business friendly states many are asking if we should expect LA/Bay Area prices in the future.

Redfin economist says "it isn't likely to become as expensive as San Francisco, though. It's more likely to become almost as expensive as Seattle"

Some important factors involved in this assesment:
1) the amount of land Austin has room to grow into, spreading out buyer demand into the suburbs. Something the coastal cities don't have as easy of an option to do.
2) The City of Austin's debate over rezoning to allow buildings to be built denser and bigger to provide more housing options for people closer to their work inside the city.

in the article "Redfin determined that nearly 40% of all people shopping for housing in Austin are coming from outside of the metro. Austin ranked in the top five most popular places for people to move in May. It also had the largest increase in home prices of all the largest U.S. metros."

The vast increase in home prices has been astounding. One thing pretty much everyone agrees on is that the rate of growth will surely decline.

Is Austin turning into San Francisco? Not likely, said one expert — it's more likely to resemble another California city. Check out a new map of where newcomers come from.

06/25/2021

We’re listing a prime piece of real estate in Tarrytown, Austin

Enjoy the Austin lifestyle in this fabulous [BEDS] bedroom, 3 bath home. Built in 1953 with a clean and well-planned 3746 sqft floorplan. This beautiful home will sell fast! Send an inquiry in the form below.

06/21/2021

A new rail station, McKalla Place located right outside of the new Q2 Austin soccer stadium, has been approved and construction will start March 2022. There's currently a station nearby the stadium located on the Red Line connecting downtown to Leander. This part of the extensive $7 billion Project Connect Plan will be another piece of infrastructure that's tying the city together.

Here's what we know about the future rail station at Q2 Stadium in North Austin,

06/17/2021

The Austin real estate market continues to heat up as the summer selling season officially gets underway. The Austin Board of Realtor’s latest monthly report, released June 15 and providing ...

05/14/2021

This will get you pumped for the first Austin FC home game! Reporting from my friend Eric Goodman

04/06/2021

Drone footage of the massive Tesla factory

Lots going on today as we prepare steel in the battery area for er****on, geopiering is going strong in the North casting area, roof insulation cruising alon...

03/08/2021

I’ll be listing this 3x2 home on E 2nd for lease in a few days. It’s $2600, minutes to DT, Town Lake, etc. Reach out if interested!