I’m not trendy.  In the world of interior design, I’m rather clueless.  So I read what others say to keep up to date.  Starting with colors, yellow, brown, and red are the go tos right now.  Someone needs to tell the paint guys, who declared 2024 the year of blue.  Stripes are coming back – whether it be a whole room or just as an accent.  Bold, big stripes, not little ones.  Apparently, glass blocks are returning – you may remember their last appearance during the 80s and 90s in a lot of bathrooms.  Now they’re being used as material for floors and tile ..read more

Did you know you can use retirement funds to buy a house?  Whether it’s a good idea is certainly debatable and it depends upon a buyer’s particular situation, but let me explain the basics.  If you have a traditional 401(k), you can borrow up to $50,000 without paying taxes or penalties.  You’ll pay back the principal and interest to your 401(k) under rules set by your plan administrator.  You can also simply withdraw the funds, but you’ll pay a 10% penalty plus all the regular income taxes.  Now if you have a Roth 401(k), you can withdraw your contributions without ta ..read more

The erotic art of the deal.  I once had a client who painted and sculpted.  He wanted to buy the house a few doors down from the one he was renting.  Since it was a HUD home, electronic signatures were not allowed so he had to sign the contract in ink.  I suggested we go to his house to take care of the documents.  As we approached the front door, he turned to tell me that his art was erotic and some of it was on display.  I said it was fine, but I wasn’t prepared to find every inch of the walls covered in paintings and every surface covered with sculptures.  ..read more

Consumers are wrong.  I know, the customer is always right, but let me explain.  Consumers expect 30-year mortgage rates to hit 8.7% in 2025 and 9.7% in 2027.  The Federal Reserve of New York has done this survey of consumers for years.  I went back to look at what these expectations were over the past 10 years compared to the actual rates.  As it turns out, consumers are not good about predicting mortgage rates.  To be fair, neither are the “housing experts.”  When looking out both one and three years, consumers generally expect rates to be about two points ..read more

If you are looking to buy or sell a home in Central Texas, contact me via email or at 512-650-7300. If you prefer to read instead of watch, here are the chart and transcript ..read more

Did a 40-story building sell for just $13 million?  No, it didn’t.  A story out of Fort Worth gained a lot of attention recently as headlines blared that a skyscraper worth $138 million in 2021 had just sold for only $13 million.  But it’s wrong.  You see, there were multiple loans taken out when the property was purchased.  The biggest loan was $68 million.  There was a smaller loan with a $13 million balance.  The owner defaulted on the smaller loan which triggered foreclosure.  Whoever bought the building at auction would have to assume responsibility ..read more

Goodbye top ten.  That’s right, Austin is no longer the 10th largest city in the USA, falling to number 11 as Jacksonville Florida leapfrogged us.  The Census Bureau gives annual updates on city populations and Austin grew 0.5% from July ‘22 to June of 23 with an estimated count of almost 980,000 people.  Austin held the number 10 spot for just one year.  The suburbs continued to grow quite well, however.  Dripping Springs population increased 23.3% over the one year, Liberty Hill was 15%, Georgetown almost 11%, Kyle at 9%, and Leander at almost 8%.  Georgetown ha ..read more

Here are the top 10 delinquent property tax owners in Travis County for 2023.  Taking spots 1, 2, and 9 are entities affiliated with Nate Paul’s World Class Holdings.  I’ve talked about Nate before – he’s in a lot of financial and legal trouble.  In total, these three owe over $3 million.  Number 3 is OTX Hotel which is at the Oasis Texas area.  To be clear, this is not the Oasis restaurant at Lake Travis – it’s the development next door which has completely separate ownership. The next several are all investment LLCs so I’ll just summarize:  Number 4 is a strip m ..read more

What a difference a few years makes.  I usually don’t talk about home affordability because it’s hard to do in less than a minute, but let me throw a few numbers at you.  These figures presume a buyer purchasing a median priced resale home in Central Texas with a 30-year mortgage and a 10% down payment.  If they bought a home in March 2020 the principal and interest payment was $1,362.  Today, a buyer purchasing a median priced home in Central Texas would have a monthly principal and interest payment of $2,775.  That’s slightly more than double in four years.  Tha ..read more

The 2024 property tax appraisals have been released in Central Texas. For many who purchased their primary home prior to 2021, there is likely no reason to protest. But for those who purchased since then or who own investment property, this workshop will walk through how to protest, tips on how to do it, the terminology to know, and more. I live in Travis County and this video focuses on that, but the general knowledge translates across the great state of Texas ..read more