All Blog Entries by Chip Bubela

Where buyers can find great opportunities in today’s market.

Today I want to tell you all a little story. The other day, I was going to a listing appointment with a potential seller, and I decided to drive by a property I had sold a few years ago. I wanted to see what the gentleman had done with the place.

It was early morning, and he was outside enjoying his retirement. We started talking, and he mentioned that he had gotten an appraisal in the mail. We discussed the market, how things have changed since he bought his home, and the tremendous things the Texas real estate rush has done for people over the past three years.

So where are the…

A quick land market update for Brazos Bottom and Austin Hill Country.

Today we want to give you an update on the land markets in the Brazos Bottom and Austin Hill Country regions.

Brazos Bottom:

• The average appreciation last year was 22%.
• The average sales price was $8,392 per acre.
• The total dollar volume increased by 83% to $453 million.
• The number of sales increased by 21% to 1,160 transactions.
• The total amount of land sold was 53,911 acres.

The Austin Hill Country posted the best gains in Texas:

• The regional prices appreciated by 38% in 2021.
• The average sales price was $5,733 per acre.
• The total dollar volume grew 102% to $956 million.
• The total acres sold jumped 47% to 166,740 acres.

As for…

What we and the national experts predict appreciation will do in 2022.

Prices have been increasing, so today I’m sharing our 2022 home price appreciation expectations. 2021 was a robust appreciation year, but interest rates are steadily rising. Last year’s rate average was 3%, and now we’re hovering around 5%, which will likely grow to 6%.

To get a good idea of what to expect out of 2022, we looked at seven trusted real estate forecasts, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the NAR. The lowest estimate was 6.2% appreciation this year, while the highest estimate was 10.8%. Averaging all seven numbers, we get about 9% expected appreciation in the residential real estate market.

We sat down and discussed what we value in the real estate business.

Last week, I sat down with our leadership team, and we talked about what we value in the real estate business. We like to have fun, we're positive people, and we want to focus on our relationships with our clients and everyone in the office. We also want to be experts who work hard and who you want to work with when you're buying and selling real estate.

If you know anybody who’s looking to buy or sell in 2022, consider referring them to us. We wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Thank you for all you've done for us this past year.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We look forward to hearing from you.

The supply and demand issue could see a decade-long market boom.

Is the real estate market nearing a peak? Previously, we made a video on how millennials are now entering the market. There's not enough supply to support the millennial demand. This week, Barons published an article saying that the housing boom could last for a decade. That's because this boom is driven by a lack of supply, not demand.

We’ve underbuilt homes for the past 10 years since the housing crisis. Homebuilders haven't built enough homes to support the millennial generation, and now they’re trying to catch up. They're predicting that this could take another 10 years.

If you think you’re too late to this market and don’t want to buy at the peak, understand that this is…

We just wanted to say thank you for all your support this year.

It’s November, which means Thanksgiving is coming up. I just want to say thank you to our clients for all your business and support this past year. Many people think real estate is easy; they think it’s simple to sell properties and help buyers find homes, but it’s a challenge. (However, I still think it’s the best business in the world.)

It’s especially been difficult the past year or so due to the lack of inventory. There are fewer houses to look at and help our buyers find just the right home. Plenty of people are jumping into the business because they think this hot seller’s market will make it easy to do transactions when in reality, it’s…

Here’s why people are comparing our land rush to the California gold rush.

Right now, people are comparing the land rush in Texas to the California gold rush of the 1840s. As an accredited land consultant, I can tell you that land prices have gone up by over 9.5% in the first quarter of 2021 and more than 17% in the second quarter. Many have been told that land under $10,000 an acre in South Central Texas is impossible to find, but this is a misconception.

Today I have two tracts available in beautiful southern Fayette County just west of Flatonia, Texas, headed toward the Texas hill country.

If you would like more information, don’t hesitate to reach out via phone or email. I would love to hear from you.

An update on the real estate market and showcasing a 94-acre property.

Today, I’ll update you on what's been going on in the market before highlighting a property we just listed with a 15-acre lake. We're located between Austin, Houston, and San Antonio. The communities that we service are Lagrange, Schulenberg, Flatonia, Howardsville, Columbus, Weimer, and Giddings. Here are some comparisons from one year ago to today:

1. Supply. Among all those communities, we had an average of 4.07 months of inventory a year ago. Today we have 2.18 months of supply.

2. Sales price. The average sales price for residential homes last year was $162,829. Today the average sales price is $200,815.

"We're still attracting quite a few buyers to our area."

See what’s changed in our South Central Texas real estate market.

As you likely already know, we’ve been in a strong seller’s market for quite a while now. There are very few homes available but many eager buyers, so competition is fierce. Part of this is because new home construction has been lagging behind population growth over the past decade. Starting in 1970, there were around 10 to 12 million homes built every decade. From 2010 to 2020, however, there were only 6.5 million new homes built.

Millennials are the biggest generation now, and many of them are ready to purchase homes. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough available for them, and prices are rising rapidly as a result. Additionally, low interest rates are pushing even more buyers…

Life in rural Texas can be amazing. Learn more about rural living here.

We’re located in a rural part of Texas between the major cities of Houston and San Antonio, and we're also 75 miles away from Austin and 60 from Victoria. Wherever you want to go on a given day, this is a great place to be situated. However, since people from urban areas don’t really know all of what rural life can offer, today Reveca and I will discuss some things that urbanites want to know about rural living. 

Feel free to follow along with our conversation in the video above, or else use the timestamps below to navigate the discussion at your leisure:

1:38—How’s the Wi-Fi?

1:56—How’s the commute?

2:42—How are the schools?

3:43—What kind of crops…