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The Woodlands Texas Real Estate Report

Months Supply Of “For Sale” Listing Inventory – January 2^nd, 2012

 While mulling over these inventory numbers, keep in mind these figures represent big averages across The Woodlands.  Real estate is hyper local in nature and market conditions for your specific property, in your specific neighborhood may be different that the big average you see below.  To find out what’s happening in your neighborhood, contact us (281-367-353) and we can provide you with an up to the minute, on-target, Months Supply Of Inventory report. We don’t charge for this service, so give us a call and we’ll send you your free report – pronto.

January 2^nd, 2012 – Months Supply Of For Sale Listing Inventory – The Woodlands TX PRICE RANGE.  .  .  .  .  .  MONTHS SUPPLY OF LISTING INVENTORY

$000,000 – $200,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2.2

$200,001 – $300,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3.8

$300,001 – $400,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3.7

$400,001 – $500,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3.3

$500,001 – $600,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3.4

$600,001 – $700,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4.6

$700,001 – $800,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9.2

$800,001 – $900,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7.7

$900,001 – $1,000,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8.9

$1,000,001+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.5

Is it a Buyer’s Market or a Seller’s Market? According to real estate economists, 6 months supply of For Sale Inventory represents a balanced market.  A higher number means it’s leaning towards a buyer’s market, less than six months, would indicate a seller’s market. During the winter selling season (November to January), listing inventory ebbs to its lowest point.  Mid January, inventory and selection begin to swell, beginning in February buyer activity and sales begin to heat up.  If you’re thinking of selling, keep in mind the key to salability and competitive positioning is merchandising (staging), marketing and pricing.  Correctly tweak and amplify these three factors and you’ll be one of the successful sellers attracting a qualified buyer.  Ignore one, two, or three of these salability factors and the property will languish, even in a strong market. Keep in mind, this snapshot provides a broad and general overview, what is happening in your neighborhood could very well be different.  As I shared earlier, if you’d like a free and up to the minute Market Analysis for your property and neighborhood just let me know – Ken Brand 832-797-1779.

Here’s a report month by month. . .

Thanks.

Home Sellers:  Why lose money?

Everyone has a good story.  For example, some might tell you that they’re better than everyone else, or cheaper.  But deeds speak louder and sweeter than words.

Check out this graphic.  If you’re thinking of selling, and money is important to you, give one of our Top Performers a call.  Interview them.  If you like what you hear, hire them.  You’ll net thousands more.

Doing the MATH

As you can see from the chart below Average and Median Sold Prices in The Woodlands TX have been super stable for two years.  Also, with an Average Sold Price of around $350,000 the difference between what you’ll stash in your pocket after closing can amount to anywhere from $8,000 to $15,000.  If you’d like to know about how we net our sellers more money, give me a call at 832-797-1779 and I’ll fill you in.

Thanks and Happy New Year.  Cheers.

I was so thankful to have the cool people at DailyBrink.com ask some interesting questions relating to my book Less Blah Blah More Ah Ha.  Here’s one of them.

From a client perspective, what should I expect out of my real estate agent today? How do I establish a relationship of trust with him or her?

This is a hard question to answer because expectations from person-to-person may vary. Here’s five things to look for:

1. A Communicator: Someone who listens more than they talk. And when they do talk, it’s mostly to ask questions. Communication, updates, and followups should happen with frequency.

2. A Market Data Savant: The agent should know or be able to find out everything there is to know about your market and understand what it means to you.

3. A Merchandising Maven: If you’re a seller, your agent should be knowledgable and offer consultation on merchandising and staging strategies that position the property competitively and enhance the perceived value in the eyes of the buyer and showing agents.

4. A Marketing Tornado: The quality and number of property photos, the copywriting, print and internet broadcast promotion all have tangible impact on how the property is received in the market place.

5. A Cool Cat: It really helps if your real estate agent is a cool cucumber under pressure. Which means they know how to negotiate, communicate, relate, and solve problems when other people are freaking out. All transactions have flare-ups and unexpected surprises, and having a responsive, thoughtful, responsible, and proactive agent managing the transaction is a wonderful thing.

Here’s  the questions I answered at DailyBrink.com – Click HERE to read the whole article.

You’ve said that the way real estates agents are taught how to sell is “lame, rude, and unsmart in today’s culture.” Could you elaborate on that?

What would your ultimate advice for new agents in this market be, especially at such a particular moment in time?

You’re incredibly savvy when it comes to your social media, with a lot of activity on Facebook and Twitter. What does this have to do with the real estate world?

You’re incredibly savvy when it comes to your social media, with a lot of activity on Facebook and Twitter. What does this have to do with the real estate world?

It seems like you’re on a mission to help people. Is that partly because Ken Brand sounds like the name of a superhero?

______________________________________

Cheers and thanks for reading.  Ken Brand 832-797-1779

When you hear and read about LOWER Than Low Mortgage Interest Rates, this is what the experts are talking about.

This is a 5 year chart for 15 Year Mortgages looks like.

How does an Awesome-LOW mortgage rate effect your monthly mortgage payment?

It’s one thing to read about historically low mortgage rates.  It’s a breath taking to understand how an Awesome-Low mortgage rate impacts a monthly payment.  Let’s take a look at some examples.

30 Year Fixed Rate @ 4.25% = $4.92 per $1,000 dollars borrowed OR $492 per $100,000 borrowed. *

Think about how muscular your purchase power is with today’s Awesome-LOW mortgage rates:

$100,00 is $492 per month.

$200,00 is $984 per month.

$400,000 is only $1,968 per month.

In The Woodlands market area you’d pay (depending on location, square footage and condition) around $1,000 to rent a home valued at $100,000.  You’d pay around $2,000 for a property valued at $200,000 and over $3,000 for a home valued above $400,000.

• If you’re renting and you have the ability to buy, and you don’t, you’re throwing your money away.  Don’t rent and enrich your landlord, enrich yourself – own.
• If you have a mortgage above 5.5%, you might save yourself hundreds of dollars a month by refinancing at todays crazy low mortgage rates.  Refinance now.
• If you’re thinking of moving UP, now is the time take advantage of the muscular purchase power these Awesome-Low mortgage rates provide you. Move now.
• If you’re thinking of downsizing and you wait, as mortgage rates rise, you’ll only pay more for a smaller place. Move now.
• If you’re have more than 16 years left on your current mortgage, refinancing with a 15 -Year mortgage might save you money every month and over $100,000 in the long run. Consider a 15-year mortgage refinance.
• If you’re a seller, today’s mortgage rates makes the pool of qualified buyers larger than it will be when mortgage rates are higher.  Which means a faster sale and Top Dollar.
• Don’t regret inaction and paying more – act now.

We’re all feeling the glarmy about the anemic economic, whipsaw stock market and sea-saw savings and 401K plans.  The one bright light opportunity that delivers long-term and locked in financial benefit is locking in and taking advantage of Awesome-LOW mortgage rates.

If you’ve been waiting, now’s the time.  Give me a call at 832-797-1779 if I can be helpful.  If you’d like a no-obligation and supremely confidential conversation about a variety of mortgage plans, current rates, loan qualifications, purchase power analysis, Dana Snider, our Gibraltar Mortgage Service Home Mortgage Counselor would be happy to answer your questions.  You can reach her at 832-217-4087.

*Mortgage rates can fluctuate daily, they could dip lower or float higher as you read this.  The figures above reflect Principal and Interest only.  When buying home your total monthly payment would include Principal, Interest, Property Taxes and Insurance.

___________________________________

Thanks for reading.

I was so fortunate to have the cool people at DailyBrink.com ask some interesting questions relating to my book Less Blah Blah More Ah Ha.  Here’s one of them.

As a real estate agent, what is the best way to tell a client they are priced too high and need to reduce it?

The best strategy is to submerge yourself in an over-abundance of up-to-date information and make an unshakeable personal commitment to share the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — even when it stings like hell and people flip out in anger. You must know the building blocks to understanding competitive market conditions: price, condition, location, motivation, sale terms, and days on market for competing active listings, sales pending, and recent closing.

My best advice is know everything about the local market. Show what you know, demonstrate and share with confidence and compassion. In some cases it’s helpful to physically take the seller on a tour of competing properties so that they can experience the competitive landscape from the eyes of a buyer.

Here are there rest of the questions I answered at DailyBrink.com – Click HERE to read the whole article.

You’ve said that the way real estates agents are taught how to sell is “lame, rude, and unsmart in today’s culture.” Could you elaborate on that?

What would your ultimate advice for new agents in this market be, especially at such a particular moment in time?

You’re incredibly savvy when it comes to your social media, with a lot of activity on Facebook and Twitter. What does this have to do with the real estate world?

You’re incredibly savvy when it comes to your social media, with a lot of activity on Facebook and Twitter. What does this have to do with the real estate world?

It seems like you’re on a mission to help people. Is that partly because Ken Brand sounds like the name of a superhero?

______________________________________

Thanks for reading.  Cheers.

If you’re a seller in The Woodlands TX, there are lots of ways to choose your real estate agent.  Two important criteria might be which broker nets their sellers  the most money, while compressing the timeframe and making the ordeal less stressful and faster.  If that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for, you will want to talk to one of our team members.

Here’s what I’m saying that. . .

Show.  Don’t Tell.

I know you’re smart.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and talk is cheap.

Generally, we’re more likely to believe what we see with our own eyes, way more than let’s say, for instance, what a real estate salesman might blah-blah-blah about how hot the market is.

So instead of me telling you what’s going on, let me show you what’s happening in The Woodlands real estate market.  You can draw your own conclusions and call it as you see it.

A traffic report for our listings throughout Houston and The Woodlands

Months Supply Of Inventory in The Woodlands

Download This Report

Average and Median Sold Prices for The Woodlands

Download This Report

The Average Sold Price Per Square Foot for The Woodlands

Download This Report  

Your thinking of listing your home For Sale, and every penny counts.

Download This Report

So, what does all this lead you to believe?  How do you feel about the health of homeownership in The Woodlands?

As for our team, it’s super busy.  Living in The Woodlands is a blessing.  If you have any questions about this data, or if I can be helpful, let me know.  Ken Brand 832-797-1779.

#MoreAhHa

Don't Misstep. Know The Woodlands Real Estate Market.

Dancing with the real estate market.

There are two kinds of real estate reports.  I share both.

The first kind of reporting is What-Happened-Reporting.

This is where we report active listing inventory, how many contracts were written, how many sales closed and what  average price per square foot paid and months supply of inventory.
Here’s an example of the latest What Happened in The Woodlands TX report.

By analyzing past buyer and seller behavior/activity we can draw conclusions about what future buyer and seller behavior/activity might be.  Pretty standard stuff.

The second kind of reporting is What-Is-Happening-Now-Reporting.

This kind of report is less standard and in my opinion the best indicator of what to expect in the present and immediate future.

What-Is-Happening-Now information includes things like:

Internet web activity and property views – People view and research web listings, photos and property information before they buy and while they are looking.  When web traffic is high, higher sales numbers are around the corner – it never fails.

For example, the picture below shows increased web traffic for Prudential Gary Greene, Realtors listing inventory on Trulia.com  This is good news for our sellers.

Web Traffic for buyers viewing online listing is rising.

Another leading indicator is Showing Appointments.  These days, Showing Appointments are recorded online.  That means we can track the number of Showing Appointments by price range and zip code.  Below is snap shot of zip codes 77380, 77381, 77382, 77384  in The Woodlands, in the price range $200,000 – $450,000.  If you take a look at the totals at the bottom of the picture, you’ll see the UP TREND.

Showing appointments are rising - higher sales are next.

Other less empirical, but equally accurate, are indicators like Open House Traffic, inbound phone calls and how busy the real estate agents are – all of these are UP.  Also, no doubt you’re seeing more Sold and Pending signs in all neighborhoods.

What’s it all mean?

The odds of well selling summer are very high.  All What Happened and What-Is-Happening-Now indicators are positive.  If you’re thinking of making a move, now may be the time.  What-Happened and What-Is-Happening-Now indicators are on the rise and I predict home prices, along with mortgage rates will rise.

Then theres’ this. . .

I’m not sure what the impact of the rumored Exxon/Mobil HQ announcement will be, what do you think? If it happens will it boost the market?  What do you think?

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Thanks for reading, if we can be helpful – Ken Brand 832-797-1779

No Sky Rocket = No Free Fall

In the great state of Texas in general and The Woodlands specifically, we’re fortunate.  When real estate markets across the nation were rock n’ roll’n with 20% or more appreciation per year, our local appreciate rates here were stuck in the puny low single digit range – we were bummed, no free money for us.

Fast forward to now.  Because our home values didn’t sky-rocket, they didn’t free-fall.  Take a look at this Average Price Per Square Foot graph.  Rock steady for the past two years. (You can check out other market report graphs HERE.)

One of the primary factors dragging home price into the dungeons is foreclosures. The more foreclosure activity, the lower the prices go. While we have foreclosures in The Woodlands, there aren’t enough of them to drag our home prices down, in fact they’re sorta uncommon.   Take a look at this property foreclosure Google Map for The Woodlands.  The bigger RED markers are foreclosed properties currently listed for sale.  The other dots represent properties that are some stage of foreclosure.  If you Click On The Map you will launch the live and interactive map, then you can dink around for yourself.  Each of the little red dots has a link to additional property information and properties.

Click on this picture to launch the interactive "Foreclosure properties in The Woodlands TX" Google map.

Deal or No Deal

As you might imagine, all the news and broadcast hype about super-duper deals on foreclosures has homebuyers licking they chops in anticipation of getting a once in a lifetime steal. The reality is this; because property values in The Woodlands are stable, banks can sell their foreclosure properties at or very near current values.  This means they don’t have slash and burn their prices.  Which means that it’s rare to find a steal.   There are a few good values every-now and then though.  And keep in mind that the current amazing-low-low and soon-to-rise mortgage rates (4% range) make every buyer’s purchase-power stronger than ever – this means you can buy more than ever before.  I guess you could say that low-low-mortgage-rates are a steal themselves.

But here’s the thing.  Because there aren’t tons or dozens of foreclosure properties in The Woodlands, there isn’t a wide range of styles, designs, floor plans and other desirable amenities to choose from.  If you’re keen on buying a dream home, have your agent include foreclosure properties in your search if they match, but understand that finding your dream home (with the amenities you want) and a steal/deal foreclosure wrapped into one is rare.  If you’re dream home search begins and ends with finding that rare deal or even rarer steal and you can compromise on the list of matching amenities,  then have your real estate agent set you up on an auto-notification program.  When a new foreclosure property that meets your criteria tumbles onto the market and is listed in the Multiple Listing Service, you’ll know about it the day it happens and before everyone else.

Here’s another thing to consider, how do you know a deal or steal when you find one?  The way you nail down and scientifically determine if its is a real deal, a fair deal or a steal, is to have your real estate agent run an up to the minute market analysis for the neighborhood your interested in.  By looking at homes with similar amenities, average prices per square foot for recently sold, current active listings and some other data, you can determine if the property you’re interested is priced to sell.  You’d want to have your real estate agent do the same thing for any property your interested in buying; foreclosure or not.

What Next

It’s been a rocky two years for the economy and our real estate markets.  Oddly for this time of year, there is unusual activity and interest.  People are doing more than thinking about pulling the real estate trigger.   Formerly fence-sitting buyers are talking about buying and getting pre qualified and sellers are sprucing up their properties in preparation for selling.   I think this is due to two primary factors; people feel the economy is back on track, which means their confidence in the future is stronger, and most people feel that mortgage rates, along with gasoline (everywhere) and home prices (here), are going to rise soon.  The combination of rising consumer confidence and taking advantage of lower home prices and ridiculously-once-in-a-lifetime-low mortgage rates before they rise, is creating growing activity and inquiry from both buyers and sellers alike.

We’re excited about 2011.  If we can be helpful, give me a call at 832-797-1779

Cheers and Merry Christmas.