More Money From Washington?

Well, it's beginning to look like Washington is going to extend its current tax credit for first-time home buyers...and expand it to those who have lived in their current home for five years and meet other income requirements. From U.S. News and World Report:

An extension of the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit appears all but certain after the Obama administration called on Congress to give house hunters more time to claim the popular tax perk.

If this goes through, expect the real estate market in Austin to continue its recovery--not that it was ever that bad compared to most of the country. In looking at the latest data from September for residential single-family home sales, it's clear that the market has been recovering since the summer, with the latest figures showing sales outstripping last year's figures and approaching 2007 levels. Neither of those year's was great in September, but the fact that the data is turning upward is a good sign.

My advice if you're looking to buy in Austin: Do it sooner rather than later. As the job market here continues to recover and people continue flocking to Austin, it will almost certainly help put upward pressure on home prices again--not at the rate we saw several years back, but positive nonetheless.

The Light is Coming (Slowly)

MSNBC and Moody's Economy.com just released some encouraging data showing that Austin is among the first U.S. cities to move from "recession" to "recovering." Moody's Adversity Index--aptly named!--uses employment, industrial production, housing starts, and home prices to calculate an index that shows the status of metro areas around the country. The next step from "recovering" will be "expanding." Several other Texas cities also made the list (none in California did!).

For more details and to see an interesting interactive chart, check out the story from MSNBC. Or if you want to dig a little deeper, check out the brief profile from Moody's showing how they're expecting Austin to recover more quickly than the rest of the country with a relatively strong showing over the next several years. As if we needed more reasons to love Austin!

What does this tell you about timing the housing market? Unfortunately, it probably tells you that you missed the "bottom"...but that it's still a great time to buy. Timing markets is tough in the best of circumstances. If you have a medium- to long-term horizon, Austin's prospects look very bright!