Closing on a house is an exciting moment for every future homeowner.

At the same time, it can be an overwhelming and confusing experience, particularly for those who have never purchased a home before. Therefore, if you are planning to purchase a home, it is in your best interest to learn as much about the closing process before you reach this big step.

Who to Expect At Your Home Closing

Before heading into a closing situation, it is helpful to know who will be in attendance.

The number of people who will be present at your closing will vary depending upon the state in which you are purchasing your home as well as the circumstances surrounding the purchase.

At a minimum, you will meet with the real estate agent who sold you the home, but you might also bring a settlement attorney to represent your side of the purchase. In some cases, mortgage brokers participate in the closing, but don’t be surprised if someone representing the financial institution from which you are borrowing is not present. Individuals representing the seller, such as the seller’s agent and an attorney representing the seller, may also be present at the closing. If you’re buying a home in Austin, expect to have all of the above present.

Plan Enough Time for Your Closing

While there is no guarantee regarding how long it will take for the closing to take place, you should plan on it taking about an hour.
This is because there is a significant amount of paperwork that needs to be reviewed and signed during the closing. If any issues arise during the closing process, it could easily take much longer to complete.

Bring the Right Paperwork

Although your real estate agent will bring most of the required paperwork to the closing, there are a few pieces of information that you will need to bring with you.

The two most important things you need to bring to your closing are a cashiers check and a home owner’s insurance policy. The cashier’s check will be used to pay the closing costs, while the home owner’s insurance policy will provide the proof you need to show that you have obtained the proper coverage for the house you are purchasing.

Take Possession of the Home

Although the seller is advised to keep his or her home owner’s insurance in place until the sale is officially recorded in city hall, you will take immediate possession of the home after you have completed the paperwork.

As such, you will receive the keys to the home before you leave the closing. You will also receive any necessary paperwork regarding the equipment that you purchased with the home, such as the owner’s manuals for your washing machine, garage door opener, refrigerator and any other items that come with the house.

If you’ve tried to replace a small counter with a piece of granite, you probably ran into a common problem: granite fabricators don’t want to sell a little piece, they want to sell the whole slab.

Or, they want to charge you an arm and a leg for the piece you need.

Fortunately, HGTV has popularized the use of granite remnants for small counter tops and has encouraged people to call around to local granite companies asking for remnants.

Smart companies sell what people want to buy, right?

Call Your Local Granite Company and Ask About Small Pieces

I had a listing last spring that needed a small counter top to replace some seriously ugly brown tile in the bathroom.

Fortunately, the owner’s niece runs Toluca Granite here in Austin and was able to cut a few counters from her supply of granite remnants left over from other jobs.

I know the owner of Toluca Granite personally, and have picked through her selection on many occasions, looking for small tabletops, or the occasional piece of marble for a cheese board.

Before and After: A Granite Remnant on a Small Bathroom Counter

You can see that the update to this bathroom was pretty much paint and the piece of granite. The little fabric skirt covered up the whole under the sink because the doors were missing.

Questions to Ask When You Call for Remnants

If you know the particular type of granite or marble you want, ask for it by name

Ask if you can come see the selection to pick out your counter top

If they don’t have what you want, ask to be put on a list to be called when a suitable piece comes in

If you need two or more small pieces, ask if they have remnants that match – pieces left over from different slabs might be called the same name but might not actually look the same due to variations in the natural stone

Ask if they charge extra for fancy edges, or for the sink cutout

Ask if they sell sinks to go with with your new counter – you might get a discount for buying the sink and the counter from the same company and some of the new counter-mounted vessel sinks are very very interesting

Ask what the turn around time is, after they come out to measure the space for your new counter

Make sure you select the actual piece they will use – because pieces of the same name as what you saw somewhere else may very well not look the same – some have large patterns, swirls or splotches that can either be lovely and interesting or just plain ugly

Have you ever wanted to do something really cool but couldn’t find the right metal thingy at Home Depot or Lowe’s?

Maybe something for your yard, like some yard art for an Austin classic funky landscaping twist, or maybe a neat cut-metal sign with the numbers of your house that isn’t just like all of the others on the street?

Sheet Metal: The Artist’s Friend or Foe

If you’ve tried to cut sheet metal yourself, maybe you got a nice smooth cut.

Maybe, though, you got a ratty-tatty raggedy edge that snagged on your hands and clothes and just didn’t look very artistic or professional?

Yeah – you know – those tin snips didn’t work as well as you thought, did they?

I have a whole pile of copper toe kicks on the garage floor because I thought they would be cool under the kitchen cabinets. Five, yes 5, years later, I haven’t figured out how to cut them to the right size without messing them up, so they’re still developing their patina as they sit collecting dust and cobwebs.

Some things are better left to a pro.

Get Your Metal Cut by an Austin Metal Pro

Orlando has a project.

He’s going to make a steady-cam for shooting video, because the ready-made ones are seriously expensive. He’s been watching YouTube videos, drawing out plans and having a blast.

We’ve been making most of our real estate appraisal videos in our home studio, but it would be better if we could shoot some in the field without too much camera shake.

The main part of his project is a curved piece of metal that he’s having cut by H.J. Lockhart Metal Service on Hydro Drive in Austin. H.J Lockhart is a custom metal fabricator – they have the machines to cut, bend, punch and do all sorts of stuff to metal sheets, bars, rods and so on.

We dropped the plans off on Thursday and will pick up the pieces on Monday.

This round may end up just being a prototype for the one that actually works, but hey, we’ve had a blast since we realized we could find some of the parts ready-made and have the rest cut by a local metal fabricator here in Austin.

Photos from the Austin Metal Shop We Visited This Week

(photos shots with either a Canon 24-70mmL or the Canon TS-E 24mmL Tilt + Shift on a 5D Mark II, so yes, the blurry parts are intentional!)

You love your truck, your boat, your RV, or maybe the airstream trailer you use for selling food down on South Congress.

Your HOA might have a different view of those vehicles and where you can, or can’t park them.

HOAs (Home Owner’s Associations) can restrict what you do with your own property, including what you can do with stuff you own. Stuff like the truck you drive to work every day, or the one you use to haul your RV to camp grounds on the weekends.

Zoning Regulations and HOA Restrictions

Towns and cities like Austin have zoning regulations that describe the approved uses of a property. For example, zoning regulations specify which land can be used for single-family homes, for public works (schools, libraries) and which land can be used for commercial purposes.

HOAs for individual subdivisions can further restrict the use of the property within a subdivision, and many do.

Things that are often restricted:

Sizes, numbers and types of vehicles (trucks, campers, jet skis, trailers, etc.)

Satellite dishes

Exterior paint colors

Height, type and location of fencing

Materials used in landscaping

Architectural details on the exterior of the homes

Solar panels

Clothes lines

And so on

The Big Green Truck

Our home owners association hates my truck, the one I love so much that I turned it into digital art for this article.

They say it is too big (it isn’t), they say it isn’t registered (it is), they say I need to park it in the garage (I don’t). We go a round or two on this every few years. Bottom line: they just don’t like an old truck in a neighborhood full of nice new cars. It looks like a work truck (it is) and I’ve only seen one other like it anywhere near where we live in NW Austin.

So although I am annoyed that my truck is frequently targeted for attention, I also know that the reason why my neighborhood is so nice and clean and neat is because the HOA really keeps on the homeowners about keeping up with property maintenance and things that might otherwise lead to a trashier-looking neighborhood.

Sometimes, however, I wish I lived somewhere where I could have an ATV track in the backyard, a huge out building for working on old cars and a great big chicken coop or a little barn for some goats. Oh, and someplace to park a trailer to haul behind the big green truck for our weekend tours around Texas.

Know The HOA Restrictions Before You Buy

If you live here, you know that Austin has a very diverse set of neighborhoods.

Old, new, big lots, small lots, small homes, gigantic homes. Some neighborhoods, like mine, are very restrictive and some aren’t. Some have home owners associations that don’t enforce the HOA rules, and others are completely gung-ho about enforcing every line-item of the restrictions.

If you already own a home in Austin, did you know for sure what the HOA restrictions were for the neighborhood before you bought your home? Did you read that piece of paper in the giant pile of paperwork you received during your home buying process? Did your real estate agent go over it with you?

Have you had any trouble keeping your property in-line with the rules?

If you’re looking to buy – is HOA-free living something you need? Do you need to park a big, ugly vehicle in your side-yard so you don’t have to go haul it in from out of town when you need to use it?

It might be a nuisance to have to think about it when you just want to buy that cute home NOW, but it’s a much bigger nuisance to discover a restrictions you don’t want to live with later on.

HOAs and Green Living Trends

One last thought – green living trends are encouraging city dwellers to do things that may run afoul of many HOA rules.

Things like hanging laundry on a backyard clothes line to dry, replacing water-hogging grass with drought-tolerant plantings or crushed stone, or raising chickens for fresh eggs instead of buying ones that have been hauled half-way across the state to the grocery store.

All are forbidden in my neighborhood, and all are on my list of things I really want to do. The HOA rules may force us out of the suburbs and up into Leander or Liberty Hill, to get back a little of the freedom we signed away when we bought our current home.

So tell me, what do you think about HOA rules – love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Love some and hate others? Do you see any trends towards greener living in your area that are bucking some of the rules?

I’d love to hear what you think – good, bad or ugly!

You know, the eye that can spot the treasure in the trash at a flea market? Or the one that spies the really good piece of furniture covered in dust at an antique store that never seems to change inventory?

If so, you’re going to love Austin’s own Backyard Salvage and Garden (BYSG), located at the old Howard’s Nursery on the corner of Avenue F and Koenig (2222).

We spied this lot full of reclaimed materials while lost, looking for the next house on the chicken coop tour this past weekend, then doubled back later in the afternoon to really dig through the piles.

You Gotta Dig

If you want shiny, new, matchy-matchy baubles for your home and garden, architectural salvage yards full of reclaimed materials are not the place for you.

But if you really like digging through piles, studying the offerings, and contemplating how marvelous some old rusty thing might look in your yard, then an architectural salvage yard can be a fantastic way to spend a few hours on a pretty afternoon.

To be clear, we probably wouldn’t call this a “true” architectural salvage yard, meaning the kind that has old gargoyles from pre-war buildings and plaster medallions from razed Victorian mansions. The most famous of those is probably Urban Archeology in NYC – or was 20 years ago when I stumbled into it and had to be dragged out by friends who didn’t relish the thought of spending the way digging through 100 year-old hand-carved, glass-front store displays.

Where to Find Austin Backyard Savlage and Garden:

Cut to the Chase: What Did We Find?

What we found instead at Austin’s Backyard Salvage and Garden was . . . stuff, and lots of it:

Piles of old wood flooring

Row after row of interior and exterior doors, some old, some not so old

Two very very cool rounded-top doors like you might see on an old bungalow in Hyde Park

Things that cover the bottoms of old street lamps – rusted, gloriously rusted things

Rusty bathtubs – perfect for a backyard planter

Lots of rusty porch railings and wrought iron railings – perhaps for trellises for those tomato vines that keep overgrowing the cheapy, short, galvanized metal ones you got from Home Depot

Battered screen doors, the kind that slam shut when the kids run out to the backyard to chase butterflies

Old Windows – but didn’t get a chance to really see the offerings, so see for yourself

And all sorts of stuff you could use to spiff up your backyard and patio area, so you can spend more time outside enjoying the Texas sunshine this summer.

How To Make Salvaged Stuff Work For You

If you’re thinking it would be waaay cool to get some of this stuff and spiff up your back yard, we have some advice for you: keep an open mind.

Survey your backyard with a critical eye: how much space do you really have and what do you really want? We love how so many of the homes on the chicken tour in Central Austin have homemade water fountains, vegetable gardens, fire pits with brick pavers for the patio, surrounded by old rusty chairs. The yards on the tour are used and used hard, not just admired from inside. Is that the kind you want?

Rip out ideas from magazines and stick them in a binder to remind you of what is possible for using reclaimed materials or architectural salvage

Visit Backyard Salvage and Garden in Central Austin and see what they have. Really look deep and take your time to walk around. Bring a friend to help you “see” the possibilities.

Go home and plan out your spaces, measure, weigh, photograph, etc. Yeah, “weigh” was a joke to see if you’re actually paying attention.

If you’ve got the eye, you may be able to put your backyard retreat together with stuff solely from the salvage yard. You might need to supplement with a few things from Home Depot, but maybe not.

Then Give Us a Call

If you’re serious about using salvaged materials for your yard and you live anywhere near Austin, give me, Alison, a call at (512) 585-4758. I’d love to come out and photograph the before-during-and-after of your project and if you’re game, to write about it on this blog. I am a Realtor, photographer and insatiable home renovation and decorating junkie and would love to share your joy!

Happy Hunting

If you’ve already done the salvage thing, we’d love to hear about your experiences – good and bad.

If you have other favorite haunts for finding salvaged or reclaimed materials, please drop me an email and I’ll go visit them as well.

Where to Find Austin Backyard Salvage and Garden

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We visited the Triangle in Austin late on an overcast April day, drawn by the Wednesday Farmer’s Market and the opportunity to walk around a gawk a bit at the marvelous selection of shops, eateries and nicely landscaped areas.

The Austin Triangle is located south of the intersection of Lamar and Guadalupe, north of the UT campus, bounded on the south by West 45th Street.

The Austin Triangle was boldly designed to attract urbanites interested in a lifestyle where you can work, play and live in close proximity – much like you might find in older urban city centers where you can walk out of your apartment for dinner at a nice cafe or stroll around the sidewalk-bordered park after a long day of work.

Austin Flats, Lofts and Townhomes

Over 500 apartments define the edges of the community, lining the sidewalks along Lamar and Guadalupe. The apartments are part of the 22-acre mixed-use community that has space for 120,000 square feet of retail shops, commercial space and of course, lots of restaurants.

Architecturally, the Austin Triangle buildings are reminiscent of the Mueller Airport Re-Development Area, another mixed-use development that emphasizes the work-live concept albeit in a more spread-out way.

According to the Triangle Residences Website, prices to rent an apartment range from about $1220 for a 650-ish square foot one-bedroom all the way up to $2375 for about 1350 square feet containing 3 bedrooms.

Why We Visit

We live in NW Austin, land of the sprawling suburbs. We have a golf course and a few parks within walking distance, but sometimes we want more and different things to do – something that reminds us of why we live in Austin!

In the Spring and Summer, we visit the Farmer’s Market, and let the kids run around in the water fountain (really, water squirting up out of the pavement). They chow down on fresh-fruit icees and beg for locally made organic tamales.

Before heading home, we load up on free-range, locally-produced beef or pork, fresh produce like beets and tomatoes, and maybe an armload of flowers or a few pots of herbs for the garden. My parents dragged us to a Farmer’s Market when I was little, and I want my own kids to “get” the difference between the mass-produced, low-flavor vegetables in the stores and what you get when you buy locally grown food that may have only been out of the dirt since early that morning.

We Would Live Like This If We Could

If we didn’t have 5 kids and work out of our home, we’d love to live in a place like the Austin Triangle. Years living in Brooklyn, NY hammered in the benefits of being able to walk a block and grab a sandwich or the newspaper and some flowers, plus light fare for dinner later on.

For now, though, we’ll visit during the week and taste just a little bit of the urban lifestyle enjoyed by the Austinites living this bold and beautiful life.

Google Map of Triangle Austin TX

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We ran downtown this evening after dinner to Austin’s over-the-top costume store Lucy in Disguise on South Congress to get a tri-corner hat for Sam’s school performance tomorrow morning.

Yeah, we hate last-minute school-stuff-for-tomorrow errands just as much as you do.

Since we don’t get down to SoCo that often, I dragged along my camera and the Tilt/Shift lens, hoping to grab just a few architectural shots of some older buildings between Elizabeth and Monroe. Lots of South Congress shops are located in really funky old buildings that have even funkier facades and signs out front and that makes for some interesting photographic subjects.

I didn’t get 10 feet out of the costume store with my $8 hat before falling under the spell of one of the marvelous little South Congress boutiques you hear people rave about in Austin: Maya Star.

Yeah, This Isn’t About Real Estate

What makes living in Austin so compelling is that we have all sorts of locally-owned, one-of-a-kind or first-of-a-kind stores you don’t find in a lot of other cities.

If you like clothing and jewelry that stands apart from the big box stores and brands, you can wander down South Congress, south of the bridge, and find all sorts of boutiques offering everything. Everything, meaning: handmade jewelry, exotic silk scarves, glorious stiletto heels, vintage frocks and Jackie O type coats. All mixed in with screen-printed local band t-shirts and ripped up jeans.

While you’re at it, you can get a tattoo, snarf a cupcake and try on some vintage cowboy boots. If that doesn’t wear you out, pull up a curb and just watch all of the interesting people go by. You won’t be disappointed – there is always someone interesting to look at on South Congress.

Sometimes you just have to visit to get it.

Maya Star: from Work to Play to an Evening Out

Maya Star, at 1508 South Congress (just south of Monroe and just north of the parking lot full of vintage airstream food trailers) offers the kind of clothes you feel glorious wearing: fun and flirty pieces you can layer under a jacket if your office is over air-conditioned, then skip out of the office in after work to meet friends for drinks without wanting to go home and change first.

This is the kind of store that makes South Congress in Austin a destination, not just something you drive down on the way home after working downtown.

The racks were full of beautifully neutral pieces mixed in with colorful florals, stripes and whimsically ruffled dresses. Coral and teal fabrics – the good kind, not the condo-in-Florida kind – popped off the racks to add just the perfect splash of color to a spring and summer wardrobe.

The adorable ruffled dress in the photo below was featured in the March 2011 issue of Glamour magazine.

Stuff like that. Really really pretty stuff like that.

Prices range from just under $100 for some of the earrings to several hundred a pair. Beautifully styled leather bags were $300 to $400+ (including ones from sought-after designer Rebecca Minkhoff) and dresses ranged from $40-ish to several hundred, with a nice selection at all of the price points in-between. This is not a store full with every piece in every size – which means you are far less likely to see someone else wearing your most recent find.

Chatting with the Owner of Maya Star

One thing I love about living in Austin is that everyone seems to want to talk about photography.

Like I said at the beginning, I didn’t mean to spend an hour in a clothing boutique, it just happened. It happened because while setting up the tripod on the sidewalk outside and fiddling with the Tilt/Shift (to avoid architectural distortion of the tall building facade), one of the owners of Maya Star, Richard Gordoa, walked out and struck up a conversation about my camera.

And, ooooh, I love love love my camera and anyone that wants to talk gets the whole tour.

After a few minutes, I had my exterior shots and spying a bright orange dress peeking through the doorway, asked if he’d mind if I took a few interior photos.

The rest is history, Austin history. Or actually, Austin in the here and now.

Visit South Congress, visit Maya Star, and scarf a cupcake from Hey Cupcake on your way home.

The rest of the Maya Star photos are on my Flickr Stream.

Google Map for Maya Star on South Congress

You’ll find Maya Star on South Congress between Monroe and Elizabeth, on the western side of the street.

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If you follow 290 from Austin towards Houston, eat a little BBQ in Elgin and load up on the water bottles and sun screen, you’ll be ready for the Sherwood Forest Faire in McDade Texas (Bastrop County). The faire is open for one more weekend in 2011 – the weekend of April 2nd and 3rd. Check out the official site linked above for details.

Oh, and be prepared to be hot, dusty and entertained.

Medieval Costumes, for Peasants to Royalty

We dragged three kids down to the sprawling Sherwood Forest Faire compound there last weekend and spent a few hours wandering around between little medieval shoppes selling fantastical medieval clothing such as corsets and renaissance shoes (leather, funky, some curled up toes!).

The fascinating guy on the right said he made his whole medieval costume by himself, down to dyeing the sheep fur for his wrap. He graciously showed me the inside – stained with the colors of dye he experimented with until he got the color he wanted. Orlando had to drag me away – I coulda snapped photos of him all day long – he was holding up in the heat better than the rest of us, for sure.

Renaissance Leather Working

We were particularly fascinated by the quality of the leather wares, and the number of people skilled in the craft of sewing leather by hand into period renaissance costumes. One glorious vest was for sale for $550 and I envy the lucky man who gets to wear that home.

The hands of the man working on the brown leather in the other photo were moving so fast it was hard to capture the skill of his leather sewing with the camera. In, out, up and down, around and around he just kept adding stitches as I snapped away.

He said he’s used to posing for photos, but that most people want pix of him, not pix of his hands!

Medieval Weaponry

One BIG deal at the ren faire was medieval weaponry: knives, axes, bows and arrows. Anything that could be used to slay an enemy, fell your dinner, or pick the grit out from under your fingernails.

The weaponry stuff was cool, as in, I wanted some, and so did the boys, apparently, since I had to drag them away from the shoppe selling knives, really really sharp knives.

The kids had some fun at the archery area, making me wish I’d allocated more cash for the afternoon – good exercise, good fun, good experience all around.

Play Hard, No Electronics Allowed

In between gawking at the period wares, the kids played a few games like “stay on the log while slamming your sister with a pillow”, and “who can make good on their boasting that they won’t fall off the spinning rope ladder”. Most of the games they played cost $2 or $3 but lasted a lot longer than typical carnival games and were far more physically involved, which is good for wearing out little boys.

Medieval Jousting

The final hit of the day was a little jousting fun between two knights. Mounted on huge horses, clad in medieval armor, these guys really know how to put on a show.

The one in silver got knocked off in an early round and the act of getting him back on his horse was quite the spectacle – how would you climb back on loaded down with all that metal, a feathered helmet and cowboy boots?

The Sherwood Forest Faire compound will be hosting a Medieval Jousting Tournament on April 9th, 2011. That day isn’t a “faire day” but the official web site says that some shoppes will be open and they’ll have food and beverages.

If you like period stuff, and want to spend some quality outdoor time, it’s worth the drive down to McDade for an afternoon. They’ll probably be packed this weekend, so get there early and save yourself a long schlepp across the dusty parking lot.

Texas Renaissance Faire Photos

Google Map for Sherwood Forest Faire in McDade Texas

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Shadow inventory is a real estate term that estimates:

the number of properties owned by banks, PLUS

the number of additional homes that have been foreclosed but are not yet on the market, PLUS

properties where the owners are behind on their payments and will probably end up in foreclosure.

As real estate professionals and homeowners we care about the numbers of properties in the housing shadow inventory because it gives an idea of the amount of time it might take before the housing market returns to “normal”. I put that in quotes because we’re not convinced that there IS such a thing as a normal real estate market anymore.

(For a detailed look at how Selma Hepp, a Research Economist for NAR, the National Association of Realtors estimated the national shadow inventory, please see the in-depth article posted on NAR’s Economists’ Outlook website, State by State Estimate of Shadow Inventory.)

Shadow Inventory in Texas

According to Hepp’s analysis, Texas ranks at #5 in sheer (estimated) numbers of properties in the shadow inventory, coming in behind Florida, California, Illinois and New York and slightly ahead of New Jersey and Ohio.

Hepp’s report indicates that it may take as many as 11 months to clear Texas’ shadow inventory, compared to a high of 51 months in New Jersey down to a low of 7 months in Nevada.

Two other interesting points to note, taken from NAR’s Mortgage Delinquencies by State Presentation (for 2010) is that in Texas, 1.9% of mortgage were in the foreclosure inventory for the 4th quarter of 2010 (below the median rate) and that 5.1% are considered to be seriously delinquent, which is also below the median.

What does the Texas Shadow Inventory Mean to Texas Homeowners?

If you’re planning to sell your home, you may be competing with properties that were foreclosed that are now on the market.

New foreclosures may hit the market after you list your home for sale.

Some of these homes are being sold by the bank, and some are being sold by investors who bought them at auction, fixed them up a bit and are hoping to make a return on their investment.

Investor-owned homes are usually priced to sell quickly, a little below actual market value.

Foreclosures being sold by banks are also frequently priced below market value.

What Can Texas Home Sellers Do?

For your specific situation, your best bet is to talk to one or more knowledgeable Realtors who are very familiar with your local market.

You will want to set aside several hour-long appointments with different agents so that you have time to review the numbers with them before selecting an agent to represent you if you decide to sell.

Some markets in Central Texas are selling very well this spring, and yours might just happen to be one of them.In other words, the shadow inventory might not make much difference to your chances of selling your home at a decent price. Or, local foreclosures might be a serious problem in your area. How do you figure out which is which?

If you are someone who likes to know hard numbers, some questions to ask might include:

What do you consider to be the local market area for my home (which neighborhoods, subdivisions, areas)?

How are homes selling in this area (for this first quarter of 2011, compared to the last 6 months of 2010)?

Specifically for homes that would be considered competition for YOUR home if you were to list it for sale:

How many comparable homes are currently for sale?

How many have sold in the last couple of months (3 months, 6 months) and how does this compare with the number of homes that sell in a typical month?

(What you’re asking about is the absorption rate and inventory. If 6 houses sold in the last 6 months and 3 are currently for sale, then your absorption rate is 1 home per month (6 in 6 months) and your area has 3 months of inventory. You care because if you want your home to be the one most likely to sell in a given month, it has to be the best one for the best price.)

Tell me about the foreclosures that are considered to be comparable to my property and how they might affect the ability of my house to sell quickly and for top dollar.

The agent you decide to work with will need to know and understand the answers to the above questions and should be able to explain the answers to you in simple terms.

He or she should also be able to show you real numbers for how homes are selling in your area, and more specifically – homes that are similar to yours, so that you have an idea of how easily your home might sell (or not).

Eating BBQ in Texas is like breathing: you just gotta do it, and do it a lot.

We wrote about the town of Lockhart Texas a few weeks ago but we ran out of time for shooting the town (meaning: we ran out of sunlight and the kids ran out of patience) so we decided to go back and finish the job.

Ok, here is the real story: I needed more Black’s BBQ, and I don’t mean needed as in lowercase. I mean NEEDED Blacks BBQ as in NOW.

If you know me, you know that means: load up the kids ’cause we’re going on a road trip.

Black’s Barbecue

This time, we only took a few photos of the jail in Lockhart on the way in to town, and spent the rest of the evening hanging around Black’s at the edge of downtown. It was a Saturday evening and the crowd surged in and out like a well-choreographed dance.

The barbecue and sides line moved quickly and everyone seemed to know exactly what they wanted.

We waved a few groups around us because we wanted it all, since we’d only managed to try a third of it on the first round. A few regulars realized we were new at this and pointed out their favorites on the line. That is one of the things we LOVE about Texas – good old fashioned hospitality and what you’d expect from a BBQ joint that has been in the same family since 1932.

My youngest son kept trying to grab the jello, so we sent him and our older son into the dining room to grab a table.

We’d regale you with the tale of what we ate, but that would be too easy. You need to go and try if for yourself. The brisket is melty meat and heaven and the turkey is the juiciest we’ve ever had, anywhere.

Google Map for Black’s BBQ – Lockhart TX

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Yes, you read that right. A $5000 fence is very unlikely to be worth $5000.

Fence Cost does not equal Fence Value

Most home improvement projects don’t return 100% on the investment.
Maybe one would if you did all of the work yourself, and used materials left over from another job, but that is not often what happens.

After a homeowner spends money on an improvement, they hope, or really really hope, that the cost of the improvement, i.e. the value of the fabulous thing they installed, is actually the same as or more than the cost of the improvement.

Let’s talk about a theoretical home improvement situation. If you were appraising (as an appraiser), or listing for sale (as an agent), or buying a home (as a buyer) with a brand new $5000 fence, would you consider the fence to be worth $5000?

I would say probably not.

You might think it was worth something, but in part that depends on what the fence replaced – an old rotting one that was the neighborhood eyesore? A brand new cedar fence with a custom gate, installed by the developer as an upgrade for clients that couldn’t close? Did it enclose only part of the yard and block the greenbelt view enjoyed by other homeowners? What is that fence value, to you?

We call this a running joke because most of us fall prey to this, in our own home improvements. We upgrade from a serviceable thing to a fancier thing and really really hope that when we go to sell, the buyers, and the real estate agent and the appraiser will value it as much as we do.

In real life, that is almost never the case.

So, if you really want that $5000 fence, put it in because you LOVE it, not because you think you’ll get your money back. And please, don’t hassle the real estate agent that tells you it doesn’t make your $135,000 house worth $140,000, and don’t give the appraiser a hard time, either.

Both of those professionals have to rely on what the market will pay for an improvement of the kind you put in, and if the market doesn’t value it, it doesn’t really matter what it cost.

Yes.

A condo loan requires both the buyer and the condo association to qualify. Even a highly qualified buyer may not be able to purchase a condo, if the condo development is not as financially stable as a lender requires.

Some Austin Condos Won’t Qualify

Austin has a lot of condos, including older developments and newer ones dotting the downtown skyline. In August of 2010, the Austin Business Journal reported on the failure of the Pecan Place Condominiums near 183 and Texas 45 in Northwest Austin. Half of the 29 townhouse condos had sold but the remaining ones were in various states of completion. Other developments have also made the news, in different stages of failure or distress.

In situations like those, even if a borrower had really really wanted to buy one of the condos, condo financing would have been impossible to obtain – the financial health of the developments was not ok.

Other condo developments, of course, are doing just fine. Make sure you know which is which when you go shopping for a condo so your condo mortgage will be less likely to stall the deal. FHA loans for condos are also different from regular home loans, or non-FHA condo mortgages.

Work with an Experienced Lender for Your Condo Mortgage

Because a condominium loan is more complicated, make sure that both you real estate agent and your mortgage broker or bank are experienced in the ins and outs of condo financing.

Qualify real estate agent and mortgage professional by asking questions like these (and take notes!):

1. How many years have you been in this business?

2. How many condos have you sold? (Or, how many condo loans have you done?)

3. Are you familiar with this particular development? What can you tell me that you think I need to know?

4. Can you describe the condo financing and condo buying process and how it is different than the home buying process?

5. How will you make sure we have good communication about my purchase?

6. How many units are rentals and how many are owner-occupied? Does that make a difference in whether or not I can get a condo loan?

7. What are the fees in addition to my condo mortgage payments that I will have to pay (upfront fees, on-going or monthly fees)?

8. If you don’t understand any of the answers, ask them to explain their answers and keep asking questions until you’re sure you understand!

BOCK! BOCK! BOCK!

If you live on a farm, that might be a sound you’ve heard so often that it no longer registers.

If you live in town, though, you might stop for a moment, just a little bit confused. Was that a chicken?

Backyard Chickens: Bringing the Farm to Your Neighborhood

Urban chicken farming has been in the news for years. Proponents say backyard chickens in cities and suburban neighborhoods are the rise. Naysayers say it people who are really in to it are just saying that, you know, maybe exaggerating things just a bit.

In Austin, doing things that might not be particularly common elsewhere is just what we DO. That means raising backyard chickens is already popular here, and the chickens and modern chicken coop aficionados aren’t going away anytime soon.

If You live in Austin, and you either have, or want backyard chickens, you need to know about two things:

1. The Austin Funky Chicken Coop Tour

2. Buck Moore Feed Store on Lamar

Oh, and since we said, it, we’ll say it again: Lamar. If you ever wonder why Austin is weird, cool and THE place to live, drive up and down Lamar. All the way. End to end. And then hit Burnett (Burn-it, NOT Burn-ette), and the Congress and then eat some barbecue and listen to some live music and then you’ll get it.

Oops, I got a little off-track! Back to chicken-chat.

Austin’s Local Chicken Feed Store: Buck Moore

Buck Moore Feed
5237 North Lamar Boulevard
Austin, TX 78751-1820
(512) 451-3469

We dropped by Buck Moore for a visit on Friday afternoon, since we find it impossible to resist when someone tells us about a local Austin business that has been around for decades that is thriving despite the challenging economic climate.
We found the store personnel, including the original owner’s Son in Law to be exceptionally knowledgeable and helpful, and even let us snap a whole bunch of photos and make a video of the little chickens in the heated cage that takes them from bitty chicks to chicks that are several weeks old and perfect for new owners.

This is the kind of store that sells what you need, not stuff packaged and marketed primarily to appeal to urban trend-setters. The floor is clean, but has traces of the real work that gets done in the place – selling feed, and gardening things for your yard.

We have a particular affinity for old things, like the old scales and the really really old register. The register has been in use for 70+ years, including about 60 by the current owners.

We have so much throw-away stuff, so it is fantastic to see tools that were so well designed and built that they can be used for decades, or closing in on a century.

It’s this kind of stuff that helps give Austin character - local businesses, an emphasis on a non-disposable culture, knowledgeable business owners that aren’t watching the clock so they can go home.

The Austin Funky Chicken Coop Tour

It was by pure chance that I heard about the Austin Funky Chicken Coop Tour three years ago, and zipped around the north central neighborhoods of Crestview and Brentwood, South of Anderson Lane and North of 45th.

This year my best friend set up a coop in her Northwest Austin backyard and has 6 exotic egg-laying hens in her backyard chicken flock. Her mother is raising another dozen exotic chickens in her backyard in Wooten, the little neighborhood just north of Anderson Lane and West of 183.

The chickens in the photos and the video are from my friend’s flock. I am completely nuts about the one with the mop of feathers on her head – have you ever seen such a funny looking bird? How can it even see where it’s going?

And yes, it was giving me what for for taking so many photos of it.

We have some friends on the Funky Chicken Coop Tour this year and they said that last they heard, they were told to expect 1700+ people on the tour!

That’s a lot of chicken lovers!

Chicken without the Shrink Wrap

I have been thinking about writing an article about urban chicken farming for months.

My kids don’t have a clue where our food comes from. We visit the Austin Farmers’ Markets on a regular basis, but to them that still primarily teaches them that we simply pay for our food, put it in a bag and take it home. It doesn’t actually teach them about food production, agricultural production or about farming at all.

Kids need to get their hands dirty. Raising backyard chickens is real work – you have to build the coop, scoop the poop, feed and water them and keep them safe from predators. And if you don’t, they will die, a sad but important lesson they need to learn.

We visit my friend’s chickens, but I sure wish we could put our own backyard chicken coop. Unfortunately, our HOA won’t allow it.

Searching for Chicken

Just for kicks and grins, I checked Google’s Keyword Tool for some data on the number of searches for backyard chickens.

For the most recent reported month, Google reports 33,100 searches for backyard chickens. In a single month! Chicken coops was searched for 201,000 times during the same month. WOW!

With that data in hand, I turned to Google Trends which revealed this little gem for the popularity in US regions and cities for backyard chickens.

Austin Texas came in at #7 nationally for searches for backyard chickens. I’m not surprised, are you?

See Some Chicken Coops, The Build Your Own

So, set aside some time on Saturday, April 23, 2011 from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 pm and join the Austin Funky Chicken Coop Tour! Maybe you’ll just have to stop by Home Depot on your way home and load up on the supplies for the invasion of your own backyard flock.

Photos from the 2011 Funky Chicken Coop Tour

The downtown square in Lockhart looks like a lot of small town, old town Texas squares with the courthouse in the middle, surrounded by buildings built in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

According to the City of Lockhart’s website, Byrd Lockhart arrived in the area in the late 1800s while he was working as a surveyor for Green Dewitt. Lockhart built roads in the area at his own expense and received land along Plum Creek as compensation.

Lockhart is the County Seat for Caldwell County and has approximately 13,600 residents.

According to the Texas historical marker at the courthouse, The Caldwell County Courthouse was completed in 1894 and was built from Muldoon blue sandstone with Pecos red sandstone trim.

The Dr. Eugene Clark Library was built in 1898 and claims the title of the oldest library in Texas that has been continuously used as a library (Clark Library Friends Website).

Lockhart is located along the historic Chisholm Trail, the major trail for livestock heading out of Texas after the Civil War, between 1867 and 1884. By the time the trail closed in 1884, the Chisholm trail had been followed by more than 5 million cattle and a million mustangs.

No visit to Lockhart, Texas, the Barbecue Capital of Texas, would be complete without a stop at Black’s Barbecue, which has been run by the same family since 1932!

Lockhart, Texas Real Estate Data as of March 2011

As of March 8th, 2011, 68 homes are for sale in Lockhart, Texas, ranging from $18,000 for a court-ordered sale of a tear down in the Byrd Lockhart section of town, to a 5,185 square foot home built in 1980 located in 5 acres at the outskirts of town.

9 of the 68 homes listed for sale are foreclosures.

The median price of a home currently for sale in Lockhart, TX is $129,000.

The median size of the current homes for sale is 1,681 square feet.

The 68 homes for sale are just under 7 months of inventory for the area.

Lockhart, TX Real Estate Sales for 2010

In 2010, 90 homes sold in Lockhart, with a median selling price of $101,000.

26 of these homes were listed as foreclosures, a slight increase from 25 out of 97 homes sold in 2009.

The median size of the homes that sold in 2010 was 1,490 square feet.

Median days on the market (DOM) was 74.

The median selling price per square foot was $68.01.

Photographs of Downtown Lockhart, Texas

Google Map of Lockhart Texas

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Population data from the Texas Almanac 2010- 2011.
Chisholm Trail information from the Texas State Historical Association and Donald E. Worcester.
Real estate sales data for Lockhart from the Austin Board of Realtors ACTRIS database.

Chisholm Valley West, Old West Addition, Chisholm Valley South and Westwind are subdivisions in Round Rock 78681 bordered on the North by McNeil Drive, the East by I-35, the South by Hesters Crossing and the West by County Road 172. This little neighborhood is wedged between the rail road tracks that run along McNeil and the popular La Frontera shopping area.

Chisholm Valley residents enjoy easy access to Texas 45 (the Toll Road) and I-35 are part of the acclaimed Round Rock ISD.

Most of the homes in this area are older than the typical subdivision home in Round Rock, and are part of the Round Rock West (RRW) area in the local real estate MLS maintained by the Austin Board of Realtors (ABoR), aka ACTRIS. The typical lot is about 8000 square feet (.18 acre) and a typical home is under 1,300 square feet. Most of the homes were built in the 1970s and 1980s but some have been built more recently.

As of March 3rd, 2011, Seven (7) homes are for sale in the Chisholm Valley Area, ranging from $91,000 for a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom home with 984 square feet that was built in 19080 to $136,000 for a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom home with 1,350 square feet built in 1977. 2 of the current homes listed for sale are foreclosures.

2010 Real Estate Sales Data for the Chisholm Valley Area

6 of the 22 homes that sold in this area in 2009 were foreclosures, an increase from 0 in 2009.

Selling prices ranged from $71,151 for a 1,445 square foot home in need of significant repairs to $130,000 for a 1,436 square foot home built in 1984 that backed to Frontier Park.

The median sales price in 2009 for a home in the Chisholm Valley area was $113,250.

The median size of the homes that sold was 1,337 square feet, almost identical to 2009.

The median days on the market (DOM) was 45 and the median selling price per square foot was $80.67.

2009 Real Estate Sales Data for the Chisholm Valley Area

None of the 24 homes that sold in this area in 2009 were foreclosures.

Selling prices ranged from $66,000 for a 1,799 square foot home with a cracked foundation to $146,000 for a 1,756 square foot home built in 2008 that backed to commercial property.

The median sales price in 2009 for a home in the Chisholm Valley area was $110,000.

The median size of the homes that sold was 1,339 square feet.

The median days on the market (DOM) was 30 and the median selling price per square foot was $82.36.

One thing we noticed while driving around this are was that several of homes had boats parked in the driveway.

The Train That Went By

Yes, this is the actual train that zipped by as we were driving around the Chisholm Valley area. It has been turned into digital art.

Google Map of Chisholm Valley West

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