Thank you Austin Business Journal for 2014 Residential Real Estate Awards luncheon.

Yesterday the Austin business journal held their annual Realtor recognition awards luncheon.

It was an honor to be selected as a finalist in the individual agents category. I want to congratulate all of my colleagues in Austin that were recognized for their hard work and contributions to the Austin real estate community.

I wish you all a successful 2014!

A few photos from the amazing place I call home. Austin, Texas and surrounding Hill Country

It is difficult to explain unless you have ever been here. There is a bumper sticker famous around town "I may not have been born in Texas but I got here as quick as I could".  Having moved to Texas 14 years ago I have to say the transition for me has been as easy as moving to the next town over from where I was born.  An added bonus for me was landing right at the gateway of the Texas Hill country. It is approx. 200 mile X 200 mile area of hills, caves, rivers and natural beauty that gives the eyes everything from lazy cattle herds to beautiful lake side homes.

 You can go from winery to winery in one area to hunting leases and fishing in other areas. The hill country starts for Austin West of I 35. You can see the enormous hills beginning their long march to the llano plains in the western part of the state. Now I would not call them mountains like those of the North East or of the Rockies but they are pretty big hills! You will see champion athletes from bike riders to javelin throwers training in the Austin area especially in the fall, winter and spring times. Bikers love the big gradient hills to help build stamina for their grueling rides.

all along the waters of  the Colorado River (Not THE Colorado river by the way just A Colorado)
You will se unique residences and boat houses that define the individuals living there. all of the "lakes" in the Austin area are the same dammed up river. from Lady Bird lake that meanders through Austin it self to Lake Austin, Lake Travis and then to the other 4 lakes that make up the Highland lakes: Lake Buchanan, Inks Lake, Lake LBJ, Lake Marble Falls.

 The rest of these photos are just neighborhood, street shots of areas in and around the Hill country and Austin, TX. The vast topography the are has to offer draws visitors from all over Texas and the world.  it is am amazing place to call home and I am very proud to have been selling real estate in and around  the Austin area has allowed me to explore a lot of the surrounding Hill Country and find the little pockets of otherwise unknown treasures that I consider neighbors.

Please enjoy and feel free to ask any questions about the photos you see here. I will be adding photos of different areas and talking about different neighborhoods in future blogs. I welcome your inquires especially if you are thinking about moving to the area and need guidance on where the best place for you may be.

 Looking forward to hearing from you all,

Bob Kenney, Realtor

®
Reilly Realtors

Mobile/Text: 512-922-4922

 Photos all courtesy of" Bob Kenney

Austin's Historic STATE Theater - downtown Austin

 Photo: Bob Kenney

source: http://www.austintheatre.org/

State Theatre - History

"The State Theatre is a historical cornerstone to Austin's downtown arts district, so ensuring its soundness and longevity are key to the future fabric of our city. We want the community to understand the history of the State Theatre and to continue to enjoy its unique Austin setting for many, many more years." - Former Mayor Will Wynn

This vintage movie house—built in 1935 by Interstate Circuit Inc.—stands next door to the Paramount Theatre and within sight of the State Capitol building. It was built on the site of the old Avenue Hotel, which stood until after the turn of the century. The State Theatre was the first theatre in Austin built specifically to show motion pictures and opened on Christmas Day of 1935 with The Bride Comes Home, featuring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray. Downtown movie houses were popular during the era; the theatre screened films along with many others like The Paramount, The Queen—which stood on the west side of Congress Avenue—and The Ritz, now an Alamo Drafthouse location on 6th Street. The State flourished under the helm of Louis Noovy, a general manager for Interstate's four Austin movie houses, which included the Paramount, Queen and Capitol theatres. Designed by W. Scott Dunn in the Art Deco style that was popular when it was built, the State lobby retains much of the charm of its past due to a major facelift in 1981 that returned it to its original Art Deco splendor. Vacant beginning in 1986, the City of Austin bought the structure and leased it to Live Oak Theatre. Live Oak, a local, producing theatre company, spurred the most notable renovations to the facility. Austin architect Sinclair Black and Live Oak’s director Don Toner embarked on a $3.5 million rehabilitation in 1998, transforming the interior into an inviting, open 320-seat space with backstage work areas, dressing rooms, a rehearsal hall, and a new lobby. Six months later, the company finalized its purchase of the State Theatre, moved into the building and continued its tradition of presenting quality work and supporting the growth of new plays. Embracing the spirit of its new permanent home, the company changed its name to The State Theatre Company. In 2000, the company merged with its next-door neighbor, The Paramount Theatre for the Performing Arts, to form the Austin Theatre Alliance (ATA). An endeavor that began with two distinct operational and business models has combined the best of both to become one of Austin's most uniquely productive performing arts resources - a thriving organization that both presents and produces a broad range of drama, comedy, music, dance and spoken-word events of the highest caliber, in downtown Austin's most commanding venues. In June of 2006, the State Theatre, having just celebrated its 70th anniversary and in the middle of a successful run of the play Bunk Bed Brothers, suffered the effects of a city water main break that resulted in the flooding of the State’s stage and basement, ruining hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and forcing the cancellation of part of the theatre’s 2006-07 season. Some productions were moved to other venues—the State’s remount of the award-winning American Fiesta was moved to the University of Texas’ McCullough Theatre and Judith Ivey’s Women on Fire was performed at the Paramount. After approximately $300,000 worth of repairs were completed, the Austin Theatre Alliance was proud to celebrate the grand re-opening of the State Theatre on March 1st, 2011 with a private performance by Austin favorite, Bob Schneider. The venue is now available for both rental and additional presented performances.

If you ever get a chance to see a performance here do it! great theater renovation, Great performances!

Robert Kenney. Realtor

®

Reilly Realtors

13500 Galleria Circle, Suite U-115

Austin, TX 78738

What Palm trees in Texas? Yes Austin is the place that intrigues and surprises people from all over the world. We have an amazing country side, away from the Capital of Texas, that even amazes and mesmerizes Texans1 this is an overlook of one of the many lakes in the lake region to the west of Austin.

Keep you eyes open for more beautiful photos of the area...

Let m know if you want a view like this!

Bob Kenney,
Realtor
®
 Email: bobkenney@reillyrealtors.com
  

How come some of the listings I see on public search sites do not reflect current status or correct pricing?

Hi Jason,

Good question and one that has, depending on who you ask, fingers pointing in every direction! The advent of such sites as Zillow and Trulia (the 2 best known but not the only 2 search sites for real estate) has been the development of local MLS (Multiple Listing services).

These services act as the bulletin board for realtors to post (list) their listings and leases in a given market area. These listing are pretty complete and comes with a set of rules the users need to follow in order to use the service. Like reporting all price changes, changes of status and sold information once a transaction if closed. There are usually fines associated with violations of these things and the separate entities do best to police themselves and their members. Accuracy is probably 95%

At some point in town these 3^rd party sites , Such as Zillow/Trulia, came into being and the MLS's communities saw this as an opportunity to broadcast their members information onto a wider national platform. I most cases costs of sharing the information was minimal because there platforms do not typically charge to list the properties.

How can they do that? Because they do charge advertisers that are attracted by volume of visitors to their site. So for these companies the more listings they have the larger number of audience they attract. They also can tap the Realtor® market by selling placement services on each property landing page. Ever see the “Neighborhood expert” spot? Well I can tell you from experience they are not experts in the neighborhood they appear next to. They have just paid to be placed there as the expert..Never mind going down that path but it is a little misleading to say the least..

So now you have all of this information posted on sites not under the same guidelines as the original host site. Some of these sites data fields don’t match up the same, sometimes the data is corrupted, sometimes the changes to status and price to not make it to the 3^rd party site, some times the changes make it but the site reads it as a duplicate and does not publish the changes. I ave hear a lot of excuses from various 3^rd party sites over the years.

These sites have different ways of advising the public on what estimates are for home values although usually those values have noting to do with market activity in a given market place more to do with public tax evaluations and other public information. In Texas sale information is not made public, the 3^rd parties respond well if you want more accurate information to be given by us release the sold information to us. By law it just does not work that way so they go ahead and publish information that is inaccurate and helps create this market confusion over prices.

It is a nasty spiral and one that is about to change. A lot of MLS's around the country are not sending the information to these 3^rd party companies anymore. This will leave them looking for other ways to generate traffic to their sites. In that past they have down played the accuracy of the information saying it is not our data we just show what is given to us. Being a realtor and have data misrepresented on these sites and trying to get the information changed is not an easy task.

I actually had one client call and started crying on the phone that she had just gone on and done an estimate on one of the 2 biggest sites and they told her she had lost value in her home over a 4 year period and lost all of her equity. I of course panicked because I knew that was not even remotely possible because of the property she purchased. The comps showed her not only was her equity protected but she had actually realized a a nice appreciation. We sold her home and she now does not visit those sites anymore.

So there are many reasons the data may be different. The feed with the updates not working, service agreement that bought original data to the 3^rd party site is out of contract and they just not updating stale info. Duplicate listings from different sources some being updated some not being updated. Agent has not updated the info on the original MLS site.

The best solution would be to contact the listing agent (If you can find their name since even that information is blocked by 3^rd parties sometimes so they direct you to a paying advertising agent) and ask what the status is. Anytime you are looking at real estate it is a good idea to verify all information before you act.

Hope this helps.

Please feel free to visit: http://www.austinhomelistings.com/agents/robert-kenney/

For real estate information in the Austin and surrounding areas.

Regards

Bob Kenney, Realtor®

Mobile/Text: 512-922-4922

I want a friend who’s Real Estate License has expired to represent me as an agent, but no Realtors are willing to help me find a home? What is going on?

Hi Jean,

Thanks for the question.

So to answer your question. You want a Realtor® to search the market for a suitable home, Make appointments, provide you with current data and advise you on the market and what you should pay for a home, write the contract and have your friend receive the commission?

First of all your friend can not receive commission from a real estate transaction because he/she are not licensed. If they have an interest in participating in real estate transactions such as yours here is my advice:

You should suggest to your friend that they reinstate their license. Then they would be able to refer you to a licenses, practicing Realtor® and ask for a referral fee. That way your friend generates some funds for referring his excellent client and the Realtor® actually doing the work and assuming all of the responsibility and liabilities, that go with that work, gets paid for their service to you. A win win situation for everyone.

Please feel free to give me a call if you need more info.

Regards,

Bob Kenney, Realtor®

Mobile/Text: 512-922-4922

My friend told me that if I listed my own home, Realtors with buyers will do all the work and I wont have to pay them? Is that true? It doesn’t sound right.

Thanks Bill for email.

“If it sounds too good to be true than it is”. I a homeowner lists their own home we refer to that in the industry as a FSBO (for sale by owner) 90% of the time a FSBO will offer to work with buyers agents. This means if and agent brings a buyer, the seller will agree to pay a compensation in the form of a commission to the buyers agent. In the case of the other 10% they say they will not work with an agent and compensation is between the buyer and their client.

It doesn’t sound right because, the FSBO who does not want to work with the buyers agent, puts all of the exposure on performance on the buyers agent who is now obligated to represent their clients interests and be fair to the FSBO making sure that contracts are explained and understood, procedures are followed, time lines met and that the seller complies with any additional addendum or requirements of the sale (such as repairs etc.) As a professional real estate agent, Realtor®, I would make sure all of this is done and have an agreement with my client that they pay me compensation for my representation.

At the end of the day the compensation is being generated by what they are willing to pay for the home so in the end the seller is ultimately paying for the compensation depending on sales price because his net proceeds is a reflection of what the buyer is willing to pay GROSS. Hope that makes sense!

Look Realtors® are like all professionals. They need to work to provide for their families. A commission is a % of transactions proceeds. Much like the sales of any item you purchase has some accommodation for profit over and above the cost of goods that a vendor is selling. From the “profit” there is a “gross profit” and a net “profit”. If a Realtor® generates $1000 in commission, they need to set aside federal and state taxes, deduct expenses directly related to that transaction & deduct brokerage fees (each broker has a fee schedule that they charge each agent on each transaction) so their net is going to much less than that of the whole amount.

As a Realtors® business and volume grow they also have an increase in expenses for advertising, infrastructure, assistance, office/storage space, travel, advertising for a realtor is working and marketing 7 days a week.

If you get buyers agents that don’t want to coordinate a deal if a FSBO is not working with agents don’t think of them bad agents. It is a lot of exposure legally if something is to go wrong and a lit of pressure treating all parties fairly while maintaining the fiduciary relation ship of their client. If everyone works with one another the trans action will be smoother and chances are there will be less issues resulting from unmet expectations or lack of understanding of the contract and its terms.

I strongly suggest if you are selling your own home that you spend a little money having an experienced real estate attorney look at any contract that is presented for you to sign.

Hope this answers your question Bill. I hope that you have a successful transaction. Don t forget to consult with an reputable full service real estate broker in your area to see all of the services that they can provide for you as your listing agents, Realtor® representative.

Let me know if you need a referral or have any further questions.

Regards

Bob Kenney, Realtor®

Reilly Realtors

Mobile/Text: 512-922-4922

Home market status? What all the abbreviations mean..

Jeff from Fresno asked: What does Pending taking back up mean?? I am from California and not familiar with the term.

Great Question Jeff, All over the country there are different terms used in real estate transactions. I will try and out line the major ones here.

Texas area status abbreviations and definitions

A = Active – A property is active and a seller wants to sell

AC = Active contingent – A property has an accepted offer however the property is contingent on the sale of another property by the buyer.

PB = Pending taking back up – A property has an accepted and executed contract in place but there are option periods that the buyer has negotiated and the seller has reserved the right to accept back up offers on the property. Once another offer is accepted the seller notifies the buyer in position A that a back up offer has been accepted on the property.

P = Pending – After all option periods expire and the contract is still in place this status change just lets the market know that the contract is proceeding to a closing.

S = Sold – The transaction has closed and funded.

W = Withdrawn – Property has been with drawn by the seller from MLS

X = Expired – Listing contract has expired and the property is not being actively marketed on MLS

T = Temporarily withdrawn – seller has asked that the property be removed from active ststus but intends to resume marketing at some point in the future.

L = Leased – A property has been leased for a contracted period of time.

Some markets will have variations of these statuses. In California they refer to a contract as being under “Escrow” that means the funds are with tht title company or attorneys in an escrow account to be distributed on the closing date of the contract. In Texas we use title companies to transact 95% of the residential transactions. They set up escrows for each individual property as well we just do not use it in our language.

In Massachusetts and some of the New England states. Real estate transactions are closed with attorney offices that do the title work and sellers and buyers go to the attorney's offices to sign the paper work.

I hope this answers some of your questions Jeff. Please feel free to contact me directly if you need more information.

Bob Kenney, Realtor ®

Mobile/Text - 512-922-4922

Texas Education Accountability Rating System

The Texas education system uses an accountability Rating systems for all public schools in the state.

In a lot of cases families moving to the state will want to know what the performance levels of the public schools in a given geographic area are. Austin like most metropolitan areas, is comprised of several independent school districts (ISD 's). In my earlier post I touched on funding through property taxes for the education system.

 The link below is to the Texas education agency. The link will bring you to a page of the latest 2013 school ratings for all public schools in Texas. There is also information on how the ratings are calculated.

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2013/index.html

For a quick district report you can click on this link : Scroll to the district of interest http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2013/statelist.pdf

You can get more information by accessing the reports on the left.

The goal of the system is to evenly compare individual campus performance on an apples to apples basis. This is a great tool for a family trying to narrow down possible areas of relocation.

The following ISD's serve the greater Austin area:

Austin ISD
Westlake ISD
Lake Travis ISD
Leander/Cedar park ISD
Round rock ISD
Dripping springs ISD
Hays ISD
Georgetown ISD
Pflugerville ISD

You can see other area ISD's on the map below.

Map courtesy of Austin Chamber of commerce

As always if you have any questions please feel free to email me @ rkenney51@gmail.com  or call/text 512-922-4922