Texas Market has Massive Influx of New Residents

Texas Market has Massive Influx of New Residents

The Texas housing market is reacting to the massive influx of new residents spurred to move to the Lone Star state in search of high-paying energy and professional service jobs, as well as low cost of living.  As more residents move to Texas from other states with higher median home prices, the housing markets in Dallas, Houston and Austin have been bolstered by rising home prices of double-digit year-over-year growth, according to technology-based real estate brokerage firm Redfin's latest report.  About 2.5 million people relocated to Texas between 2008 and 2012 in search of jobs from more costly regions of the nation, the report stated.  In Dallas, the median list price was $192,500 in October, compared with $389,450 on Long Island and $495,000 in Los Angeles, according to the data.

-          Dallas Business Journal, November 28, 2013

Austin Firms Cut Off Zillow and Trulia

Austin Firms Cut Off Zillow and Trulia

Eight more Austin-based real estate brokerages are taking a cue from their local Realtor association and will no longer send their listings to real estate portals not affiliated with a Realtor trade group.  Earlier this month, the Austin Board of Realtors announced that as of April 30, 2014, it would no longer distribute its members’ listings to third-party listing portals through listing syndicator ListHub, citing concerns about unethical business practices and inaccurate listing data on third-party sites. Members would then be free to decide whether to syndicate their listings to third-party sites on their own.  At the time of the board’s announcement, Realty Austin, which claims to be the second-largest residential real estate firm in Austin, announced that it would stop syndicating real estate listings to national third-party websites.  Today, eight additional firms announced they would take the same step and end listing syndication to what they called “real estate advertising portals.” These include Zillow and Trulia, but not realtor.com, the official site of the National Association of Realtors.  The brokerages cited the desire to protect consumers from third-party sites’ inaccurate listing data and lack of oversight, as well as objections to the sites’ ad-based business models, as reasons behind the decision.  “Our 220 agents are excited to regain control over where their listings are advertised online. We turned off our direct feed to all unregulated third-party websites because we believe they cause distrust between consumers and Realtors by posting inaccurate and outdated listing information, ” said Jonathan Boatwright, co-owner of Realty Austin, in a statement.

-    Inman News, October 30, 2013