My broker has written a great article on choosing the right home loan. Read more at 7 Steps to Choosing the Right Home Loan.
Author: Braxton Beyer
It’s not as bad as it seems
It seems that a lot of the talk regarding the bubble may be all in the head. Many consumers are still able to buy a house but are choosing not to. This is in contrast to previous housing downturns where consumers simply couldn’t buy homes whether they wanted to or not.
I think this applies well to the Austin area. Sure, many people have inflated prices because they weren’t savvy buyers or they were novice investors. We have already seen the market slow down to correct these issues, but Austin isn’t going to stop growing and the demand for homes will keep increasing over time. I hate to burst your bubble, but I believe that the Austin market is not going to crash.
Rant on SafeMLS
Recently the Austin Board of Realtors required all Realtors to carry a new device called SafeMLS key. This ‘key’ produces a unique password every time you press its button. You are required to use it every time you login to the MLS system. This is supposed to make the MLS safer by keeping others who may have obatained your password from being able to login as you since they will not have this key. However, it seems to be more of a nuisance than a benefit. I, for one, don’t have a problem with people logging in as me since I don’t give my password out to other people. But now, if I forget my ‘key’ at home than I am screwed. I cannot log in to the system and help clients unless I drive all the way home first. This is ridiculous.
Realtors also use an eKey which is the device we use to unlock lockboxes when showing a property. It is about the size of a pager. This was a hassle but at least it provided a useful tool. I got tired of carrying this around so I recently upgraded so that I may now use my Treo as my eKey which means one less device I have to carry around. As soon as I did that, ABOR announced this new SafeMLS initiative, so back to more devices to carry. What a hassle.
New Home search
My new home search on my website is up. It can be found at braxtonbeyer.com. This search will map the results so it is easier to visualoze the location of the property. It is still very early in the development of this search but at least it provides the basic funtionality right now. More features will be added over time. If you give it a try, please give feedback commenting here or using the feedback link at the bottom of the search page.
Working On My Web Presence
I have been working hard the past several weeks to get my website ready to publish. It should be available some time next week. It will sport an excellent property search that I have not seen by any other Realtor in Austin. It will be a barebones site at first. Although, I just met with my excellent design firm, Mediaville who will assist me in adding some style and branding to my site. So keep your eyes out for BraxtonBeyer.com
Welcome!
Welcome to Your Austin Realtor. I will be using this space to discuss my dealing in real estate and my real-estate related web development. I am obviously a Realtor in Austin, TX under a new agency called One Source Realty. We specialize in first-time homebuyers. We help educate these consumers and put them on the path to home ownership. I have also been doing web application development off and on for almost ten years. I am currently working on my site wich will reside at BraxtonBeyer.com. I plan to use this experience to help me in real estate and also to create some useful tools for others.