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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, horn4life said:

With prices in that range the elementary school won't be there long anyhow.

Indeed. Ultimately lost home affordability is the problem that’s destroying AISD, along with everything else good about Austin. 
 

 

1 hour ago, horn4life said:

So... what do you guys think the final sale price will be? 

$3.50

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
41 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Indeed. Ultimately lost home affordability is the problem that’s destroying AISD, along with everything else good about Austin. 

Funny thing is I came realy close to buying a house up behind Zilker back in 1999... 

Austin unfortunately is like any other cool place, not so cool people want to feel cool, and are willing to pay.  The wife and I nearly exclusively eat at local or locally created places here in town, and going to SoCo is how we still "feel" like we are part of Austin. Trying to keep the folks that actually made it cool in business.  Continental club and C-boys get a lot of our entertainment money, even though we are at like Oak Knoll and 183, because the music played there is still Austin at it's best. 

If they will sell me that place for list price, I promise I will support all the local businesses near my new Zilker house....  might even let the yard go to shit in honor of South Austin...

 

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Posted
On 11/4/2025 at 9:59 AM, Bozo_Casanova said:

Indeed. Ultimately lost home affordability is the problem that’s destroying AISD, along with everything else good about Austin. 

I had a good conversation with one of the leaders in the Austin Infill Coalition about this and there's plenty of interest on their side for building more affordable housing as long as they aren't sacrificing profit (and given this house in 78704, I think there's a good case to be made that higher value infill development is pretty risky at the moment).  

That said, I'm not sure how you put the genie back in the bottle otherwise.  There's good scholarship that suggest home values are more a product of income and asset inflation than tight supply.  

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Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

I had a good conversation with one of the leaders in the Austin Infill Coalition about this and there's plenty of interest on their side for building more affordable housing as long as they aren't sacrificing profit (and given this house in 78704, I think there's a good case to be made that higher value infill development is pretty risky at the moment). 

I guess. Frankly I’ve can’t think of a supply imbalance in history that has ever corrected without meeting the top of the market first. The Austin MSA is correcting in large part because of all the “luxury condos” that came on the market around the same time rates went up. My point is that we don’t need to pay developers to take risks, but to simply allow them to meet the market. 
 

8 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

That said, I'm not sure how you put the genie back in the bottle otherwise.  There's good scholarship that suggest home values are more a product of income and asset inflation than tight supply.  

Indeed two of the three important drivers of affordability erosion are income inequality and two decades of essentially free credit combined with federal tax stimulus for top earners. But, we can’t address that at the municipal level. We can only address the third major contributor, which is restrictions on housing construction in centralish Austin. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Posted
On 11/3/2025 at 9:24 AM, Catpfish said:

Just got the email blast from the agent.  The address is 2502 Barhill Dr.  The email is titled $2.6 million price drop and that best and final process in effect.

And just got another email blast that they are holding an open house on Saturday, so it looks like the multiple bid process (if it even happens) is taking longer than they thought

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Posted (edited)

With Robinhood having margin rates at 4.75% for 100k-1million dollar amounts, which is where I'd assume 90% of mortgage amounts to be in, is there any easy to explain math to determine if paying off through margin makes sense if risk of being margin called is low?  is it just comparing the interest charges against each other?

 

Edited by StassneyHorn
Posted
1 hour ago, UTPhil2006 said:

50 year mortgages sound like a terrible idea. I know 40 have been around but can't say I've ever done or or I think anyone in our company either. 

 

japan is the case study on 50 year loans 

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Posted
On 11/7/2025 at 11:51 AM, Catpfish said:

And just got another email blast that they are holding an open house on Saturday, so it looks like the multiple bid process (if it even happens) is taking longer than they thought

You wonder what level of desperation the owners actually have? Making this big a downward move during a period of obvious traditional weak pricing. 

19 hours ago, UTPhil2006 said:

50 year mortgages sound like a terrible idea. I know 40 have been around but can't say I've ever done or or I think anyone in our company either. 

But the low, low,l ow no money down payments.... (forever). Sure would suck to miss a couple payments in the 49th year...

18 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

japan is the case study on 50 year loans 

When you start needing 50 year loans, you also can't afford kids.  Which in helps opens a completely different can of economic worms.

Posted

Was talking to a pollster yesterday about this that has a line of discussion open to the admin. He’s not like an advisor, but they also listen to him if that makes sense…

Told him that the 50 was a bad idea and dumb and not particularly necessary. Basically my pitch was that we’d be a lot better off with 35 and under 1st time home buyers getting underwritten like a VA loan with 100% down, no MI and flexible dti guildelines. We chatted about that a little bit and he was in agreement (vet- so he understands VA loans) and said he’d pass that along the line to an appropriate person. Do I expect anything to come of that?  No. But at least I had a minor say in sending an idea up the food chain.  To be closer this was an actual conversation with him- this isn’t the comments section on a poll I was taking or something. 
I know they are listening to Ishbia and Habib and other guys I’ve had the opportunity to talk to at top producer summits and the like. They are getting people involved that know and care about housing, but this 50 year mortgage thing isn’t a thing that needs to happen or likely helps what they are trying to get to, in an attempt to move the needle on Millennial and zoomer homeownership. 

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Posted
On 11/5/2025 at 4:19 PM, LCHorn said:

I had a good conversation with one of the leaders in the Austin Infill Coalition about this and there's plenty of interest on their side for building more affordable housing as long as they aren't sacrificing profit (and given this house in 78704, I think there's a good case to be made that higher value infill development is pretty risky at the moment).  

That said, I'm not sure how you put the genie back in the bottle otherwise.  There's good scholarship that suggest home values are more a product of income and asset inflation than tight supply.  

I know folks in AIC, they are white knuckled right now. they will say yes to anything if it means a deal, but in reality they don't really care about affordability unless you're talking about buyer's being able to afford the prices the infill zip codes require. the lucky ones are on the sidelines, the ones that have to make a living building are getting their asses handed to them. some are successful still, others success is measured by shrinking down and surviving. that may sound like a cynical view or a critique of them, it's not. they have no ability to move the market and they are at the mercy of the worst real estate down turn in austin since 1986-1987.

problems like housing affordability have so many negative inputs, that it will take dozens of positive inputs to make a dent.

Posted
21 minutes ago, scramblyn said:

I know folks in AIC, they are white knuckled right now. they will say yes to anything if it means a deal, but in reality they don't really care about affordability unless you're talking about buyer's being able to afford the prices the infill zip codes require.

To be clear, I tend to favor organizing the marketplace (to the extent that’s possible) with profit seeking firms and providing them incentives to act in ways that fulfills community goals.  I’m happy with whatever mechanism gets us more pricing diversity in housing stock while supporting an expanding tax base to fund shared services.  If they get to make a lot of money in supporting that vision then it’s win-win.  
 

Also, on a somewhat lesser note, most of these guys are building high dollar houses but they are also small, independent businesses and there’s probably some economic merit to the money recycling into the local economy than being used to prop up DR Horton’s shareholders.  

Posted (edited)
21 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

To be clear, I tend to favor organizing the marketplace (to the extent that’s possible) with profit seeking firms and providing them incentives to act in ways that fulfills community goals.  I’m happy with whatever mechanism gets us more pricing diversity in housing stock while supporting an expanding tax base to fund shared services.  If they get to make a lot of money in supporting that vision then it’s win-win.  
 

Also, on a somewhat lesser note, most of these guys are building high dollar houses but they are also small, independent businesses and there’s probably some economic merit to the money recycling into the local economy than being used to prop up DR Horton’s shareholders.  

I agree with you. and yes, AIC is a bunch of solo guys (and a couple of gals) that once upon a time learned how to build houses and now build $1.5M+ homes with some exceeding $3M. some of which are stunningly beautiful. others of which are grotesque (looking at you joseph bros (who are not in AIC i don't think)).

Edited by scramblyn
Posted
50 year mortgages sound like a terrible idea. I know 40 have been around but can't say I've ever done or or I think anyone in our company either. 

Curious. Let's say you did a $700k fixed rate loan of 4.5%. With the whacked amortization schedules of home loans, how much principle would you have paid off after 20 years?
Posted
Just now, Sbbruin said:


Curious. Let's say you did a $700k fixed rate loan of 4.5%. With the whacked amortization schedules of home loans, how much principle would you have paid off after 20 years?

$1 Bob! <fist pump, air high five, point to crowd>

Posted
1 hour ago, Incredulity said:

https://www.calculator.net/amortization-calculator.html

you can put any term and rate you want in this.

 

40 year has paid 200K principal after 20 years given above rate

50 year 120K

I remember refi-ing to my now 15 year from my previous 20 year (which I had re-fid a couple of times with a small cash out once), but my wife was flabbergasted as to how little we had paid off over the first about 15 years.  I was like “welcome to home financing “

now I pay like 80% principle with every payment.

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