Bill Morris Realtor

Much has been made in the press lately about the fall-off in home sales from June to July 2010, with home sales down 27% nationally.  My first reaction is, "Duh!"  Was there ever any doubt that the month after the second tax incentive program in the last year would be weak?  Wasn't the point of ...

I found this post today from a broker in New York, and I have to share it.  Years ago, when I was choosing a brokerage, I was told that being a Realtor® meant being a businessman, consultant, psychologist, financial counselor, marriage counselor, coach, and many other roles.  I love the variety a...

Once again I am prompted to write by articles from the national press: July home building up Builder Confidence Declines In August Without any doubt there is reason for concern about the near-term direction of the U.S. economy, and two rounds of homebuyer tax credits have distorted seasonal deman...

The title of this post comes from an article in Yahoo! Real Estate from last week: Vulture investors are back and making a bundle The term brings back memories of just a couple of years ago.  The article points out that the game has changed this time -- that investors can't count on flipping a pr...

Remodeling and home improvement are perennial discussion topics in this business, and rightly so.  Several cable TV programs have made them even more common in recent years, but not all "improvements" are created equal.  I have lost count of how many times I found otherwise perfectly acceptable h...

I have written for many months about how Texas has suffered much less in this recession than other parts of the United States.  Some it that was due to the fact that we had a significant correction in home prices when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000/2001.  Even more important was that fact that...

From RISMedia today: Pending Home Sales Ease in Post-Tax Credit Market Forgive a quick editorial comment:  Doesn't the word "ease" sound like improvement in a situation that needed to improve?  Obviously, the headline means that pending home sales are "down."  I don't know anybody who considers t...

I found this article on RISMedia this morning: Top Seven Reasons Banks are Denying Home Loan Requests I can't find anything to disagree with in the more conservative lending guidelines that banks are using.  If you have been around this business for a while, you know that a few years ago a rock c...

Yesterday I wrote about the Austin/Central Texas markets for new homes and for existing homes: New Home Sales -- U.S. and Austin/Central Texas Austin/Central Texas Market Status -- Existing Homes I commented about the general health of the Austin Metro real estate market, with an average of just ...

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released five-year private sector employment statistics this morning (Texas cities hold top four job-growth spots), and I was pleased to see that the Austin metro area ranked third -- gaining 56,100 private sector jobs from June 2005 to June 2010.  Texas cities...