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College Station, TX Real Estate News

By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
Residents of College Station can voice their opinions about College Station growth, traffic and restrictions Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 6 pm, in the Oakwood Room of the College Station Hilton.  Residents will be broken into focus groups; transportation, economic development and community character.  There has been quite a bit of interest in this as citizens want, and need, to be a part of the comprehensive plan.  Sugar Land consulting firm Kendig Keast Collaborative is in charge of rewriting the city plan documents, complete with citizen feedback.The city received over 100 applications for its earlier adviory committee.  Forty people actually serve.  Earlier analysis showed some of College Station's strenghts and weaknesses.  Strengths included our airport, arts, culture and universi...
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
The College Station City Council is contemplating installing red light cameras and held a forum with Terry Childers, deputy city manager on November 20.  Research is ongoing and an ordinance making running red lights a civil penalty if reported by camera is being considered.  If the civil penalty occurs it would mot affect insurance rates unles a police officer was present.According to Glen Brown, city manager for College Station, there is no timeline in place currently.  The next step is to send a request to potential vendor and then give them a month to six weeks to develop proposals.  Brown stated that at the earliest, cameras could start to appear over the summer.Brown went on to state that, while interest is definately there, it's not a definate project at this point.  "all the res...
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
The Aggies won their last game, so I'll use this opportunity to brag about our sports here in Brazos Valley.  With A&M right here we have excellent opportunities for sports watching for all sports fans!  College Station itself has a population of around 82K, but our Kyle Field, home of Aggie football has had an attendance of 87,555.  It's always a thrill to see the stands filled to the brim with maroon shirts.  For miles around people can see the field and hear the fans going wild.If racing is your sport of choice we have Texas World Speedway south of College Station, with a capacity of 23,000.  For basketball we have Reed Arena with a record crowd of 13,151.  Baseball has our own Olsen Field with the crowd having been more than 11,000.  Volleyball (G. Rollie White Coliseum) and Soccer ...
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
College Station's very beginning highlights what happens when a community is built around a college, instead of a college being put in a town.  The railroad throught the area was completed in 1860 and in 1871 the site was chosen for A&M.  College Station didn't come into being until after the campus was opened in 1876, in 1884 the population was 350.  Texas A&M's triple designation as a Land, Sea and Space Grant Institiution continues to bring more and more highly educated individuals into the area.  Ongoing projects by agencies such as NASA, the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research and the National Institute of Health are well funded and well staffed.  Money Magazine ranked College Station as the most educated city in the state of Texas and the 11th most educated city ...
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By Steve Tesch
(Chris Tesch & Company)
Our city, and many of the surround areas, were named for very utilitarian purposes.  College Station was named as such because it was the train station to drop off the students for Texas A&M.  Wellborn (the area we live in) was named because it had a tank (a well outide of TX) that provided water for the trains as they were coming into town.  We even live on IGN Road and that is named after the International Great Northern rail road which used to run right where our street is.  Our area is rich with tradition and quirks too.
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
Bryan/College Station has been cited as one of the lowest priced markets in the country and that designation has lead many interested parties to contact me to discuss the benefits of moving to the area.  There are almost too many to mention!  First is B/CS's location.  We are located almost at the center of Texas and within short driving distances to many major cities.  Austin, with it's population of more than 690,000 is 1.5 hours away, Houston, with it's upwards of two million people another mere 1.5 hours away.  Dallas, with it's 1.2 million population is around 3 hours away, as is Fort Worth, with it's 624,000 people.  Houston and Fort Worth rank as fastest growing in the nation.  To be close to so many economic powerhouses is, in itself, a position of power!For those of you that do...
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
I moved to College Station around 8 years ago.  I was a Texas tranplant already and had been in Houston for many a sweltering summer (around 18) when the call came in.  We were going to move to College Station.  I knew nothing about College Station other than they weren't "tea sippers" (whatever that was supposed to mean) and that they had a University located here.  A trip up this way got me a bit more excited, but still...I was moving my kids from everything they knew, and a English tudor on 1/3 acre that had been lovingly, with blood, sweat and tears remodeled into our dream home.I got up here on a cool morning in May, just me and the two kids that could come (my oldest was finishing his freshman year of high school in Houston).  My youngest was about to turn five a few days later.  ...
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
I noticed a very interesting trend when I was looking at the MLS statistics for the months of September and October, 2006.  In looking at solds versus actives many market sectors, including, increasingly the lower end market, has a five month supply or more of homes at current levels.  Interestingly luxury homes (400K and up) currently only have around a 3 month supply.  This is far too early to call it a trend, but interesting.  In the past our luxury homes were a segment that was a bit more of a worrisome seller than what I liked.  A ready supply of competitors, builders ready to compete and a significantly smaller buyer pool ensured these homes would be on the market for a bit longer.  We aren't facing that nearly as much currently.  We seem to have a more balanced market segment wit...
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
One of the places that an agent can make the most difference is with a first time homebuyer.  I really enjoy working with them because (though negotiating is one of my FAVORITE things) you can really get to make a huge difference in someones life at this point.  From finding the right lender who will come up with innovative programs to take care of their needs to discussing potential disadvantages of particular homes to pulling up public records and telling them that NO-we are not going to be offering full price it's all a wonderful feeling.  I've got a marathon weekend with first time homebuyers, all under 100K this weekend.  Getting these people into the right home for the right amount of money is a challenge, but it's very rewarding!  They know how much you care about getting things ...
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
I've had more investors this year entering the market than I've ever had before.  I'm very excited too because my investors all have good scenarios working for them.  This year I've sold 11 homes to investors and 10 are rented out for at least 1% per month of what was paid for them.  The 11th is in escrow now and my property manager hasn't started advertising it yet. We get many people wanting to come into the market and invest in duplexes.  Unfortunately our duplexes were snatched up a long time ago by people that apparently had to deposit their money somewhere.  Many of these are being sold for 250K plus and are only pulling in $1600 a month in rent.  Seems like bad math to me!!!  I've been very successful in getting homes for 140-150K and renting them out for $1500 a month or more to...
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
When I first got into real estate a great mentor told me "you don't make money selling a home, you make money buying it".  How true that is!  When a buyer is looking for a home one of the first thoughts on either their, or their agents minds should be...what about resale?  Many of my clients tease me about talking about selling their home when they haven't even bought it.  This is one of my duties as a Buyer Representative, however.  Many times the client has stars in their eyes and is just looking at the home in the light of how nice it is comparable to their current living accomodations.  Often times they beleive they will live in this home for the rest of their lives.  I have to be the one looking out for their interests because I know that, while they might live there the rest of th...
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
We hear quite a bit of information about "the housing bubble" as if it were a constant in the universe.  Many markets, including mine, aren't facing a bubble at all, but instead reaching newer highs than ever.  While many markets aound the nation were increasing unbelievably our market instead performed like the Little Engine That Could, chugging away with 3-5% gains per year.  Many investors turned their noses up at our market, believing that the growth wasn't enough to justify the investment.  This last year, while quite a bit of the nation was facing declining home prices, our market started performing better than ever.  It is currently gaining momentum and is at an estimated level of 7-8% for this last year.  Investors, frustrated with their losses in other markets, are increasingly...
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By Chris Tesch, College Station, Texas Real Estate
(RE/MAX Bryan-College Station)
I talk to many people who are waiting to save a downpayment before investing in their first home.  With the wide variety of 100% loan programs out there currently this isn't necessary, or most times even desirable!  While some people seem to think that financing the entire purchase is risky and too costly indepth analysis will prove that, in most cases, it's more costly to wait.  In Texas we have enjoyed only moderate increases in the price of homes.  In my market for the last few years our appreciation has only been 3-5% per year.  Last year due to the large influx of investors and first time homebuyers we've realized a probable gain of 7%.  Yet, even with these modest figures in mind, we can see the true cost of "saving" for a home.  Say Don and Mary start saving for a downpayment thi...
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