Steiner Ranch Housing Report - January 2012

In this edition of How’s the Market in Steiner Ranch?, I review a few of the monthly sales stats, give my interpretation of them, and discuss the new tax on mortgages.

To view summary and detailed information for all Steiner Ranch neighborhoods, check out the Neighborhood Home Sale Data. If you are looking to buy or sell a home in Steiner Ranch, contact me at 512-650-7300, by email, or the form below.If you prefer to read instead of watch, here the transcript:

Transcript

In December, 24 homes closed in Steiner Ranch which was down 4% from December 2010. Of the 24, 17 were resale and 7 were new construction homes. Of last year’s 25 sales, 20 were resale and 5 were new construction. So if you look only at existing home sales, this past December was down 15%. Keep in mind that many new construction homes are not listed in the MLS so I cannot provide accurate data on new construction numbers in Steiner Ranch.

When we are looking at small sets of data such as one month in Steiner Ranch, I don’t like to compares prices from one year to the next because they can be very volatile. For the record, the average price increased 3% and the median price decreased 5% over last December. These numbers continue to show a relatively stable market in Steiner Ranch. Last month, the sale prices in Steiner ranged from $245,000 to $680,000.

The number of available homes in December was 88, the exact same number as the previous December. By available homes, I mean homes that are actively for sale – it does not include homes under contract. This is a snapshot in time and actually varies throughout the month. I expect the number of available home to drop for another month or two, before turning up again. For homes that closed in December, the days on market was 72 days. As always, my website allows you to look at summary and detailed data for each Steiner Ranch neighborhood (click here).

Now let’s take a look at the new tax on mortgages signed into law last month. In order to pay for a two-month extension of unemployment benefits and payroll tax reductions, a permanent tax will be imposed on new mortgages starting on April 1, 2012. This tax is 1 tenth of 1 percent of the loan amount so it will increase the monthly payment for the entirety of the loan. It applies to mortgages backed by FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, which currently account for approximately 90% of all new home loans. If a new mortgage is one of the 10% guaranteed by a private mortgage insurer, it will not be affected. Again, this is for new mortgages only and does not affect mortgages already in place. The tax is slated to be on all FHA mortgages originated for the next 10 years but is a permanent tax for Fannie and Freddie mortgages. I first tweeted about this on December 17, so if you want to know what’s going on that affects real estate in Steiner Ranch, follow me at http://Twitter.com/SteinerHomeInfo. As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at 512-650-7300, by email, or the form below.

 Statistics based upon information from ACTRIS for the periods cited.