We welcome our new strategic partners in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Buyruidoso.com has been in the Real Estate business in Ruidoso for 40 years.

They are included in our program to allow you to look at resort properties and ranches in both Texas and New Mexico. We hope we can be of service to you.

Please register on our program when you are prompted to do so. We will contact you and invite you to share with us what you are looking for. This is a FREE service , although we do sell Real Estate.

So, if we provide you a great data base of resort, vacation and second homes, we hope you will consider using us as your agent.

We welcome you to our program.

For more information about GoSecondHomes.com, please contact

R. Michael Brown

rmbrown@AvalarAustin.com

512-751-1032

2012 is proving to be a great year for building new homes. Texas is still one of the best places to own a home, here are the new statistics from the building industry, for 2012:

http://www.thetexaseconomy.org/

• Thus far, Texas has weathered the national real estate crunch without significant damage to property values.
• A total of 6,191 building permits for single-family homes were issued in March 2012. In the 12 months ending in March 2012, 64,364 permits were issued, 8 percent more than one year ago.
• There were 4,427 multi-family building permits issued in March 2012. During the 12 months ending in March 2012, 38,132 permits were issued, 81 percent more than one year ago.
• In March 2012, sales of existing single-family homes increased by 32 percent from the previous month, to a total of 19,134. March 2012 home sales were 9 percent higher than in March 2011.
• In Texas, the median price for existing single-family homes was $153,700, 7 percent higher than it was a year ago.
• In March 2012, the Texas home foreclosure rate was one in every 1,213 mortgages.
• This was substantially better than Arizona’s one in 300, Nevada’s one in 301, California’s one in 303, and Florida’s one in 336.

The Texas Economy by;

Susan Combs, Texas Comptroller   |   P.O. Box 13528, Capitol Station   |   Austin, Texas 78711-3528   |   comptroller.help@cpa.state.tx.us

Let us make your house dreams come true. Central Texas and the Texas Hill Country is still one of the best places to live, we are almost in the center of Texas, being a superb location to live.

Cindi Darragh-Leech

Avalar Austin Real Estate

512.715.2695

cindi@avalaraustin.com

For more information about Cordova Bend, please contact

R. Michael Brown

rmbrown@AvalarAustin.com

512-751-1032

Several homes are under construction on the Lamar Peninsula.  Better known simply as “Lamar”, the peninsula is home to Goose Island State Park, the Big Tree, Holiday Beach subdivision, Neptune Harbor canal community, The Boardwalk and Lamar Point Preserve, among others.

The Boardwalk, a waterfront community on St. Charles Bay north of Goose Island State Park, has two new homes and one under construction.

Lamar Pointe Preserve, located north of the LBJ Causeway on Bus. Hwy. 35, has 4 new homes under construction.  Lamar Pointe Preserve offers other lots, many of which are sheltered by live oak trees.

Lamar Pointe Preserve, located north of the LBJ Causeway on Bus. Hwy. 35, has 4 new homes under construction.  Lamar Pointe Preserve offers other lots, many of which are sheltered by live oak trees.

For more information About Lamar, contact:

Lee Couch
Lee@ShorelineTexas.com
361-463-3975

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Sales of investment properties and vacation homes soared last year as investors snapped up homes that were selling at beaten down prices.

Homes purchased by investors skyrocketed 64.5% to 1.23 million in 2011, up from 749,000 the year before, according to the National Association of Realtors

Vacation home buyers also came out in larger numbers, with sales climbing 7% year-over-year to 502,000. Meanwhile, sales to ordinary home buyers, who plan on living in the home full-time, fell 15.5% to 2.78 million, NAR said.

“Investors have been swooping into the market to take advantage of bargain home prices,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “Rising rental income easily beat cash sitting in banks.”

Many investors were on a shopping spree, with 41% of buyers picking up more than one property during the year, compared with 34% in 2010, according to NAR. The median number of properties they bought rose to three from two during that time.

Buying much cheaper than renting

And almost half of all investors paid for the properties with cash. Even buyers who secured a mortgage to finance the purchase offered hefty down payments. The median down payment for both investment and vacation-home buyers was 27%.

“Clearly we’re looking at investors with financial resources who see real estate as a good investment and who aren’t hesitant to use cash,” said Yun.

Foreclosures have helped fuel the second-home sales surge. Half of the investment purchases made last year were distressed sales, either foreclosures or short sales, as were 39% of vacation home purchases.

According to NAR, the median home price for investment properties was $100,000, a bargain compared to 2005 when the median investment property sold for $150,000. Meanwhile, the median vacation home sold for $121,300, down 19% from 2010 and a significant decline from the median price of $200,000 six years earlier.

Most investors said they intend to hang on to the properties instead of flipping them for a quick profit. The typical investor said they plan to hold the home for 5 years, with half of them reporting that they purchased the property mainly to generate rental income.

A tycoon in the making buying vacation homes

In nearly every market in the nation right now, buying is more affordable than renting. Continued tight mortgage financing, however, makes it difficult for some buyers with less than stellar credit history to buy homes.

For real estate investors, that means a steady supply of bargain properties — and potential renters. 

Getting Away—but Not Too Far

As Vacation-Home Sales Gain Momentum, Travel Costs Keep Buyers Closer to Home

Matthew Healey for The Wall Street Journal

Vacation-home sales are perking up as low prices pull more buyers off the fence. Yet many are looking for properties close to home instead of in far-off destinations. Robbie Whelan explains on The News Hub. Photo: Matthew Healey for The Wall Street Journal.

Sales of vacation homes are picking up as low prices pull buyers off the fence. But with travel costs rising and consumers still uncertain about the economy, many buyers are snapping up properties closer to home.

That is a change from the past decade when people often headed out of state to buy vacation homes near resorts and areas that were tourist destinations, including Orlando near Florida’s Walt Disney World and the gambling Mecca of Las Vegas.

But these days, many vacation-home buyers are turning back the clock and looking for properties in the more traditional—and less glitzy—vacation-home communities near where they live.

Jed Kolko, chief economist at Trulia Inc., a real-estate information website, said that increasingly “people choose second homes that are a shorter drive rather than a plane flight away.”

A survey by the National Association of Realtors found that the median distance between a buyer’s primary residence and his vacation home declined 19% to 305 miles in 2011 from 2010. It was the first decline since the group began keeping data in 2006.

Time Off

To be sure, vacation-home sales also are picking up in parts of Florida, Nevada and other states that have long catered to vacationers, although real estate agents say more of those buyers tend to be from nearby states and fewer are from far away. And plenty of retirees still want to vacation in climates that are warm year-round.

The shift in buying habits partly reflects the changing portrait of the typical vacation-home buyer. In the recent past, the vacation-home market was led by families looking for places with attractions for children as well as adults. But a growing number of buyers are older and seeking vacation homes that transition into retirement homes.

“People want to stay within driving distance because they’re more able to maintain the homes, they have better networks in place and friends and family nearby to use and sustain the homes,” said Jon Gray, vice president of HomeAway.com, a website that lists vacation rentals. A survey in March by site operator HomeAway Inc. found that the most popular markets among vacationers this year are those that can be reached in a drive of four hours or less from home. That makes those markets good investment opportunities for the 91% of vacation-home buyers who plan to rent their properties when they aren’t using them.

Today’s vacation-home buyers also are less affluent than in past years and more cost-sensitive. According to the NAR study, the average annual income of vacation-home buyers declined to $88,600 in 2011 from $99,500 in 2010. “If you have more typical vacation buyers coming into the marketplace, they’re looking at the whole package, including the expense of getting there, as well,” says Stan Humphries, chief economist with real-estate information company Zillow Inc.

Meanwhile, the values of vacation homes continue to fall, with the median sales price declining 19%, to $121,300 between 2010 and 2011, according to NAR. The trend is benefiting vacation communities near cities, including beach towns in the Northeast, from Massachusetts to the Carolinas, as well as lakefront enclaves in the Midwest and desert locales in California such as the Coachella Valley, according to real-estate agents.

More Vacation-Home Buyers Paying Cash

Vickie Leese, a 53-year-old financial adviser in Westminster, Md., closed in April on a two-bedroom home in an Ocean City, Md., condominium complex that has a swimming pool and is three blocks from the beach. Over the past year and a half, Ms. Leese visited and considered buying homes in a number of places, including Fort Myers, Fla., and Myrtle Beach, S.C. But in the end, she decided to stay in Maryland.

“Florida would require a flight or a 24-hour drive for me, and the Carolinas are eight hours away,” Ms. Leese said. “Even though the real estate in Ocean City is more expensive, in a way it’s more affordable. Even with gas prices skyrocketing, it made more economic sense to buy there.”

The rising cost of gas and airfares is a huge factor for many buyers. The average cost of a gallon of gasoline was $3.83 this week. While down from the two-year peak of $3.97 reached in May 2011, gas prices have been rising steadily since mid-December, when they fell to a 10-month low of $3.23 a gallon. Airfares, meanwhile, jumped 14% between March 2010 and March 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Susan Ivey, a customer-service and accounts director for a health-insurance company in St. Louis, recently signed a contract to buy a three-bedroom house with a boat dock and a swimming platform on the shore of Lake of the Ozarks, a Missouri vacation spot.

She said the two main considerations in her decision to buy were price and proximity. She is paying $236,000 for the home, which was advertised as a “short sale”—or a home selling for less than the amount of the mortgage debt on the property. In 2007, the house was listed at about $350,000. Ms. Ivey can drive there on weekends in roughly three and a half hours.

Florida remains popular with vacation-home buyers around the world, but these days an increasing number of American buyers are from neighboring states. Among them is Morris Bart, a lawyer in New Orleans, who also owns a vacation home in Aspen, Colo. He recently closed on a $1.3 million waterfront penthouse condo—which had an asking price of nearly $3 million several years ago—near the beach in Destin, Fla. Mr. Bart said he plans to make the four-hour drive from New Orleans to Destin once a month.

“The minute I get in my car in New Orleans and head out there, that’s when I feel like my vacation has begun,” Mr. Bart said.

A version of this article appeared May 2, 2012, on page A3 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Getting Away—but Not Too Far.

April 26, 2012, 2:30 pm by Frank L. Graham and Katie White

STAFF PHOTO BY KATIE WHITE Heavy machinery does ground work at the Wayne and Eileen Hurd Regional Medical Center in February.

Scott & White Healthcare’s plan to build a bed tower to accompany their new clinic currently under construction has been accelerated by two years.

The 60,000-square-foot clinic, near the intersection of TX 71 and US 281 in Marble Falls, is expected to be completed in the spring of 2013.

The 44-bed hospital bed tower, originally expected to be completed in 2017, has been moved up and will now be completed by the end of 2014, according to Scott & White President and CEO Robert W. Pryor, M.D.

Pryor said the bed tower would be designed so that additional beds could be added as demand increases. It will initially be 44 beds and, as demand increases, would build an additional 36 beds, bringing the total to 80.

The bed tower will be built next to the clinic and design and construction is expected to take two years.

When the bed tower is completed, Scott & White’s Wayne and Eileen Hurd Regional Medical Center complex will be a 200,000-square-foot

42 Homes in Just 3 Days.

Friday thru Sunday May 11th thru 13th

10 Communities, 65 Homes, 3 Days, Countless Buying Opportunities

For more information About Austin, contact:

R. Michael Brown
rmbrown@AvalarAustin.com
512-751-1032