From 9/1/07 – 8/31/08, 2086 Cedar Park & Leander homes have sold that were listed for sale in the mls. As of 10/13/08 there were 837 homes listed for sale. In the area south of Whitestone Blvd. (also known as1431) home listings under $300K are selling briskly with an inventory supply of 4.39 months. In the area north of Whitestone Blvd., houses under $200K were selling briskly with an inventory supply of 4.11 months. Above these price points, home sales slowed significantly and the higher the price, the greater the inventory supply of homes. This is the recent history but there are several changes that may impact future sales.

1.      The opening this summer of the Cedar Park Regional Medical Center plus the recent opening of Target, Kohl’s, Lowe’s, and Super HEB and Gold’s Gym should provide a definite boost to the area and the community. The northern area is gradually becoming a destination rather than just a cluster of bedroom communities for Austin.

2.      The newly announced closing of Circuit City (after only one year) will hurt unless the 1890 Ranch Shopping Center can find a new tenant quickly.

3.      The foreclosure of Portrait Homes’ New Condo Community (off Buttercup Creek Rd.) while still under construction has the potential to create a very negative impact if the lender doesn’t find a way to complete the condominiums and get them sold in a timely manner.

4.      A large part of Leander still qualifies as rural property (at least until the 2010 census) making many homes in the northern part of Leander eligible for 100% USDA loans. This means that the northern part of Leander is one of the few places near Austin where 1^st time homebuyers may find it easy to purchase.

So far the positives outweigh the negatives. As long as the economy doesn’t go into a total tailspin, the outlook for the Cedar Park and Leander is good. Move-up or relocating buyers can get terrific deals from builders, especially in the higher dollar homes and first-time home buyers can get zero down home loans on both new and resale homes in the designated USDA areas.

Posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 7:22 pm and is filed under Housing Market. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.