Bud Select

Budweiser Select

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas. Haven't updated this blog in awhile, so I thought I'd mention that I'd be getting back to it soon.

Yikes, it's been a month since I posted.

I have a post on Budweiser Select that is moving up in the search engine rankings, so I'll link to it and see if it moves up (it should).

Adding more Budweiser Select links

Since not that many people are visiting right now, I'm going to stick a few more Budweiser Select links up just to see if they push some rankings. Call it my little Budweiser Select experiment

mas links

Another Budweiser Select link. Or this one: Budweiser Select.

Travelling again

So posting will be light, temporarily.

The flip side...

It doesn't seem to add up: Central Texas' job growth is less than 1 percent, but apartments are filling up and homes are selling briskly.

The answer seems to be a thriving hidden economy made up of entrepreneurs, independent contractors, undocumented workers and home-based business owners who have moved to the Austin area during the past year.

-- Statesman

Opportunity to buy?

According to this Statesman article, supply for new Austin area homes will outstrip demand. Presumably this will lead to lower prices or increased inventory.

Even with the local economy in recovery mode, a real estate expert said Wednesday that the new-home market could be headed for trouble next year if interest rates rise and job growth doesn't pick up.

Builders are on track to start nearly 13,000 homes this year, which would be a record, although the region is seeing only tepid job growth and area incomes aren't rising.

Mitchell said up to 95 percent of one local builder's starts were speculative -- with no buyers lined up.

I don't know what the historical numbers are, but 95% of buildings being built without buyers in mind seems to suggest that prices could definitely fall in the next year, leading to buying opportunities.

Austin real estate sales...

tailed off a little in September (2018) compared to August (2316), which is normal. Sales remained higher than a year ago in September (1898) though.

More residential complexes in Austin

From the Statesman:

With more than half of its upscale apartments leased in downtown Austin, AMLI Residential Properties Trust plans to go ahead with a second complex just northwest of the new City Hall.

Although plans are preliminary and construction could be a year away, the Chicago-based developer is favoring a design that calls for a 14-story tower, said architect Larry Speck, a principal with PageSoutherlandPage LLC who will design the building.

With a planned MetLife Inc. apartment tower nearby, there soon could by more than 600 apartments in a part of downtown that just four years ago was mostly empty land or warehouses.

MetLife is expected to start work on its 26-story tower at Cesar Chavez and Colorado streets next year.

Speck said AMLI's new project will be designed with a strong retail orientation to complement the emerging Second Street district. He said the new building would have about 35,000 square feet of retail space.

"For the portion of the block that is facing Second Street, we're taking the attitude we're going to make a really fabulous retail space and not compromise it with other functions," Speck said.

Sarah Crocker, a development consultant who worked on the Rainey Street Apartments project, said more residential units downtown will help spur additional retail.

"We can't attract good retail (downtown) because there isn't enough shopping power down there on a 24-hour basis," Crocker said. "I don't know how many more units it will take before we do get some viable retail, but, certainly, anytime anybody adds residential units that get leased up, eventually you get to whatever that magic number is that makes retail work."

Because Austin has alot of yuppies.

Been away

Been away for over a week. I'll be back to blogging now.

Bainbridge on ECMH and Behaviorism

Professor Bainbridge has a TCS essay on ECMH and Behaviorism that is somewhat relevant to my preceeding post.

I don't agree with his conclusion though:

My bottom line? Put your money in passively managed index funds and vote for free markets.

I think it's possible to do better than index funds. However, you need to put work into it. For most people, Bainbridge is correct.

Markets, bubbles, and real estate implications?

I post this largely for the sake of my own reference, but hopefully others will find it edifying. This is from Robert Rubin's memoir In An Uncertain World:

Even Sir Isaac Newton, the great English mathmetician and physicist of the seventeenth century, was a majori investor in the most extreme financial excess of his day, which became known as the South Sea Bubble. The South Sea Bubble grew out of a scheme to convert British government obligations into common stock in a company with a theoretical monopoly on British trade with South America. Practical obstacles abounded: the company's "officers" had never been to South America; they had scant ships or supplies; and there was no reason to believe the King of Spain would allow Britain to trade with his coloines. Thousands who invested were destroyed financially.

That episode typifies the psychology of market excess. You're sitting on the sidelines, telling the people around you all the reasons why you think the market may be overvalued. And they're all looking at you, saying, "There's a new reality, and you don't get it. You don't understand how much the world has changed -- which is why people like you always fall by the wayside."

Well put, I think. I used to tell friends that I thought their daytrading speculation in the 90's was silly and inadvised. They made lots of money at first; I don't know how it ended. I do know that they never thanked me for my advice. Next time, I'll keep my mouth shut.

Real estate has been very strong for a long time now, but occasionally there are still excesses. If you're thinking of investing in real estate, be mindful of this story; make sure it's a wise investment.

The DC real estate market, I believe, is due for a correction.

No material

Posting has been light. I just haven't had anything to post about.

Austin airport expanding

On MSNBC, via the Austin Business Journal:

Dunn's company, Denver-based Aviation Development Group LLC, is building an $11 million, 215,000-square-foot, master-planned hangar center at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The project is Dunn's third hangar development since he founded his company four years ago.

Being developed in partnership with Signature Flight Support Corp., the Austin project will have 69 individual hangars designed to hold airplanes ranging from single-engine aircraft to midsize business jets. The hangars will be available for sale or lease, with sale prices ranging from $150,000 to $216,000 each.

The first phase of the development is set to break ground early next year and will include 23 hangars, measuring about 50-by-50 feet or 60-by-60 feet.

Dunn describes the hangar space as "condo-style" units to house crew quarters, restrooms and offices. Optional amenities include polished concrete floors, security systems and compressed air.

After Robert Mueller Municipal Airport and the Austin Executive Airpark closed in 1999, many owners of private planes were left in the lurch, Dunn says. That assessment is echoed by Gary Daniels, area general manager of Signature Flight Support.

"We're responding to customer demand since the airport moved from Mueller," Daniels says. "There's been more demand than we have space. There's certainly a demand for this type of project in Austin."

According to ABIA, general aviation activity in July totaled 7,398 flights, up 2 percent from the same period in 2003. In August, general aviation flights totaled 6,721, down 17 percent from the previous year.

Only nominally topical

MSNBC:

Every real estate market is unique, and a deal may go badly in New York for a completely different reason than a deal would sour in Austin, Texas.