Mike Elliott's (maxwellmc) Blog

Hot off the wire.  Starbucks has joined the rest of the national retailers at Mueller.  I'll leave the comments to you.  Sometimes they're just too easy.  The  powers that be state that once the Town Center gets built it will focus more on local retailers.  There has been a fair amount of discont...

In case you've missed all the headlines, we've gotten a bit of rain here in central TX over the last few days.  19 inches (yes I said "nineteen") in one night alone in Marble Falls.  Those poor people out there are going to need a lot of help.  Since Marble Falls is just upstream from Lake Travis...

I just read an article in the Austin Business Journal that said the demand for homes sub $200k were down in Austin.  I had to chuckle to myself when I read it as it paints a very different picture of what reality is here.  Sub 200k homes are down where the new builders have chosen to build is a m...

Okay, that's a bit of a trick question, I think we all know that staging is important.  The better question would be "how far do we go with staging?"  My professional experiences lead me to believe that a properly staged home is the difference between a home selling and not-with everything else b...

It's happening folks, whether you like or not.  Austin is getting a new MLS system in November.  MLXchange will be our new platform and you can say goodbye to Tempo.  Is this good news for us agents?  Maybe, maybe not.  I was on the task force that came up with the recommendation to make the swit...

I've scoured the Mueller website looking for a complete list of which retailers are going to be there and haven't been able to find one yet.  HOWEVER, I did locate a partial list and I suspect that the reason that more haven't been announced yet is that they haven't been signed on yet.  So here i...

Since I live basically next door to the Austin Mueller redevelopment project, I get to drive through it regularly and see the progress that's been made.  Builders are still claiming that some houses will be on the ground and ready for occupancy by the end of 2007.  Frankly, I think it's a pipe dr...

A few years ago in TX, a change was made to the way we could do business.  When a buyer was purchasing a home, they were given the option of using the existing survey or obtaining a new one.  On the surface, this seemed like a great idea for consumers.  Buyer's would be able to save the $300-$500...

The Austin market is SMOKING HOT right now.  With both coasts taking a 40%-60% hit in values, investors are pouring in to Austin.  To that end, I thought some general education about our market would be appropriate.1. What's the play?  Buy and hold, fix and flip, cash flow?  Austin's rental rates...

In case you've been in a cave or maybe focused on why local tex mex eatery was just given 750k by the city of Austin, you may have missed the announcement that the Concordia University redevelopment.Concordia University sold their entire campus to a developer that is planning on mixed use develop...