Whoever said it was hard to buy a house didn’t have the right person with them. 🤍 Posting this one because I’m in the middle of a deal right now where the agent on the other side told my client to “just ask the lender” for an update. Friend — that’s your job. Here’s what I think buyers and sellers deserve from their agent (regardless of which side of the deal you’re on): → Proactive updates before you have to ask → A short list of trades when something pops up — electrician, painter, plumber — not “Google it” → Insurance contacts before you’re scrambling at closing → Real lender check-ins every week, not just when something breaks → The appraisal explained the moment it lands → A heads-up on every concern before it becomes a problem That’s not extra. That’s the job. (Some agents will disagree with me on what’s required.) Cool. I’d still rather over-communicate and have my clients feel held than under-communicate and have them feel like a transaction.) If your agent isn’t doing this for you — quietly start interviewing others. You deserve someone who picks up the phone before you have to. Always rooting for you to feel calm through the biggest move of your life. #drippingspringsrealtor #drippingspringsrealestate #austinrealtor #realestatetips #buyingahome homebuyertips realestateadvice drippingspringstx realtorlife houseGoals realestatecommunication

Most buyers I talk to have no idea this is even an option. In the current market, 68% of sellers are offering some form of concession to get their homes sold. Closing cost credits. Repair allowances. Price reductions. But the one most buyers never think to ask for is the one that can save them hundreds of dollars every single month.A mortgage rate buydown. Here is how it works. Instead of asking the seller for money back at closing, you ask them to use those funds to buy your interest rate down. A 2-1 buydown lowers your rate by two full percentage points in year one and one point in year two before settling at the permanent rate for the rest of the loan. On a $450,000 home at today’s rates, that is roughly $600 to $800 less per month in year one. Not a rounding error. Real money that makes qualifying easier and your monthly budget more manageable while your income grows.Here is what makes this better than a straight price reduction in most cases. A price reduction saves about $60 per month per $10,000 knocked off the purchase price. A seller-funded buydown can deliver six to ten times that monthly savings on the same dollar amount. The math almost always favors the buydown over the price cut.# Two things you need to know before you sit down at a negotiation. First, you have to ask for it specifically. Sellers who are open to concessions will not volunteer a rate buydown as an option. Your agent has to know to ask and how to frame it. Second, the funds go directly to your lender at closing. The money never passes through anyone’s hands. There is no risk of it disappearing into the transaction. If a home has been sitting for more than three weeks, the seller is feeling pressure you can leverage. That is the window. That is when you ask. Comment SEARCH and I will send you a private home search link so we can find the right home and the right opportunity to use this.

Such a phenomenal Rookie Year for our new school. An amazing group of teachers, principal, PTA and families that made this new school such a welcoming environment for our kids to thrive. I couldn’t be happier with how the schools year went. Happy Summer!

Every seller I’ve ever worked with has had some version of the same reaction when I present my pricing recommendation. “That feels low.” I get it. Your home is not just a financial asset to you. You raised your kids there. You know every corner of it. You know exactly what it’s worth. The number I’m suggesting doesn’t honor any of that. Here is what I need you to understand about how buyers actually behave in the market. Buyers do not shop for the highest price they can pay. They set a search range. And your home either shows up in that range or it doesn’t. It either shows up near the top of results with an attractive price or near the bottom where it gets glanced at and forgotten. Overpricing doesn’t just mean fewer offers. It means fewer showings. Fewer showings means fewer people falling in love with your home. Fewer people falling in love means you’re negotiating from weakness. You’re working with whoever happens to show up rather than choosing between buyers who genuinely want the house. That’s a fundamentally different negotiation than the one you want to be in. The math I’ve watched play out over and over is this. A home priced right in the first ten days generates urgency. Urgency generates competition. Competition is the only thing that reliably pushes a final sale price above asking. Not hope. Not holding out. Competition. A home priced $20,000 too high in week one is usually a home that sells for $20,000 less than it could have six weeks later after the price reduction. The reduction doesn’t fix the perception. Buyers wonder what’s wrong with it. They negotiate harder. They ask for more concessions. The right price feels slightly uncomfortable. It should. Because it’s designed to create a response in the market, not to reflect your emotional attachment to the property. Those are two different conversations. I’ll have both with you. But when we list, we’re speaking to buyers. If you want to talk through pricing strategy before you list, comment PRICE and I’ll reach out.

🇺🇸 MEMORIAL DAY Weekend 🇺🇸 SAVE for later. Here are some of my favorite spots and events happening around Dripping Springs this weekend. memorial day weekend in drip 🇺🇸 honoring everyone who served this weekend — and also taking full advantage of the fact that drip pretty much rolls out the perfect long weekend lineup every year. these are the spots we hit up on repeat: dripping springs rodeo — fri/sat/sun. mutton busting alone is worth showing up for. local, family, the real thing. dripping springs distillery — fri night ken hamilton, saturday bruised sinatra, monday all-day happy hour with 25% off for military & veterans. the pizza is genuinely good, the cocktails are better. vista brewing — DSISD last day party friday with the AISD jazz band, todd deatherage duo saturday, livermore for sunday’s memorial day cookout. burgers under the live oaks is always a good time. ghost note brewery — live music saturday 4–6. mavericks at lucky arrow — fri & sat night, 5–8. dinner, drinks, low-key. save this so you actually use it. follow along if you want more — i post these when i find good stuff. happy memorial day weekend, friends. #drippingspringstx #drippingsprings #hillcountry #memorialdayweekend drippingspringsrealtor hillcountryliving

this stage of life slow saturday mornings kids outside, no schedule soaking it all up before the heat hits 🥵 easy place to make memories

This is one of my FAVORITE requests to make for my buyers and I’m always shocked when I get offers on my listings where buyers are asking for price reductions instead. It matters who you hire and if your agent hasn’t talked to you about this, make sure you ask them! Here’s the math: a $20K price reduction saves your buyer about $100/month at today’s rates. $20K in seller-paid points to buy down their rate? That same money can drop their monthly payment by $300–$500. SAME cost to you. Way more impact for them. And way more likely to get the deal to the closing table. This is exactly what builders are doing every single day — 2-1 buydowns, permanent rate reductions, paying closing costs on top of it. It’s a huge reason their incentive packages feel so much more attractive than resale listings right now. Plenty of buyers that don’t want new construction. They want the location, the character, the community. Your resale home already has all of that. So if you’re listing this year, think like a builder. Offering a buy-down instead of (or alongside) a price reduction can be the difference between sitting on market and going under contract in days. Ask your agent. If they shrug it off — that should tell you something. #sellertips #realestatetips #drippingspringsrealtor #austinrealestate #homeselling interestratebuydown

Most buyers miss new construction opportunities. It’s not on Zillow. The photos don’t show the real thing. Process feels like a mystery. I hear this constantly- and honestly it’s true. Here is what’s actually happening in the new construction market right now. 65% of builders are offering buyer incentives. That number has held steady for close to a full year. Builders are not panicking. But they are motivated. And when a builder is motivated, the deal looks very different than what most buyers picture when they hear “new construction.” The most common incentive is a mortgage rate buydown. A builder with their own lending arm can subsidize your interest rate for the first two or three years. A 2-1 buydown drops your rate by 2% in year one and 1% in year two before settling at the permanent rate. On a $400,000 home at today’s rates, that’s roughly $500 to $700 less per month in year one. Not a small number when you’re qualifying for a loan and managing a monthly budget. Beyond rate buydowns, builders are regularly offering $6,000 to $15,000 in closing cost credits. Some are adding appliance packages, flooring upgrades, or design center credits that make the true cost of the home significantly more competitive than the sticker price suggests. Here is the catch most buyers miss. These deals typically require you to use the builder’s preferred lender. That’s worth understanding before you walk into a model home without your own representation. The builder’s sales rep works for the builder. Every single day. Bring your own agent. A good buyer’s agent has often worked with local builders, knows which incentives are negotiable and which aren’t, and can sometimes stack additional concessions on top of what’s already being advertised. The resale vs. new construction math deserves a real conversation right now. Not an assumption. Comment SEARCH and I’ll send you a private home search link so we can talk through whether new construction belongs in your options.