Romeo Manzanilla

For more information contact Romeo directly at (512) 743-7820 or visit our Sun City Texas site.

The much anticipated Cowan Creek Amenity Center will open this Saturday May 15, 2010 and will kick off festivities with an opening ceremony from10am to 2pm. The new amenity center features:

21,000 Sq.Ft. Fitness Center: 2-Story Facility with cardio & strength machines on the first floor, and aerobics studio & walking/running track on second floor
o Indoor Walking Track
o Indoor Lap Pool
o 6 Large, Multi-Purpose Rooms with Dedicated Storage
o Fitness Center w/ Locker Rooms
o Aerobics Studio
o Golf Pro Shop
o Limited Use Kitchen
o Sunroom Gathering Area
o Two Levels of Outdoor Patio with Great Views
• ¼ mile Outdoor Walking Track
• Outdoor Resort Pool & Spa
• Covered Lap Pool
• 6,000 Sq.Ft. Covered Pavilion
• 200+ Seat Amphitheater

Along with the newest of the three golf courses located in Sun City Texas in Georgetown, the new Cowan Creek Amenity Center is sure to provide active adults over the age of 50 with the unique opportunity of owning more than a home, but a lifestyle to go with it. For more information contact Romeo directly at (512) 743-7820 or visit our Sun City Texas site.

That might be a question that you may find asking yourself when you've seen many of your neighbors sell their homes in under a month and yours has been sitting on the market for over 5 months with no activity.

You should consider asking yourself the following questions. If you find yourself agreeing with any one of them, you may have to re-consider your home selling efforts.

1. Would you pay what you're asking for your home? This might sound like a silly question, but I've had sellers say to me that they think that the market value of their house is $500,000, yet when I ask if they would pay that amount for their home, they answer no. Sellers will sometimes base their price expectations on what blood, sweat and tears they have vested in the home. A home buyer is not going to appreciate many of the personalized and customized enhancements that you love about your home. The key here is to understand that not everyone places the same values on specific improvements that you may. Separate emotions from the business of buying and selling homes.

2. Are you trying to avoid being low-balled? The true value of a home is dictated by what the market will bear. Ask anyone in California, Florida or Arizona, a home that was worth $1 million six years ago is probably only worth about half of that today. The real estate market swings up and down, more so in some markets than in others. Locally, in the Austin real estate market, we have not seen the huge swings in property values that many other parts of the country have due to our modest appreciation rates and stable economy. The key here is to have a realistic conversation with your Realtor so as to set your expectations to meet the market and to try and turn an offer that you consider to be unreasonable into an offer that you can live with.

3. Are you sabotaging your own efforts? This may sound like another silly question, but sometimes sellers may be hurting their chances of selling their home by being too restrictive with showings, not taking the advice to de-clutter and stage their homes or by not making their home feel inviting to others. You may ask yourself, "how can I make my home more inviting to prospective buyers?" Some examples would be to de-personalize your home. Everyone is proud of their family photos, but you want the buyers to imagine themselves making your home theirs rather than making them feel that they are imposing on your personal space. Foul odors caused by pets, smoking or lack of general housekeeping are sure to kill your chances to entice a buyer to make an offer your home. The key here is to be as flexible as possible with accommodating showings and to follow your Realtor's advice as to the presentation of your home.

4. You may have picked the wrong Realtor? Contrary to popular beliefs, not all Realtors are the same. Most possess common abilities in filling out paperwork and following the rules and procedures regulated by the Austin Board of Realtors and Texas Real Estate Commission, but that's where the commonalities end. In today's highly competitive market, the key to getting your home sold quickly and at the maximum sales price is EXPOSURE. Just because a Realtor has been selling homes for 20+ years doesn't necessarily mean that he or she is going to do the best job. Times have changed as has the real estate market. Marketing efforts that may have worked 10, 5 or even 2 years ago may not be as effective or in some cases may even hinder the efforts to get your home sold. It's much like a mechanic that may have decades of automotive repair experience that suddenly finds himself without the computer diagnostic equipment necessary to repair today's cars. In choosing a Realtor, you want to make sure that the Realtor is utilizing all of the latest technologies, including professional pictures and virtual tours, full color printed materials and interactive marketing and communication systems to keep you involved and informed. Though some may not want to admit it, channels of communication have evolved to include Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, YouTube, Google and many other online media channels to effectively market your home to online buyers. An important statistic to keep in mind is that according to the National Association of Realtors, over 90% of all homebuyers begin their home search on the internet. If your Realtor's web presence is virtually unknown or if the online presentation of your home looks amateurish, then your listing will fail to make the necessary impression on perspective buyers. The key here is to work with a Realtor that is current with not only with the real estate market, but with the marketing technologies that will give your home the opportunity to be seen and impress buyers.

Selling a home can sometimes feel like an emotional roller coaster. By asking yourself these simple questions and being truthful with your answers, you'll be able to make the necessary adjustments to go from selling to SOLD!

For more guides on effective selling your home or what questions to ask your next Realtor, visit my Austin Real Estate site at www.romeom.com .

As Tax Day expires, many Austin Texas homeowners may not want to hear the word "taxes" anytime soon, but the truth is that there is another tax deadline approaching. The deadline to protest your Texas property taxes is May 31st. If the county assessed value of your home is nowhere near what the actual market value is, time is running out to make sure that you don't overpay your property taxes. Here are 8 things that you may or may not know about property taxes here in the Austin area.

1. Your property tax appraisal is required by law to be at 100% of market value and be equitable in comparison to the tax appraisals of similar properties.
2. The "Homestead Exemption" will reduce the property tax on a homesteaded property, sometimes dramatically. You can apply for a "Homestead Exemption" up to one year in arrears, so it is possible to go back and get a refund for a missed 2008 "Homestead Exemption" until January 31, 2010.
3. Homeowners 65 years of age qualify for special exemption amounts and a "school tax freeze" that makes certain their school taxes, and some county or city taxes, can never go up. Disabled homeowners now qualify for the same "school tax freeze" as over-65 homeowners.
4. Homesteads owned by Veterans classified as 100% disabled due to service related causes are not 100% exempt from property taxes.
5. Look for the "Appraised Value (Possible Homestead Limitation)" on the Notice of Appraised Value. Compare the Last Year 2009 Value to the Proposed 2010 Value. It should not increase more than 10% unless you have added square footage to your home. If it does increase more than 10%, call the Appraisal District at 512.834.9138 and find out why.
6. Property Tax Appraisals are made as of January 1st of each year. If a home burns to the ground on January 2nd, property taxes are still levied on the structure for the entire year. To delay taxes, build your pool or add on or to a major remodel after January 1st. It isn't taxable until the following January 1st and you will not have to pay the tax increase until the following January.
7. The statutory deadline for filing written protest is May 31st of each year. It is no longer necessary to file a protest with multiple Appraisal Districts. If your property is in Travis County the appeal is filed with Travis CAD. If your property is in Williamson County the appeal is filed with Williamson CAD.
8. If you miss the May 31st filing deadline, all is not necessarily lost. If you can prove the Proposed Tax Appraisal is at least 25% too high you can file a "Substantial Error" motion until January 31st of the following year and still get the value reduced. Also, if you can prove that the Appraisal District failed to send you a required notice you can file a "Failure to Receive" motion by January 31st of the following year and be entitled to an Appeal hearing. Lastly, under Section 25.25(h) of the Property Tax Code, you can beg the Chief Appraiser to review almost any issue. He has the authority to review and modify anything with a signature.

If you have any questions, free to visit our Austin real estate site to learn more about Austin home values and homes for sale.

I'm often asked this question by different people who are considering purchasing a home, but for whatever reason can't do so until later in the year. Some people may be changing employers, may not have the necessary down payment available or may have a home to sell before they can purchase their next home. Whatever the situation, my answer is typically YES. I'm not saying yes because I want to sell them a home, I am saying yes because when you consider other factors such as the historically low interest rates, the affordability of homes and the overall Austin real estate market and economic conditions, why wouldn't you purchase a home? This may sound a bit rehearsed, like something you would hear in a National Association of Realtors ad, but the truth is that the current interest rates that we've seen lately are some of the lowest ever. Also, when you look at not only the national but local Affordable Housing Index (AHI), homes are more affordable than ever. As most of you know, real estate is very localized and conditions differ from market to market, but luckily in the Austin area, we haven't seen the sharp decline in real estate values and overall economic conditions that many other cities across the U. S. have.In fact, if you read any of my frequent facebook or twitter posts, I am constantly posting articles from media sources such as Time Magazine, Forbes, Money and CNN about how Austin is in the top 10 cities across the U.S. in economic conditions, job growth, technology, quality of life and so on. In fact, Retirement Magazine recently named Austin the #2 city in the U.S. to retire because of the affordability of house, cost of living and overall quality of life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that purchasing a home makes sense for absolutely everyone (as we've witnessed by the mortgage meltdown), but those that have the desire and the means to purchase a home shouldn't hesitate even after the tax credit expires. If you would like any additional information about the Austin Texas real estate market or links to any of the media sources that I referenced, feel free to contact me directly at (512) 743-7820 or you can visit my website at www.romeom.com to learn more about me or to search for Austin home listings.

Does working with my existing bank make the loan process smoother?

I've often had clients ask that same question over and over and my answer is always the same, No. Having worked with just about every single bank, I can tell you that if you think that you are going to get preferential treatment from your bank because you have an existing account or have had 1,2, 3 or more mortgages with them in the past, then you haven't read the news lately. With all of the recent bank mergers, acquisitions and transfers, we are really left with only a handful of large banks. Wells Fargo recently acquired Wachovia, Chase recently acquired Washington Mutual, and BofA recently absorbed Countrywide Home Loans, who at one point was the largest mortgage lender in the country. With all of the issues that come with merging the books and operations of two major banks, the customer is usually left out in the cold when it comes to getting the best interest rate on their home and timely service. Case in point, I recently had a client that had been a BofA customer for 35 years. He had paid off 2 mortgages during that time, without ever having been late a single time. When he decided to move from Idaho to Austin, he thought it only natural to get pre-approved by BofA before moving forward with his plans. He sold his home in Idaho, packed up his family in the travel trailer and expected to close on his new home the day after he arrived. Things didn't happen as planned. While making the drive to Austin, BofA notified him that he actually would not qualify for a loan because his "new" position with a new company in Austin differed from the one he had in Idaho. In reality the only thing different, was that instead of being the customer service manager, he was now the customer service director. What resulted of this whole situation? He and his family (6 people in total) ended up living in the travel trailer for 20 days, while BofA sorted everything out. Everyday, we were told that we would be able to close the next day, then the next and so on. In the end, BofA did make restitution to my clients in the form of paying for their temporary living expenses, waiving the loan origination fee and firing the loan officer that made the mistake during the pre-approval process. You may ask, why am I telling you this "horror" story? In order to let you know that when it comes to putting your life and the life of your family into somebody's hands, make sure that it is with somebody you can trust. I do have several mortgage lenders that I work with that cringe at hearing this story, that I would recommend any day over the large banks. Unfortunately, in the long term, your mortgage will probably end up in the hands of one of the large banks anyways, but that's a different story.

Visit my main Austin real estate website to view more blog discussions.