An innovative, yet quite accurate reading of the future real estate market stems from a source we did not have access to only a few years ago.  Austin home sales are usually a result of home buyers visiting web pages of homes before even visiting a home in person. Therefore it makes sense that the more people who look at our web pages, the more people who will look at our homes in person, and thus, the more homes we will sell.

Can it be that easy... well, yes.  It is proven that web traffic has a direct correlation to home sales, and that is probably true in nearly every market.  Having followed our web traffic in the Austin real estate market for some time, I can say with confidence that home sales in Austin and surrounding areas will be less next month than they were last month.

That is simply because visits to homes on our web pages is approximately 31% less this month than last.  Here is more support... during the months prior to the federal home buyer tax credit web traffic was higher than it had been in over two years, and guess what?  Sales were higher in each of those months than they had been in over two years!

There is no question that this is not a perfect predictor of Austin home sales, but along with other factors, this simple, yet effective process of home buyers going online, then to physically see the homes and then to written purchase offers just makes sense.

So where are we now? Well web traffic is similar to what it was a 12-24 months ago, so it seems our post-tax credit real estate market in Austin will be similar to the market of 2008-2009, and though not the best real estate market we have experienced, its a whole lot better than being somewhere else!