Taxable Value Protest Program Results
If you’re signed up for our Property Tax Protest Program, you’ll have seen the invoice for those services on this month’s statement. No invoice? Might mean you’re not signed up! This means you could be missing out on reducing your annual property tax bill. Reach out to your property manager to discuss how you could save on your tax bills.
See last month’s blog post for more information about how this program works, and how it can save you money. Or, reach out to your property manager to discuss.
Tax Season and 1099’s
We want to thank the 43% of our clients that have chosen to go fully electronic for their annual tax paperwork. This has allowed us to almost cut our paper footprint in half each year! This also helps make the process vastly more efficient internally, and we appreciate your decision to help us reduce our paper footprint!
Switching to electronic only not only makes the process more efficient, gives you year-round access to these documents, but also improves your personal data security. Rather than putting these sensitive documents into the mail, they’re safely stored in your owner portal.
Annual HOA Payments
If we're paying the HOA dues for your property, please make sure that we receive an invoice for 2026’s dues by January. If we don't receive an invoice from the HOA, we can't pay as we won’t know what we’re trying to pay, or to where. HOAs change management companies, annual dues, and billing addresses frequently, so we must ensure we’re receiving up to date information from them.
Please ensure we receive a dues statement before January if at all possible. If we receive it during January, we can still process, but must receive it before the end of that month. Questions on this program? Please reach out to us, we're glad to assist.
Company Updates
The week of October 20th some of our team will be attending the NARPM National Conference in Florida. This multi-day residential property management conference is a melting pot of ideas, training, and networking. Helping keep us ahead and above the industry standards to continue to improve our services!
Another exciting update is that we've added another designation to our ranks! I'm excited to have received the National Association of Residential Property Manager's, Residential Management Professional (RMP) designation to my name. This designation requires letters of recommendation from clients and from professionals in the industry. So all this to say, to those of you that wrote letters of recommendation on my behalf, Thank You! Your words mean the world to me and I've truely enjoyed working with you.
Insurance & Maintenance Trends
In the last few months, we’ve heard rumblings that certain insurance carriers are refusing coverage on 3-Tab shingles for properties. While this seems to be limited to smaller firms, this can be an indication of a growing trend. The good news is that our standard replacement for homes is a base architectural shingle, which stands up to weather better, and lasts longer in the extreme Texas weather swings.
A secondary maintenance item, refrigerant in HVAC systems is switching to a new system. If you’re seeing HVAC issues in the next months/year, please be prepared for a conversation on this switch over with your property manager.
Sales Market Statement – Mike Minns with Atlas Realty
This month we’re going to start with some stats:
- We observed a rise in year-over-year sales in the Austin metro area for August and September.
- There was also an increase in both average and median sales prices during those two months.
- The monthly inventory is around 5.5 months’ supply, which is typically considered a balanced market—not a buyer's or seller's market.
Based on this data, we are still in a strong buyer's market. Buyer activity feels like it is the lowest or equal to the lowest I have seen in my 25 years of selling homes in Austin.
The Fed has lowered its rate since the last update. If you read my previous update, you see that I mentioned the Fed rate coming down could still lead to higher mortgage rates. We saw that happen and rates are still near the lowest they've been since early October. As of today, 10/13/2025, the average 30-year mortgage rate is 6.32%, with FHA at 6.03%.
I suspect the buyer’s market will last another one to three years, likely closer to three years. Once we see hiring pick up again in the tech sector, I believe that will be the moment when the floodgates open and buyer activity picks up. After previous downturns, the market rebounded to pre-downturn values within 6-12 months. So I suspect the same will happen this time.
It seems we are at the bottom of the downturn, which means waiting for conditions to improve for a recovery. This could be a good buying opportunity as values are still significantly higher than five years ago, but have dropped 15-30% in some areas from the peak. If the market follows the pattern of all the last downturns over the past 25 years in Austin, values will recover quickly.
If you're looking to sell, there are buyers and you can sell, but you'll likely get 15-30% less than what you could in the next 1-3 years. If you do not NEED to sell, my advice is still to hold for now.
Mike Minns
Atlas Realty
Rental Market Statement
We’re continuing to see the average days on market trend upward, mimicking regular seasonal trends. This also mirrors a drop in new listings, and listings going pending. We’re seeing a surge in on market units in the Apartments industry, and with that comes their huge rent incentives. We’re seeing incentives like multiple months of rent off, and more. To combat this, we’re outlining specials that align best with protecting your interests, and offering some unique amenities, like quarterly home cleanings. These are gathering interest, and helping!
Real Estate Market Data Points Can Be Found Here
I appreciate your taking the time to read over our material and to work with us. We work hard to continue to bring you valuable and useful information. If there's anything you'd like to see in these monthly updates, please feel free to reach out to your property manager and let us know!
Christopher M. Francis
Owner / Director of Operations
Rollingwood Management, Inc.
10/18/2025