There\u2019s no way around it: Buying a home is difficult. In Texas, they say finding, financing, and finally moving is like trying to solve a greased Rubix cube while riding in the bed of a pickup truck.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t actually say that \u2014 but buying a home is<\/i> hard, especially in a magical city like Austin, with limited housing stock and abundant interested buyers. And while we tip our proverbial 10-gallon hats to the weird and wonderful things that make Austin Austin, like the truly unique non-adherence to conventional neighborhood boundaries, it can make the home shopping experience confusing.<\/p>\n
What in tarnation do we mean by that? Well, most large U.S. cities have distinctive neighborhoods \u2014 the Savannah Historic District has Spanish moss and Georgian architecture, and Sea Cliff in San Francisco delivers on its promise of both sea and cliffs. But in Austin, a person can easily mosey from one neighborhood to another without knowing they have just crossed an invisible boundary. Suddenly, the property tax is now significantly higher than it was across the street.<\/p>\n
In typical HomeLight fashion (this time in cowboy boots!), we\u2019re here to sort through these delightful oddities and to help you find the best neighborhood (or \u201cgeneral area\u201d or \u201cZIP code\u201d) for you to buy a home in Austin. Saddle up!<\/p>\n
Austin contains more than 100 named neighborhoods<\/a>. According to one source<\/a>, there are a total of five neighborhoods called Cherry Creek.<\/p>\n We know the Lone Star state shines bright for you, and you\u2019re not reading this article to further your research on the most common trees of Austin<\/a>, but hear us out: The city\u2019s willy-nilly ways regarding neighborhoods will have a trickle-down effect on the efficacy of the internet research you\u2019ll be able to do on your own (in tandem with your arboreal investigations).<\/p>\n Endlessly rejecting objective categorization, Austin\u2019s neighborhoods are proof of what your great-great-grandma used to say: \u201cSweetheart, there are two kinds of information. The kind you can Google, and the kind you can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n To find the best neighborhood to buy a home in Austin, you have to close your laptop and find a pro. Relax into some big-picture thinking, and let your real estate agent<\/a> (with their massive stash of information you can\u2019t Google) guide you. Because here\u2019s the secret: The things you need to know about Austin\u2019s neighborhoods, you ain\u2019t gonna find online.<\/p>\n With average summer high temperature of around 95 and winter lows in the 60s<\/a>, Austin is objectively temperate. The sun shines on the city 300 days per year<\/a>, and wisteria<\/a> loves to grow there. And of course, we must remember the Alamo (Drafthouse)<\/a> was founded in 1997 in Austin.<\/p>\n Austin is located in the southeast part of the state, about two hours north of Houston and just over an hour northwest of San Antonio. (For anyone wondering what shape you\u2019d get if you drew a line connecting these three cities, the answer is a doorstop.)<\/p>\n The landscape of Texas gradually flattens as you travel east to west. Proudly expanding over 271 square miles, Austin is the fourth-largest city in Texas and can be scientifically described as \u201cflat-ish.\u201d On its way to the Gulf of California<\/a>, the Colorado River<\/a> divides North and South Austin.<\/p>\n Generally speaking, South Austin is hip. North Austin is also cool, but the distinguishing hipness of Austin is the provenance of South Austin.<\/p>\n Austin is not endowed with a good public transit system, but it does possess some rare magic that makes a car commute tolerable. According to Austinite and rockstar agent Dillar Schwartz<\/a>, the commute from North to South Austin is only about ten minutes by car. (\u201cWhoa!\u201d says the entire San Francisco Bay Area.)<\/p>\n And if you\u2019re one of the people who just said \u201cWhoa!\u201d so hard that you might buy a house, Jaymes Willoughby<\/a> is another all-star Austinite super-agent (we only bring you the best!). He reminds us that among the top reasons folks love to live in Texas is that the state has no income tax.<\/p>\n Wait, what was that about income tax?<\/p>\n We understand you may need a moment to process if this is something you\u2019ve just learned. We\u2019ll pick you back up in the next section when you are ready to talk about another reason so many people are moving to Austin. Hint: it rhymes with \u201cpechnology\u201d<\/p>\n Austin (a.k.a \u201cSilicon Hills\u201d) has been consistently visited by the tech fairy since the \u201990s. The city is home to significant outposts of come companies you may have heard of, including Amazon, Apple, Cisco, eBay, Facebook\/Meta, Google\/Alphabet, IBM, Indeed, Intel, PayPal, and Tesla \u2014 just to name the A through P\u2019s, then skip some letters and go to T. (Dell\u2019s global HQ is located just outside of Austin, so it sometimes gets swept up in the naming excitement, too.)<\/p>\n What does this mean for people looking to buy a home in Austin? Does it matter where people live and how they get to work? We\u2019ve learned it\u2019s a short 10-minute drive across town \u2014 but still, the answer is complicated.<\/p>\n The pandemic caused a significant disruption in the work-from-work paradigm of tech workers. There is no way to know (yet) what effect this will have on cities in general, specifically for up-and-coming places like Austin (where there is no state income tax!). Want to try to use that TI85<\/a> to graph the effect of Texas tech?<\/p>\n Be sure to include this: Austin is a place people are moving even if they don\u2019t work for one of the big companies nearby. Set free from their obligations to work-from-office, Austin is seeing a significant influx of folks who just want to live in a place where there\u2019s no state income tax and endless cool stuff to do.<\/p>\n At this point, I bet the TI85 is overheating. As badly as we want to apply certainty to this complex set of factors, we bet it\u2019ll be 30 years before we understand what happens when you take the cube root of tech + pandemic (-pandemic?)\u00a0 + no income tax + beer gardens + live music divided by the sum of Austin.<\/p>\n It is currently unknown whether specifics like whether the property values near Indeed\u2019s campus will decline, or if schools near eBay (in the 78729, which is how Austin real estate pros pronounce the word \u201cneighborhood\u201d) will be the most desirable.<\/p>\n Agent affinity for ZIP codes over neighborhood names is just another way Austin keeps it weird. We salute you, Austin!<\/p>\n Potential buyers: we salute you too, and we\u2019re here to help!<\/p>\n (*of technology, generally speaking; not the company that made your graphing calculator in high school)<\/p>\n Schwartz is from South Austin (see above: \u201ccool\u201d), and in addition to being highly knowledgeable, she is very quotable. Here\u2019s a good one:<\/p>\n \u201cThe average median price of a home in Austin is between $520,000 and $600,000.\u201d<\/p>\n To quote the entire San Francisco Bay Area again, \u201cWhoa!\u201d<\/p>\n We asked her how a first-time buyer would fare in Austin, and she told us the variables that used to define first-time buyers don\u2019t always apply in this area. It\u2019s common for a tech worker and aspiring Austinite to have a six-figure entry-level salary, so many of these buyers aren’t looking for a humble \u201cstarter home.\u201d They are ready to plop down a ton of cash on version one of their dream home.<\/p>\n For buyers who aren\u2019t comparably equipped, Schwartz became \u201cgeographically competent.\u201d She\u2019s gotten to know the housing stock in the small towns that surround the city, the towns where tech money hasn\u2019t had the same impact, quite well in recent years.<\/p>\n We managed to get our experts on record with a handful of specific recommendations. The first comes from Schwartz.<\/p>\n As of 2022, this neighborhood scene is still a bit unknown, but with South Congress as its western border, the restaurant and bar scene is well established.<\/p>\n If your inner child needs drinks and wings and games, Cidercade<\/a> is the right spot, and if you want something a little less arcade-ish, The Continental Club <\/a>is a great spot for live music. Flaunting good ratings and reasonable prices, the Mediterranean restaurant Aba<\/a> is a local favorite. Folks also love the Blunn Creek Greenbelt<\/a>, a creekside park just north of the expansive Blunn Creek Nature Preserve.<\/p>\nAustin = hot + weird; Texas = big<\/h2>\n
Texas has no state income tax.<\/h3>\n
Texas instruments*<\/h3>\n
Lay of the land from a local<\/h2>\n
Castlewood (South Travis Heights or 78704)<\/h3>\n