Austin, Texas

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TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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My husband and I have the Austin area on our shortlist along with CO because he's yet another Big Tech worker. My employer has a satellite office there, too, so I'd be able to transfer without a job search, which would be nice.

However, I've heard housing prices are going parabolic, and I've also heard the horror stories about the homeless situation and property crime getting to be as bad as Cali. Both of us are introvert yuppies who just want peace and quiet.

Any thoughts on neighborhoods we could check?
So I have a house in North Austin and we just bought a new house way in the deep burbs of Leander.

Austin downtown and the city are nice to work in during the day. But I am too old to hangout in Austin downtown in the evening and don't give a shit anymore. The rural outside of Austin is real nice though.
 
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Leviothan

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Yeah I live like right on the edge of Cedar Park and Round Rock. Austin is too busy and is fine to work in and to go to for events. Living there can eat butts. Its chill out here.
 

sleevedraw

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Yeah I live like right on the edge of Cedar Park and Round Rock. Austin is too busy and is fine to work in and to go to for events. Living there can eat butts. Its chill out here.

The dots on the map are the places that my husband can catch a shuttle. There are a bunch of ones to the south, but that looks to be deep metro area. How are the ones I circled as far as being less expensive/crazy? I assume the one by Round Rock is probably OK.

Thanks.

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Leviothan

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Your two northern dots will be cheaper. The one near Mopac is going to be expensive and you will likely encounter homeless people near your home.

The Round Rock location is decent. That spot is suburban and near by are some decent shops, you're close to the cozy and chill Round Rock downtown area too.

The Anderson Mill area is nice too. I have a couple of coworkers that live out after moving away from Austin and got much nicer homes than they were in before. Its near Lakeline mall which is a decent shopping area and 183 gets you to tons of places quick. You also have an Asian Supermarket near by which is great if you're into Asian cooking or getting a better variety of seafood than you'd get from HEB.
 
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a c i d.f l y

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Your two northern dots will be cheaper. The one near Mopac is going to be expensive and you will likely encounter homeless people near your home.

The Round Rock location is decent. That spot is suburban and near by are some decent shops, you're close to the cozy and chill Round Rock downtown area too.

The Anderson Mill area is nice too. I have a couple of coworkers that live out after moving away from Austin and got much nicer homes than they were in before. Its near Lakeline mall which is a decent shopping area and 183 gets you to tons of places quick. You also have an Asian Supermarket near by which is great if you're into Asian cooking or getting a better variety of seafood than you'd get from HEB.
Anderson Mill... Nice? 🤔 I mean, I guess.
 

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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The dots on the map are the places that my husband can catch a shuttle. There are a bunch of ones to the south, but that looks to be deep metro area. How are the ones I circled as far as being less expensive/crazy? I assume the one by Round Rock is probably OK.

Thanks.

I would extend your search north to Leander area also. Lots of building and the current final stop of the Austin metro train is there. That's why I chose to buy there as my office is also downtown. Your top left is near the Lakeline Metro Train stop.

Prices are going to suck all around though and they'll be extremely competitive. I had to bid on new construction. The most south point there will be the most expensive. Otherwise I would say you can get a typical 3/2 reasonable 1400+ SQFT sized house anywhere around there for $250k-$400k in Cedar Park/Round Rock/Leander/Georgetown.
 
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Leviothan

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Anderson Mill... Nice? 🤔 I mean, I guess.
What's wrong with Anderson Mills compared to other Austin areas? It isnt RR, Cedar Park, Leander or Georgetown which is really where you wanna move in this area to get the most out of your money but Anderson Mills isn't a shithole.
 

sleevedraw

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We're probably going to rent for a year or so before we buy, anyway. We could jump in with a 15 down offer on a $300k house now, but we could probably get up to 20 down on a $400k or even $500k house given another year.

I'd also want to have a "trial run" of the place before buying. Kind of leery putting down roots in a place we might not be in after a couple years. It's high on our list because it's pretty much the only office for software engineers his employer has in a state that isn't a deep blue piece of shit. If he got full remote, we'd basically be able to go anywhere, because my job is also remote.
 
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TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Word of caution on that is that your trial run will cost you a significant amount of money if you do end up wanting to buy. End of quarter house prices, especially in the burbs like the Leander area, will jump a lot just like they have the past 3 quarters and so on.

We're getting inundated with legions of blue staters. As Tesla, Oracle, and others are all moving their shit here. Hence why its a mad buying frenzy right now across the state. My current house I bought in 2016 and even then it was if you didn't bid same day it was listed and $10k over you weren't getting it.

WFH is here to stay and buying habits are changing accordingly.
 
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a c i d.f l y

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What's wrong with Anderson Mills compared to other Austin areas? It isnt RR, Cedar Park, Leander or Georgetown which is really where you wanna move in this area to get the most out of your money but Anderson Mills isn't a shithole.
No. No. Don't get me wrong. It's far and away decidedly *not* a shit hole. But as you just stated, it's not any of the other places around town that you just mentioned. But it is relatively cheap, and fairly well located.
 

Leviothan

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Word of caution on that is that your trial run will cost you a significant amount of money if you do end up wanting to buy. End of quarter house prices, especially in the burbs like the Leander area, will jump a lot just like they have the past 3 quarters and so on.

We're getting inundated with legions of blue staters. As Tesla, Oracle, and others are all moving their shit here. Hence why its a mad buying frenzy right now across the state. My current house I bought in 2016 and even then it was if you didn't bid same day it was listed and $10k over you weren't getting it.

WFH is here to stay and buying habits are changing accordingly.
Yeah as TJT said, I did the same plan as you did, moving here and renting for a year before buying back in 2016. BUT the prices are rising a ton. Just the past 2 years my houses value went from 329k to 395k. It's going to get more expensive because of everyone and all these companies moving down here.
 

TJT

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Sad reality is that we saw a house price jump of $5k-$30k+ the first week of January in the areas you've selected. Which had followed a similar jump in October. In all cases it'd be better to just buy and sell in a few years if you decided you want to live somewhere else.

Otherwise waiting a year and paying rent is going to have you paying a premium of $70k or more in rent and increased down payment for the privilege.
 

a c i d.f l y

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Yeah as TJT said, I did the same plan as you did, moving here and renting for a year before buying back in 2016. BUT the prices are rising a ton. Just the past 2 years my houses value went from 329k to 395k. It's going to get more expensive because of everyone and all these companies moving down here.

Bought for about $198k in 2017, currently valued at $296k, and with a new mini-"Domain" going in about a mile away, it's slated to get even worse. Fighting those taxes fucking sucks, even with a homestead exemption, 10% is 10%, and only 4 years to have the value go up by 50 fucking percent is insane. I'm not looking forward to having to move out to Liberty Hill or something in 5 years because I'm taxed out of this area.
 
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TJT

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I bought in 2016 for $192k and I'm in pretty much the same boat. I am in Austin city limits right off of East Parmer lane.
 

sleevedraw

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Coming down for a visit in August. We figure if we can survive the heat then, we can survive any season.

If anyone has any good places to hike or check out, let me know!
 

AladainAF

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Coming down for a visit in August. We figure if we can survive the heat then, we can survive any season.

If anyone has any good places to hike or check out, let me know!

hike in august.

lol.

if you want something semi-outdoorsy to do and don't give a flip about the heat, go check enchanted rock or something. If you want to stay closer, go see mount bonnell.


 
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Blitz

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August is the hottest or 2nd hottest month of the year. Best of luck. It will be 125 degrees on Enchanted Rock.
 

Haus

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Thought I'd drop in and give my "Day Tripper Experience" with Austin...

A couple weeks ago the salesperson I work with was set to make a ridiculous run to Austin and back on a Saturday, but had an emergency come up so I offered to make the run for her. The run? We were working on making sure a large deal closed by the end of this month (which it did today) and part of greasing the skids for it was that we were going to deliver some Franklin's Briskets to some business contacts here in Dallas kinda Southbound and down style.

so I run down there on Saturday morning (around a 3 hours drive for me), get into town, find a place downtown to post up and get lunch while I wait for my pickup appointment at Franklin's. Get the BBQ and get out of town. The notable thing was the homeless situation.

I don't know how extreme that law they passed to curb the homeless situation was in Austin but DAMN... Last I was in Austin (before Covid) they were in herds around downtown and any intersection of 35. This time I went into downtown, had lunch, picked up BBQ on 11th, and back out and saw MAYBE 2 or 3 homeless people TOTAL. I give Austinites a lot of shit about the general dirty hippy vibes down there, but this is one area apparently they've really cleaned up.
 
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nu_11

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Gonna be going through austin for a day. Anything i should do in my limited time?