What's for sale in central Austin? (1/07 edition)

We all know central Austin is getting more expensive.  If you want confirmation, check out average home prices here or here. 

Here's a less scientific but perhaps more meaningful measure.  If you're looking for a house, what's out there for sale?

My search results (run on 1/29/07) are below.  Here are the parameters I used:  1400+ square-foot; single-family; active MLS listing; $300,000 or less.

Rationale:  1400 sq. ft. is a completely arbitrary dividing line, I admit.  I use it because it's the low end of what I think of as the "medium-size" house.  Certainly, singles, couples, and empty nesters may all be comfortable with a smaller house.  Households with, say, 4 or more members tend to prefer more space than this, though, so I use it as a rough measure of affordability for families. (Before I get flamed by all of you who are raising two or more kids in less than 1400 square feet -- I'm talking about typical preferences, not what is "necessary" or "appropriate" or "optimal.")

I know that $300,000 is not "affordable" under any conventional definition of that word.  On the contrary, I use that figure because it is roughly the upper bound for homes within the reach of even "upper-middle income" households -- those making $100,000 or so, which is approximately 80th percentile in the Austin metropolitan area.  This gives us a good sense of how little there is for the truly moderate income.

Here are the results:

South Austin (MLS areas 6 & 7):  There are three 1400+ square foot, single-family homes listed for sale for under $300,000.  None is larger than 1600 square feet.

North Austin (MLS areas 1B, 2 & 4):  Better.  There are 23 such houses (four between $179,000 and $200,000), most in the Crestview, Wooten and Highland neighborhoods.  One of these is a veritable McMansion at 2300 square feet.  Everything else is under 2250 square feet.

East Austin (MLS areas 3 and 5):  Best.  There are 53 such houses.  (This total includes a number of homes from the subdivisions bordering 183, though, which some people may not consider "central Austin.")

I intend to update these searches periodically to track supply.  Needless to say, I expect these numbers to get smaller.

Comments

[M1EK]

There's some new areas being introduced in the MLS scheme; but you still can't get to what I'd prefer for "central" vs. "north-central, south-central, etc." by searching by area alone. (Even zip doesn't work; with codes like 78703 encompassing both east and west of Mopac).

My own "core" central definition is somewhat non-square but much smaller than yours above: starting at Town Lake/Mopac, go north on Mopac, east on Hancock / North Loop, south on I-35, east on 38 1/2, south on Chestnut, west on Rosewood, south on Chicon, west at Town Lake, south on I-35, west on Mary, north on Lamar to Town Lake, west to Mopac.

IE, I don't count Tarrytown, Zilker, Barton Hills, Crestview, Allandale, etc.; which are all old sprawlburbs. They share more in common with Anderson Mill and Westlake than they do with Hyde Park and Clarksville.

With that metric, you ain't gonna find anything <300K except maybe on the east side.

[ccosart]

We just bought a house, so I can tell you from personal experience that there is nothing affordable in "central Austin" by any strict definition. At one point I did a search on 78702 and the median price was over $250k, with only 3 below $200k, all of which were "value is in the land", "teardown" or my personal favorite, "this remodel job is not for the faint-hearted". At least they were honest.

Wooten is getting absurdly expensive for what it is. University Hills east of I-35 and Delwood, south of 290 is pushing $200k and it's not really a very nice neighborhood at this point. Nothing in 78704 is reasonable. 78745 is mixed. West of Manchaca, especially north of Stassney is pricey. Southwood, n. of Stassney, east of Manchaca and west of the railroad tracks is too, especially for what it is.
Between the railroad tracks and South 1st is very mixed some nice streets some really bad looking ones, but it's affordable. Fairview between Congress and South 1st and b/w Ben White and Stassney is very suburban but well kept and you can still get stuff in the 160k range, but probably not for long.

Battle Bend, where we bought already has stuff pushing $200K along the creek, but you can still get a decent house (though smaller than your standards) for less than $150k.

I think that was a long way of agreeing with you. :) Though I'd say a three bedroom even at 1000 sq ft should be included, as that would work for a young family.

Obviously using M1EK's definition, which seems to be more about "urban" than "central", there hasn't been anything affordable in ages...

Sorry to ramble on.

[M1EK]

Well, central in my case is still geographic, but I draw the line at the circle which was developed when we stopped building 'urban' and started building 'suburban'.

CC, I thought you were interested in waiting for Mueller? I just got a postcard in the mail from them asking for signups, so they appear to be rolling finally...

[DSK]

Well, here's a topic I can certainly talk to.

We put our 3-2 1585 sq ft house in Allandale (area 2) on the market shortly after New Year's. Unlike those few similar houses in the area that were on the market, which were all priced over $300K, we asked under that. We didn't want to be on the market a long time and didn't have any "hip" upgrades (fancy tiling or the lake), more like new AC, new roof, etc. The demand was tremendous - we got tons of visitors from the very start and had offers bid up plenty over the asking price after two days on the market.

There was clearly TREMENDOUS demand for what little affordable family housing is available in town. I imagine that if we wanted to ask over 300K and wait a little while we would have had no problem selling like that. Instead we are selling a more fair price to a nice buyer. But clearly the intown demand for affordable family housing is high and the supply is near-zero. "affordable" being under 300K, which I do agree is a decent cutoff under current economic conditions.

[Ruralist]

OK, I can understand Tarrytown, Zilker, Barton Hills, Allandale as being similar to Anderson Mill and Westlake.

But Crestview? Crawling with all those hipsters and oldsters? I don't think so.

In fact, the Violet Crown in general is pretty happenin' these days. Certainly more interesting than my new-moneyed central neighborhood.

[M1EK]

Yes, Crestview. Houses that mostly have garages (or at least carports) instead of nice front porches; that engage their driveway instead of the street; that don't have good urban retail to walk to ("good" being graded on a curve since even most retail on Guadalupe and W 6th is only mediocre in the walkable department, but Crestview falls far short of even that).

DSK's gonna be mad at me, but compare the Crestview Minimax to the corner of 43rd and Duval (or 6th and Lamar). The Minimax is just a smaller version of the modern suburban strip mall; the others are qualitatively different.

[AC]

"compare the Crestview Minimax to the corner of 43rd and Duval (or 6th and Lamar."

Or, on a more modest scale, the corner of S. 5th and W. Mary.

[DSK]

You know I'm going to defend it. Here's what differentiates the Crestview center it from what I consider a classic strip mall.

* The shops face inward on two sides in an attempt to make the middle like a small town main street.

* Pedestrian access is pretty good, especially now that there are sidewalks on Woodrow.

* There's a nice little treed area in the middle. Yeah it's not big, but the main tree there is very nice.

Yes, it's more strip mall than 43rd and Duval, but it 's better than, say, those crappy strip malls on Anderson Lane that some people would have me adore because of Zinger's and Terra Toys.

[M1EK]

Facing inwards is still facing away from the street, which makes it suburban, not urban. Facing a parking LOT is worse, of course. And 43rd/Duval faces mostly on-street parking, which is not as good as the ideal, but still qualitatively different than facing inwards (after all, parts of the Arboretum do that).

[Steve]

I have posted a chart with the updated 2005/2006 comparison numbers from the MLS across several metrics. The link at the start of this article links to an older blog article of mine, but if you'd like to see the most recent breakdowns by MLS (now the old) areas, here is the link.
http://crosslandteam.com/200612-mls-sale-compare.pdf

Not surprisingly, the closer in central areas dominate the list of areas that achieved double digit appreciation in Austin last year.

Steve

[AC]

Thanks, Steve. I updated the link.

[ccosart]

M1EK,

I was and am interested in Mueller, and if we currently either owned or had a viable rental situation, I would have waited.

But it got to the point where we would be moving out of the apartment, renting a house for a year (or more) and paying substantially more in rent than we will be for our mortgage payment on the hope that soon there might be a Mueller home in our price range and we'd be high enough on the waiting list. If we had a guaranteed spot at a guaranteed price that would have been different.

I think when "announcing builders by the end of the year" became an announcement that they'd announce builders "early next year", it was one delay too many.

If we stay in Austin, I still hope to get there sooner rather than later, however.

CC

[M1EK]

CC,

That sucks. My sympathies.

[ccosart]

Yeah, it's disappointing, but c'est la vie. At least we're not in Kyle or Buda...

[fastmole]

I find M1EK's definition of Central Austin curious. If I stand at the north east corner of I-35 and Riverside, I can shoot grackles out of downtown trees, but that isn't considered Central? East Riverside is one of the densest areas of the city. It is much closer to Downtown than Mopac and Hancock.

[M1EK]

fastmole,

East Riverside is at max suburban density, but is a long ways from even a traditional single-family urban neighborhood in terms of walkability and other urban characteristics. It's basically the endpoint to suburban sprawl, if you will.

[fastmole]

M1eK,
I think we generally agree here. Riverside is certainly not well designed for pedestrians, but my guess is that there are more people who don't own a car in that neighborhood than Clarksville. The difference is that Riverside was developed after the city mandated parking requirements. Remove the parking requirements, provide local bus service (not just shuttles to UT, but local circulators to get people to the grocery store, and you will see Urban design develop overnight.

[LJ]

The Parker Lane area still has family friendly affordable houses and is very central.