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You can live in a piece of history and work of art, all without leaving the luscious Hill County. That is, if you're willing to part with $17.5 million.
Located in Spicewood, off the Pedernales River, Retreat at Lick Creek Lodge is a six-bedroom, eight-and-two-half bathrooms architectural marvel designed by John Covert Watson, a native Austinite, UT-graduate and Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice, in 1993. A prominent American architect, Wright's expansive career spanned seven decades. He focused on a philosophy called "organic architecture," seeking to create buildings that looked harmonious with nature and did not disrupt the environment.
The home, marketed by Kuper Sotheby's International Realty, clearly shows Wright's influence with a hyperbolic paraboloid roof, mixed materials and an organic architecture design that is styled to blend in against a nearly 30-acre backdrop of Central Texas nature. With 12,002 square feet, the home is more than just what meets the eye.
You'll keep your visitors cozy in their own private guest house with a winding pathway to the main house. The inside invites warmth and tons of natural lighting, thanks to the high ceilings and expansive glass walls that surround almost the entire perimeter.
This house makes it so you would never have to leave, featuring a library, home gym, yoga room, movie theater, steam shower, hair salon and its very own elevator. Once you're tired of spending the day cooped up inside, you can head out to one of the home's many balconies.
Follow the carved pathway up to the secluded private pool with limestone details, where you can either lounge on the wrap-around sundeck or gaze at the attached waterfall. If you prefer to swim in nature's pool, this riverfront house is just a short walk away from the shore.
If that still isn't enough, take a walk down memory lane at the Retreat, where musicians like Billy Joe Shaver, The Flatlanders, Kinky Friedman, Pat Green and more have performed for audiences of more than 250 people. How's that for live music?
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Unbowed by the pandemic, the winter storm or the city's ongoing growing pains, Austin's housing market continues to set new sales price records.
Home sales in the five-country metro increased 13.1% year-over-year in March despite inventory remaining at a record-low 0.4 months, according to the Austin Board of Realtors' latest monthly report. At this inventory level, if no other homes are listed the number of listed homes would sell in a week; a balanced housing market has around six months of inventory, according to the Texas Real Essate Research Center at Texas A&M University.
"Our housing market is undergoing growing pains and creating a paradox: affordable from the outside looking in, but increasingly unaffordable for those who already call Austin home," ABoR President Susan Horton said in a statement.
The median sales price for homes in the city of Austin jumped nearly 25% last month, to an all-time high of $514,000, according to the report. Across Travis County, the median sales price grew nearly as fast, increasing 24.1% to $490,000.
Ten years ago, the median sales price in the Austin market was $203,860, a fraction of what it is today, according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center.
Despite the skyrocketing price, Austin homes remain relatively affordable for buyers coming from more expensive markets, such as Denver and Atlanta. "There is a reason so many transplants, especially from the east and west coasts, are coming to Austin," Dr. Jim Gaines, an economist at the center, said in a statement. "They can buy more house for their money than what they could in the cities they are leaving behind."
Such competition is great for sellers but may challenge prospective homebuyers, who face one of the highest markups in the country. "With an average closing price of 108% of list price across the Austin area, the decades-old expectations of submitting a lower offer and negotiating up is no longer a reality," Horton said.
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A startup built from the ashes of the devastating California wildfires is now setting its sights on a new crisis: Austin's housing market.
It's no secret that Austin is the nation's current "boomtown," as billionaire resident Elon Musk said in January. With an exploding tech industry and a steady surge of newcomers, Austin's housing market is high on demand and recently devastatingly low on supply.
The median sales price in Austin rose 16.4% from 2020 to 2021, according to the Austin Board of Realtors' year-end report. As prices rise, many prospective buyers get boxed out of the market—if they can even find an available home in the first place.
California-based Homebound hopes to balance Austin's growing market.
The company, which offers a comprehensive online homebuilding service, was founded in 2017 after cofounder Jack Abraham lost his home in the California wildfires. Since then, the project has become a one-stop shop for customers looking to choose how their home is constructed.
While Austin has not been devastated by wildfires, it does have a dire need for new homes. By customizing the construction experience, Homebound hopes to give prospective buyers the option to build instead of buy.
With their team of construction, real estate and technology experts, Austin's newest contractors help buyers every step of the way- from finding a plot of land to adding final touches to the home. Customers can choose from a variety of plans that cover hundreds of steps within the financing, architecture and design, lot preparation, construction and move-in processes. Customers can find a lot of land through Homebound or purchase a lot already owned by the company.
With Austin's drenched market, it's sometimes less expensive to build than to buy. By giving homebuyers a simplified building option, Homebound can help create a more affordable alternative within the metro, according to the company's website.
"While home prices are skyrocketing, construction costs remain low, making Austin a builder's paradise," the website's Austin page reads.
Not including land cost, building costs start at around $300,000, CEO and co-founder Nikki Pechet told TechCrunch.
Eventually, the company hopes to bring affordability and simplicity to home markets across the country, including other tech hubs like Miami and Charlotte, Pechet said.
"This is just the start," Pechet told TechCrunch. "We're taking the platform to markets across the country to help exactly with this issue."
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Thomas King, a new chair for the Travis Appraisal Review Board, or ARB was appointed 6:30pm Wednesday by District Judge Lora Livingston, who also serves as Travis County's administrative judge. King took over the job just in time to address the board at its Thursday meeting.
And just in time to organize and lead the ARB through what's expected to involve the largest number of protests ever, for several reasons. Residential properties were not reappraised in 2019. Plus, Austin's housing market has such low inventory for sale that bidding wars have broken out. That's a double whammy that promises to cause home valuations to jump significantly. Hotels, restaurants and other businesses dependent on tourism have been hammered by the pandemic, promising a sharp increase in protests from those property owners.
That's good news... Read the full report at The Austin Bulldog.