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"Austin makes U.S. News list of best places to live for quality of life"

CultureMap Austin shares, "Austin and three other Texas cities were just hailed in U.S. News & World Report's new rankings of the best places to live for their high quality of life.

This new list, published July 11, is part of U.S. News' Best Places to Live rankings, but the 25 cities that made the list were chosen solely based on quality of life factors such as education, healthcare, crime rates, air quality, resilience to natural disasters, and more.

The top two cities that are the best places to live for their top-tier quality of life are Brookline (No. 1) and Newton (No. 2) in Massachusetts. Bethesda, Maryland (No. 3), Bellevue, Washington (No. 4), and Malden, Massachusetts (No. 5) round out the top five.

Austin ranked 13th on the list…

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"New Austinites continue to flock from the coasts, U-Haul data shows"

Austin Business Journal shares, "Californians and Floridians have been moving to the Austin metro in higher numbers than residents of any other U.S. states, according to one of America’s most prominent moving companies. 

U-Haul released its 2025 mid-year report July 16 regarding migration trends, breaking down where people are moving to and from. It tracked one-way customer transactions from January to July this year to determine the leading origins for trucks, trailers and U-Box moving containers bound for large metro areas around the country.

U-Haul found that Austin is a popular destination for people from two of the largest states in the U.S. — California, which has a population of 39.4 million, and Florida, which has a population of 23.4…

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"New 55+ community breaks ground on 260 homes in Bastrop"

CultureMap Austin shares, "Del Webb, a Phoenix, Arizona-based builder specializing in "active adult communities," has broken ground on a new community in Bastrop — its first in the Austin area in more than 30 years. Del Webb Lost Pines will encompass 500 residences with resort-style amenities in early 2026 if construction sticks to its current schedule.

The community is a smaller area within a larger master-planned community called The Colony, part of which touches the Colorado River. The Lost Pines section is within the north side of The Colony, about a 10-minute drive to the river according to Google Maps. The new homesites are located along Republic Drive.

Over two phases of construction, Del Webb Lost Pines will have more than 500 residences…

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"Austin homebuyers gaining negotiating power"

Austin Business Journal writes, "Homebuyers in the Austin area are gaining the advantage as competition heats up among sellers.

The metro's housing inventory continues to hover around the six-month mark and new listings have increased 43.6% year-over-year to 17,662 active home listings, according to Unlock MLS’s latest market report. However, the median sale price of a home in Austin in June was flat at $450,000 compared to the same time last year.

“We’re not 100% in a buyer’s market, but we’re pretty close,” said Brandy Wuensch, 2025 Unlock MLS and Austin Board of Realtors president. “Buyers definitely have more power to negotiate and get a lot more favorable terms from sellers in terms of closing costs.”

Sellers are having to become more…

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"Austin ranks among 20 best large U.S. cities for first-time homebuyers"

CultureMap Austin writes, "As Austin's real estate market slowly bounces back after several years of high housing prices, a new WalletHub analysis has revealed it is the 19th best large U.S. city for first-time homebuyers, and the No. 1 big city in Texas.

WalletHub's study ranked 300 U.S. cities across 22 metrics based on affordability, quality of life, and the status of each city's real estate market, including factors like active listings per capita, homeownership rates for millennials, and more. Cities were ranked overall and based on population size: Large cities with more than 300,000 residents; midsize cities with populations between 150,000-300,000 people; and small cities with fewer than 150,000 people.

Palm Bay, Florida ranked as the…

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"As Austin aims to attract more life sciences companies, this suburb vies to be a hub for the sector"

Austin Business Journal shares, "Cedar Park, a suburb of roughly 78,000 people about 20 miles northwest of downtown Austin, has been courting life sciences companies in recent years. Enovis Corp. marks its biggest win, which picked the suburb for a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility that will create at least 162 jobs. But there also have been a handful of smaller victories, and observers contend the pipeline holds the potential for plenty more.

That has led Cedar Park officials to seek partners to build a life sciences cluster, according to Arthur Jackson, the city's chief economic development officer. It would be the center of a mixed-use development in the 215-acre former Lime Creek Quarry. The city acquired the unique property in 2015…

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"The Modern Austin Residences: Condo tower on Rainey Street welcomes new residents this summer"

Austin Business Journal writes, "With Austin’s reputation as a live music capital, perhaps it isn’t surprising that the origin story of The Modern, a 56-story condominium tower hailed as “authentically Austin,” includes a sweet nod to Austin music icons, the Fabulous Thunderbirds. In 2009, still reeling from a recession which had Urbanspace CEO Kevin Burns rethinking the brownstone plans he had for the property he purchased at 90 Rainey Street, he began to envision something with a larger footprint.

While renting his property to a shipping container bar as a stop gap measure, Burns became friends with the property owners next door, Thunderbirds’ drummer Fran Christina and his partner, artist Julie Speed. Over the course of the next five years, with…

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"Kyle's apartment rent prices rivaled Austin's, surpassed suburbs in June"

CultureMap Austin shares, "apartment rent prices in June were more expensive in Austin and Kyle than they were anywhere else in the metro, according to the latest monthly rental report from Zumper.

The rent report, which analyzed active listings from the previous month across all cities in the Austin area, tracks the most and least expensive rent prices for one- and two-bedroom apartments, and determines the cities with the fastest growing rents. Listings were aggregated by city to calculate median asking rents.

Despite being the most expensive rent in the region last month, the asking rent for one-bedroom apartments in both Austin and Kyle technically hasn't risen or decreased since this time last year. The asking rent for one-bedrooms in both…

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"Austin had the most pet-friendly rental listings on Zillow in 2024"

CultureMap Austin shares, "A new market trend report from Zillow has confirmed that pet-friendly rentals are leasing much faster than non-pet-friendly units, and Austin's rental market had the No. 1 most pet-friendly rental listings on Zillow in 2024.

The report, called "Saying Yes to Pets Helps Landlords Find a Tenant Faster," analyzed more than 11 million rental listings that appeared on Zillow last year to discover the share of pet-friendly rental listings in the biggest U.S. metros. The report also calculated the median number of days it took for pet-friendly units to find a tenant, in comparison to than those that did not allow pets.

The Lone Star State as a whole led the nation with the most pet-friendly rental listings on Zillow.…

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"Surf parks, clear lagoons to surround Austin"

Austin Business Journal writes, "To the north and west, huge Carribbean-like lagoons fit for swimming and paddle boarding. To the south and east, a couple of surf parks.

There are four grand plans to bring big water features to new neighborhoods outside Austin. If they all come to fruition, Austinites can find them in any direction they drive.

The four new neighborhoods — at varying stages of development — have been chronicled in previous ABJ stories.

To the north is Leander Springs, a long-delayed lagoon project that developers said is finally moving forward soon.

Down south, in the tiny suburb of Mustang Ridge, the forthcoming Pura Vida neighborhood promises to deliver surf-worthy waves as the centerpiece for its development.

To the…

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