Luxe Austin Homes - sellers

Prolific infill developer StoryBuilt to bring 100-plus homes to South Austin

South Austin is set to receive a badly needed injection of infill housing.

Locally based StoryBuilt will develop 116 homes on 15 acres in South Austin, according to a July 25 announcement. The development will mostly consist of single-family detached homes with some attached townhomes, StoryBuilt Austin Division President Ross Wilson said.

It's the latest infill project for StoryBuilt, which aims to grow the city from the inside out, he said.

The neighborhood will be located at 8420 Longview Road, in South Austin off West Gate Boulevard. Construction is not expected to begin until summer 2023.

"We're really excited about this opportunity," Wilson said. "Obviously it's a big parcel in South Austin. It's very well connected to downtown and…

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Austin builder unveils sleek prefabricated luxury homes starting at $600,000

A Buda homebuilder has brought a high-end approach to a type of housing that has often been lumped into the low-end category.

Escobedo Group has introduced a “panelized” construction system that enables a luxury home to be prefabricated and then installed on a homesite within roughly five months. So far, more than 70 of the company’s DARIO Villas homes have been built.

Over the years, prefab construction has frequently been associated with cheap, mass-produced housing. Following World War II, the British embraced prefab construction to address a severe housing shortage. Amid the 19th century’s California Gold Rush, prospectors relied on prefab homes to quickly provide shelter.

In recent years, prefab homes have gained fans as construction…

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Austin’s real estate is 'inching' toward normalcy as market shows signs of stabilizing

Knock on wood—real estate professionals are saying Austin’s housing market showing signs of stabilizing as local inventory hit two months for the first time since 2019.

Austin Board of Realtors CEO Emily Chenevert said after two years of pandemic-fueled prices, “we're inching our way toward something that feels more normal,” during the 2022 Central Texas Housing Summit—which brought industry professionals and economists together—on Tuesday.

Still, housing is one of Austin’s biggest fallbacks despite a diverse local economy, growing infrastructure investments, multiple nearby universities and a healthy job market. Stable housing falls in tandem with affordability, Austin Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Laura Huffman said.

“So what could…

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Could Austin surpass D-FW as Texas’ top luxury home market?

Dallas-Fort Worth has been the longtime leader in luxury home sales, but it has a strong competitor further south on Interstate 35.

In the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio areas, the number of homes sold for $1 million or more in the first five months of 2022 was about on par with the number sold in all of 2018, according to a new report from the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. But in Austin area, the number of home sales is already double its 2018 total.

Four years ago, the Austin area had half the number of home sales of Houston and D-FW. By 2021, though, the city was just behind Houston, and so far this year, Austin and Houston are neck in neck.

“D-FW is definitely an international city, but the name…

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Austin-Round Rock housing market returning to pre-COVID normalcy

New housing market data showing increased inventory and decreased residential home sales points toward a slowing housing market for the Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The deceleration is bringing the Austin area housing market back "to pre-COVID normalcy," according to the Austin Board of REALTORS (ABoR).

“These numbers are a breath of fresh air for a housing market that has been holding its breath,” ABoR president Cord Shiflet said in a statement. “The trajectory of our market over the last two years was unsustainable and it was in no way going to last. The resurgence of activity after the COVID-19 pandemic, historically low interest rates and massive job growth created record-high housing demand in our market."

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ABoR: Study calling Austin's housing market overvalued is flawed without context

We all know buying and building homes in the Austin area is expensive. Austin is outpacing other Texas cities when it comes to development fees for builders, and home prices have skyrocketed.

A recent study by Florida Atlantic University ranked Austin as the second-most overvalued housing market in the country. But is that true? Ashley Jackson, president-elect of the Austin Board of Realtors (ABoR), joined KVUE Midday to dig deeper.

Jenni Lee: According to Florida Atlantic University, buyers in Austin pay just a little bit more, but 67% more than they should. So, demand for new and existing homes is there, but there's not enough supply. Is the Austin housing market overvalued?

Ashley Jackson: "No, I do not believe the Austin…

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48-story condo tower planned for Austin's Rainey Street district

An Austin-based developer plans to start construction next year on a 48-story residential tower in the Rainey Street district on downtown Austin’s southeast side. The proposed high-rise would add to the ongoing building boom in the Rainey Street area, and in downtown in general. 

Pearlstone Partners plans to build the tower on two adjacent tracts that span from 62 East Ave. to 64 East Ave.  Although plans are still preliminary, Pearlstone executives say they envision a tower with 48 stories and 245 condominium units, although those numbers “could all very much change as we move through the design process,” said Chris Zaiontz, a Pearlstone senior vice president and principal.

The project still needs to wind its way through the city of Austin’s…

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Austin tops the list in Texas for share of million-dollar homes, says study

With the median home price in the Austin metro area now well over $550,000, it’s no shocker that a lot of homes would be valued at $1 million or more.

Well, it turns out Austin has the highest share of $1 million-plus homes among Texas’ major metros.

A new study from personal finance platform LendingTree shows 3.51 percent of owner-occupied homes in the Austin area are valued at $1 million or more. That compares with an eye-popping 52.89 percent share in the No. 1 metro on the list, San Jose, California.

The study looks at the number of $1 million-plus homes in the country’s 50 largest metro areas. Austin ranks 12th among the 50 metros (down from No. 11 in 2021), with Houston at No. 17 (2.4 percent), Dallas at No. 20 (2.2 percent), and San…

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Austin home prices expected to drop slightly, Austin Board of Realtors says

The president-elect of the Austin Board of Realtors said she expects “a little bit of a decrease” when it comes to future Austin home prices as the previously red-hot housing market begins to show some signs of cooling off.

ABOR President-Elect Ashley Jackson said she doesn’t expect the price drop to be significant and stressed that the market’s fundamentals remain strong.

Her assessment comes after May home sales in the Austin metropolitan statistical area saw a 6.7% year-over-year decrease, although prices continued to rise by 19.6%.

Jackson talked with KXAN about the trends she’s seeing, and whether Austin is in a housing bubble.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Tom Miller: We’ve seen these skyrocketing…

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What’s Up With the Crazy Housing Market?

After a two-year boom, the United States housing market finds itself at a pivotal moment — but pivoting to what, exactly?

This spring should have been a busy time for home sellers. Instead, the season was a dud, stalled by a dramatic spike in mortgage rates that stunned even industry experts with its chilling effect on the market.

The frenzied environment we had become accustomed to — with its eye-popping price increases and bidding wars that left buyers dejected and sellers giddy — suddenly seemed to be a thing of the past. While buyers stood on the sidelines, recalculating their much larger mortgage payments, sellers began to realize that offers of $100,000 or more over asking might not be forthcoming.

And over in the rental market,…

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