I always told my sister to buy off of South Congress, but her being a woman, she always something shiny. That was around 2005ish and houses could still be had for 100k or so. I dont even want to look at what they go for now. She regrets it now. Edit: I just looked at going rate and gawdam.....
Not happening. Austin isn’t going back. Money is flowing in, new roots are being laid and it is now from a business perspective past the point of no return.
theres an excellent documentary about development in austin in the late 80's/early 90's and the save our springs battles at city council. produced by robert redford and terrance malick called 'the unforseen'. i was actually impressed with how fair and balanced the documentary was. they didnt try to demonize the developers like gary bradley (circle c) and allowed them to give their side of the argument. its clear from the movie how much control the environmentalists had over austin back then. i dont know if an organization like SOS would have near the power they did today. however evil you may think developers are, city council pulled some BS moves on them back in the day in the form of changing the rules/restrictions after they had already been worked out. agreeing to a certain lot density and then reducing it in half after the developer had already started working on a community. i will say though, considering how much austin has grown we have done a pretty good job of not going full houston and paving over everything and destroying the natural landscape. the fact that something like barton creek and barton springs can even exist in one of the biggest cities in the country says a lot. and all the large parks, nature preserves and hiking trails we have in south austin...any other city would have ceded them to developers long ago.
A friend of mine in law school began working 70 hour weeks and getting huge lines of credit to buy property in areas he was convinced would turn around. He was huge into research of population centers, polling on younger generation wants and attitudes. The first one he bought before Reliant opened. He lived there, bad area. Everyone laughed at him. He ended up flipping it for double profit after 3 years. At the same time he started buying property in Midtown Houston. He used that for a line of credit and bought huge areas of land by Georgetown Texas and in the Hill Country. This all happened over a 10-12 year span. He rented the area out. In about 2007 or so he became obsessed with buying land in Austin and right outside. He went as far as to sell a lot of his Midtown property in Houston to buy homes in Austin. He is brilliant. He is about 45 or so now, never married. Mostly has relationships with foreign women he meets on his travels. He was in Chicago recently, I hadn’t seen him in a few years and we had dinner. He was the same guy. Had a Fanny pack of money on him, crazy as ever. He was picking my brain on land in Northern Chicago as he is looking for a new area to invest. Anyway during the discussion he mentioned he came to Chicago on his jet. I knew him well enough to ask him what he is worth now. He said his property holdings are worth several hundred million dollars.... I said that is staggering for 18 years doing what he does and that I remembered the first one he did. He said the money he has made in Austin is insane.
Old Austin is gone. The real question is where will the next Austin be. San Marcos? Even Asheville, NC is more like Austin than Austin now. Lulz.
Doesn't take much to get started, and it's a snowball. The key to real estate is to not bemoan the price you 'could have' gotten it at ten years ago. There are always deals to be had. I'm sure his lawyerin' knowledge helped tremendously.
I'll need to check out that documentary and thanks for recommending it. And also, definitely agree with you on some of the preservation and also about city council.. Like as much as I don't like seeing all the change sometimes at least a lot of the parks have remained.
Everybody in Austin knew about Oracle, they bought all of east riverside. this is surprising as allergies during cedar season.
My brother got his first job out of college at Dell in the late 90s, I visited him one weekend and after five minutes in Devil’s Cove said we are buying a boat and I’m moving from Houston to Austin! Bought the first house out by Parmer and 620 when it was still considered the sticks in 2000. Split up with my fiancé in 2007 and rented that house out and moved into a smaller 1300 sq ft bachelor pad just west of campus. My parents thought I was freaking insane paying that much for a house just to be closer downtown. I eventually moved back to Houston in 2015 and was fortunately able to keep both Austin properties, one has 2X and the trap house off 29th is nearly 3X. I finally went back to sell the boat this year since moving back to Houston and did not recognize the skyline. I worked off Congress and watched the Frost building being built ground up from my office, that one little building being “that tall” was a big deal back then lol. I can only imagine what true Austin natives are going through, anything remotely close to downtown is a million and that is lot value alone. Not even free dances at Joy, Penthouse/Perfect 10 and Sugars would make me want to move back to Austin. Oh I forgot the Rose too!
Honestly last time I drove around old haunts downtown and west side, it felt like visiting San Jose more than anything else. I could hardly believe it.
Say it ain’t so! Actually now that I think about it you could prob still find some affordable real estate next to The Landing Strip. Not too far from downtown and nothing but dimes 24/7. I really miss that place the most!
In Houston, our GHP is trying to play off the rising cost and density of Austin to lure some of those left coast companies here. HP is kinda fake news as the campus had long been underway and there is no requirement for employees to relocate. They are just cutting out the cost of california real estate. Don't think Austin can take on many more without their prices hitting similar valuations and cutting the cost benefit. Not to mention the need for flying cars to get around the congestion in the city. Luckily, you have Elan their and he'll build a hyperloop and a flying Tesla in not time.
There are things I miss about old Austin, but there are a lot of changes I enjoy about new Austin -- the city has done a good job IMHO absorbing the massive population growth. People have literally been complaining about how Austin has been ruined by growth and Californian transplants for decades.
When I was at UT in the late 80s, early 90s, (Slacker era) there was a ton of nostalgia for the old Austin. I can only imagine the angst among the long time residents now.
The bar/club scene is the same it's just moved to new locations like it always has -- areas that were literal ghettos have transformed into places with entertainment and nice housing close to downtown. East Riverside was a dump along the lake and a massive waste of prime real estate -- now it's a place you can hit up a nice bar and walk to a show at Emos. Downtown has transformed from a place with 6th street and not much else to an area that offers much more to do for people who are out of the college party scene. Day or night it's fun to hang out in downtown Austin -- I'd enjoy having an apartment in one of the new buildings.
