Austin, pulsating with music, burgeoning with technology and throbbing with life is a great place to live, work and enjoy an eclectic lifestyle. It’s got three hundred days of sunshine and unlimited job opportunities in the hi-tech arena. This hill country with its rolling slopes offers spectacular vistas of lakes and greens, all around. If you are thinking of buying a home in Austin and making this vibrant city, your home, let me tell you, you’ve made a really smart decision.
But what kind of a home would be the right kind for you in Austin. This depends largely on your needs, your financial considerations and the lifestyle you desire. Homes in Austin are usually single family homes, townhouses, garden homes, condominiums and zero-lot line homes. Single family homes with 3 or 4 bedrooms are ideal for parents raising a large family. Single family homes and zero-lot homes are built on individual lots but have no yards. Instead, they have patios that can be landscaped to add an aesthetic touch to the exterior.
Townhouses are row houses that share side-walls. They maybe one or two storeyed with unobstructed front and back entrances. They usually have small lawns or patios and are built in areas where the land value is very, very high like in the prime areas of Austin city.
Garden homes in Austin give you the privacy of a single, unattached home and also the benefits of a homeowner’s association taking care of the yard maintenance and all other exterior work. They are wonderful for families and combine functionality with luxury living. Highly populated areas like Round Rock, Cedar Park, downtown and south Austin have a high density of garden homes, townhouses and zero-lot homes as more and more people choose to live close to their workplace.
Duplex homes are two unit homes where the owner can stay in one unit and rent out the other and earn an additional income. With house prices reaching $400,000 and going up further, duplex seems to have come back in vogue, among first-time buyers and IT professionals who try to level out their mortgage with a rental income.
Condominiums are individual units that form a part of a gated community and are very common in Austin. There are themed communities like golf communities and lakeview communities, wherein the owner is responsible for the maintenance of the home interiors, while the homeowner’s association maintains the exteriors through a management company. Condominiums are ideally suited for retired folks, who want to live the good life, enjoying a round of golf or taking in the dramatic view of silvery waters each morning.
Lofts are a part of high-rise building and are mostly found in the downtown area. Lofts are a great investment for ‘people on the go,’ who like to stay close to the city and its various attractions. The inner city has seen a sudden spurt of condo and loft developments in the recent years and this type of a home is very popular with people who have relocated from larger cities like New York and are used to living isolated lives very close to their offices. Lofts in the West Campus areas are a great hit with students of the University of Texas at Austin.
These days, the suburbs are gaining momentum in the rapidly expanding Austin real estate market as new toll roads and expanded Capital Metro bus service is widening options for home buyers. Now, commuting to downtown Austin is no longer so tedious and so, people are buying one-acre lots for homes built far, far away from reeling sights and sounds of Austin city.
Remember, a home is an once-in-a-lifetime investment. So, think ahead to all that your new home would need to accommodate in the future before you choose the right kind of home for you and your family. What’s more, the interest rates are very low and it makes sense to invest in a new Austin home, right now.
