House Hunting in Austin (Again)

I wrote this in April, when I decided to move back to Austin: My god the history of this blog is long. I stumbled upon this June 3, 2008 post when my brother and I were looking for our first house (which we and now just he still own, in Brykerwoods) and was struck by the commonalities with my renewed search now … almost exactly ten years ago to boot.

Real estate in Austin has undeniably blown up in the ten years between then and now. And yet what I want in a house hasn’t. There are new neighborhoods on new neighborhoods (here’s lookin’ at you, east side. literally, all of the east side). There are kabillions of new condos, townhouses, and high-rises that weren’t even a twinkle in Austin’s eye in 2008 when the Austonian was as big as it got.

But I still want location, location, location, which, for me, is close to my family, walkable to some things (grocery store, coffee shop, local watering hole), and water. River, lake, creek, stream, pool, whatever it takes to get me near that.

…

here I am now, in August: Aaaand the house next door to my brother came up for sale. So I bought it. And so as the world turns, despite my hours of searching and learning and comparing and driving around looking, absolutely nothing has changed in my house hunting. I literally bought the house next door to the house I chose ten years ago.

Of course, this house is very different—far less quirky, more grown up, smaller, with the intimacy I’ve become familiar with in mountain towns and beach cities where everything isn’t bigger. It does, naturally, have a walk-in closet because Texas. I might have to put in a pool to get myself next to water, but it is a stone’s throw from Shoal Creek for walking Nali.

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I am also really proud of myself: I negotiated this deal without a realtor. There are lots of options an internet-savvy buyer who is doing much of their own work can use now—Redfin will refund you some cash but from what I saw it wasn’t ever more than 1%; Creekview Realty will negotiate for you and refund 2% as long as you can view the houses without their agents (through Open Houses or calling the listing agent); REX has limited inventory but if you buy off MLS there’s no buyer commission or they’ll split the buyer commission with you (probably 1.5%). If you’re confident and savvy, this could be a good choice for you.