DOWNTOWN AUSTIN CONDO LIVING: HIP OR HYPE?

What’s all this buzz about those downtown high-rise condos, Austin Texas real estate at its best? 

If you’ve been focusing your search for homes for Austin Texas real estate with an Austin realtor in the suburbs, you might not have noticed the subtle changes to the downtown skyline and landscape.  From Ladybird Lake to Congress Avenue and many other spots, something’s happening.

Then again, you may not care.  Perhaps condos don’t interest you.

But there’s no denying this trend is turning the traditional definition of Austin Texas luxury real estate upside-down.  There are even some Austin area realtors specializing in this market. They’d like to persuade you that the good life isn’t exclusive to communities like Tarrytown or Westlake.

They’re heavily promoting a lifestyle – a hip, cool urban vibe largely aimed at young professionals.  If there’s any doubt, you should see some of the slickly produced websites, with their sultry jazz soundtracks, poetic descriptions and images of attractive young men and women (often clad in bikinis or similarly enticing outfits) presumably loving life in their swank new condo units.

Right now the Austin Board of Realtors shows nearly 150 units for sale downtown, ranging from about $225,000 all the way up to nearly $3 million.  That just scratches the surface.  Many more projects are in the works.  According to a new study by Capitol Market Research published in Urban Home Austin there are 24 downtown condo projects planned or under construction now.

The study says the demand exists:  93 percent of the units built in the last year are sold or under contract. But perhaps most surprising are the statistics that 68 percent of the buyers moving in are migrating from another part of Austin!  70 percent don’t even work downtown, but they want to be there anyway.

Why?

The lake.  The shopping.  The nightlife, arts, music and food.

The study concludes that yes, there is a distinct urban Austin lifestyle – and people want it.