A house with "character" (Austin, Round Rock: real estate, houses, neighborhoods)

[Megan1967]

Sooo... Looking through the real estate listings all I see are homes that were build 1985 or newer. Where would I find an older home with original woodwork, plaster walls etc? Are these available and if so are they desirable? I saw one place that fits this description, but it looked like a bunch of college kids (or cattle) had been living there - big hunks taken out of the wood work, beat up walls, generally tough shape.

I've been stunned to hear people talk about the "high" prices for real estate in Austin because I live in a *very* starter home here in Wisconsin and it is assessed at $192,000. Now our market has gone soft and I'd probably only get about $180,000 for it if I tried to sell it tomorrow, but still.... $180 appears to buy you more than a starter home in the Austin area. Or is that just the outlaying areas?

[HappyTexan]

Look in the outlying cities..Round Rock/Taylor/Elgin/Coupland are a few town that have old homes (dating pre 1900)

[achtungpv]

Originally Posted by Megan1967

$180 appears to buy you more than a starter home in the Austin area. Or is that just the outlaying areas?

Only in the outlying areas and bad areas of Austin will you find those prices. To get an older home with character in Austin you'll be looking at neighborhoods like Travis Heights, Hyde Park, etc. Granted you'll be hard pressed to find anything THAT old since Austin is a young city but you'll generally be looking at $400K+ if you want more that 1200 sq ft.

[texastea]

Georgetown has a few in that price range...but the nicer, bigger and refurbished ones are pricy.

Here's one that even claims to have character

Listing Details

[love roses]

The area near the university is pretty. With some TLC, more of those homes can be real unique and individual. Central Austin areas and outlying areas near the town centers will have unique homes. Granger even has a few cute ones, even though there's really nothing there anymore as far as town goes.

[llkltk]

Originally Posted by love roses

The area near the university is pretty. With some TLC, more of those homes can be real unique and individual. Central Austin areas and outlying areas near the town centers will have unique homes. Granger even has a few cute ones, even though there's really nothing there anymore as far as town goes.

The area near the University will set you back 350K and up.

[love roses]

So will areas in Central Austin. Just depends on you and what you like as far as an area of town goes. The house in that link was listed at 190k and was across the street from the University. You can probably find deals like that all over.

[Megan1967]

The house in the listing is exactly the type of thing I was thinking of, only now, given what I've been told by others in this thread, I realize it must have some major flaws to be listed at that price.

It was too good to be true that I would actually have picked a place to live with affordable housing....

What areas should a single woman (or anyone I guess) completely avoid?

[texastea]

Yep, roses, that house was probably that much BECAUSE it's by Southwestern Univ. It also has a large lot. Like you said, a few streets over homes may come down a bit.

Megan, Georgetown is a great place for that type of home and the University has interesting guest speakers, plays and art exhibits if you like that sort of thing (I do )

[love roses]

Most homes like that will be fixer uppers, so that's great if you want to invest that kind of time and money. I would love to do that someday. We have some friends in Denver who bought a run down, very large 1800's victorian in a just being gentrified part of town. What they did to that house was just beautiful, and now is one of the nicest houses on the street.