Large house in 'hood without HOA? (Austin, Spring: for sale, houses, employment)

[CA-PA-TX?]

Hi there,
We are pondering our next move so I am researching my options. Austin is at the frontrunner right now as we are creatives with young kids. So anyways, I have been looking at the houses for sale around Austin and am noticing that they seem to be all in planned/master communities. I prefer to get a 4 bedroom home with a big yard that is not in a planned community- any suggestions? My husbands employment would probably be in Austin city and we are used to commuting so a 20-30 minute drive is ok. We are originally from SoCal but we live in southern PA right now so we are looking forward to our next adventure!

[C93626]

You Should Check Out The Sunset Valley Bee Cave Dripping Springs Areas South Of The 290 And West Of The I35 Seems Like Lots Of Room In Those Areas Without All Planned Communities.

[gigi927]

What's your price range?

[Trainwreck20]

If you are looking to buy an existing house, you will probably have more luck finding one built in the 80s or earlier. Most houses from the mid-80s on are in planned communities (not all, of course). There are some areas in NW Austin (in a few mile radius of the arboretum) that have some older lots (i.e. bigger lots) with houses from the 60s and 70s, mostly. I lived up in this area and really liked the 'unplanned' feel of the neighborhood. Some of the houses were quite different, and very few had the same floor plan. The trees are mature, which is very nice looking, and in the neighborhood I lived in there was really no HOA rules. That was a plus in the neighborhood I was in...there was no outrageous 'behavior', but that may depend on you point of view. OF course, there were no sidewalls (or not many), but they still deliver the mail to your door.

Sunset Valley area (mentioned above) has some nice communities that are not over-planned and are on the south side of town.

Anyway, this is one are to consider (it is relatively accessible to downtown Austin), but you probably should check with a good realtor and go over your specific needs.

[ericbramlett]

You'll have lots of options w/in a 20-30 minute drive. As said above, NW Hills, there's also San Leanna, Manchaca, Cardinal Hills, Apache Shores, Travis Country, Cat Mountain... All the areas I threw out there have a giant price range, so that's going to be a big factor.

[CA-PA-TX?]

Good info everyone thank so much. We live in an older home in PA now- built in the 60's- so I am open to older homes. I really do like an unplanned feel to the neighborhood. Where I lived in CA the neighborhoods had homes right on top of each other and they were popping up on every square inch of available land. I am glad to be away from that and started to fear that was all there was outside Austin- good to know there are options

Anyways, my price range tops out at maybe 275? Not sure what the market here is going to do so we are looking to get a cheaper house when we move so we can have lower mortgage. Oh and if we do move there we'll certainly get a good realtor and come check it out first...