Thoughts on Lago Vista? (Houston, Austin: sale, renting, home)

[beth35]

We looked at Lago last weekend. A few questions here.
Is the train to downtown with a stop in Cedar Park back on the ballot again?
How long until the hospital in Cedar park is completed?
We have been told that the commute to downtown is 45 minutes if one skips the Cedar Park town center route, is that accurate? We lived in North Canyon Lake for some time and could not believe that in one yrs time we sold a 98 thousand dollar home with an awesome view for 120K and had multiple back-up offers at the same time. Lago seems a lot like Canyon Lake.

[Mike78613]

Hi all,

I really enjoy reading all these posts on city-data. I never thought about replying, but after reading about Lago, I have to put my comments in .

I have lived in Austin area since 1996. We first lived close to 620 / 183 area, rented older home there. Coming from Colorado I just need to make sure I got a good stable job before jumping into a mortgage.

So for the last 6 years I lived in leander, which was nothing out there when we moved. My home was built by mainstreet homes. It was about 1300sq @ 88K . Not the best built homes, but was affordable at the time. We sold it off 4 years later, only making about 5K on the darn deal. Moved in closer. Which is zip code 78613 . Keep in mind I really had my eye on Lago Vista. I really wanted to move out there. I would take advantage of all it has to offer. Mainly boating.

One thing pulled me away from LV is the homes are all electric. Yep, no gas stoves. Now how would my wife flip them corn tortillas? Not to mention, the drive to town is killer! Very curvy road and even some car accidents w/ death involved due to incoming traffic. Deer life is heavy there. So if you have bushes or plants you need to net them up for those deers eating up everything. I have a buddy that lives out there. He enjoys it, but does get old. Lago even today is very broke town, they are trying to get be mainstream grocery stores out there, but they all back down. lago would be the place to live, but only if they made an access bridge to cross the lake. Talk about an investment.

I was looking at land out there for future retirement. I got online to travis county appraisal district and started calling land owners. Lots of the owners I spoke to owned the land since the 70's, which they are very elder folks. They vested in the land because they were told the LV was going to have a Disney land or World. HAHA!!
Even lot of the land owners I called were passed away and the kin folks I talked to said that they stop paying taxes on the land b/c they don't care anymore. Lot of the owner of the property lived in Austin, to tell you the truth.

So if it was me, I would live in zip code 78613. So much coming up. Even homes here are easily is the 300K-400K mark if that is what you want to spend. 78613 is quite, growing quick and its basically close to lake travis.

[Mike78613]

Beth, 45 min from LV to downtown is a crock of %%%%. Takes me 45 min to get to mopac and 2243 (westlake exit) coming out of zip code 78613

[JK4404]

I just sold my house in Lago Vista over a month ago. We lived there for 6 years. I'm from a small Texas town about 3 hrs. from Austin (pop. approx. 2500). We lived in Austin until we had kids, then we wanted that small town environment. We felt Lago would be the closest to that environment. I remember looking out in Hutto around 2001 knowing it was a small town and realizing it was well on it's way to being what I didn't want, cookie-cutter homes right on top of each other. There is nothing wrong w/ that, just not what I wanted. The great thing about Lago was the houses unless on the golf course or lake are reasonable, they're not all the same design either. Until recently there haven't been alot of mass developments. Because of the landscape and city restrictions, builders can't come in and buy 100 acres and cram 500 homes into that space. The reason we moved is I had a chance to get back to the area where our family was. I would have been content to stay in Lago, and raise our kids there. The only downside I saw out there, is even though it is still a small town for the most part, it's not your typical small Texas town where you've got people who have been there for years and generations that have called the town home. Since Lago itself is only 30-40 years old, you don't have that. There was some fightng on the school board and city council, but you'll have that everywhere. The biggest problem I saw was you have alot of people from all over the country who live there, things aren't the same in Texas as they are in New York, California, etc...so you would have people trying to do things the way they were used to where they had come from. That's really the only complaint I have. They have some great parks for kids, and the city pool is only 3 years old or so and really nice. There are stores and restaurants opening, CVS, ACE Hardware, a donut shop, Before we left Domino's had opened, Super S Foods, which is a small chain throughout the Hill Country and South Texas, more expensive than H-E-B or Wal-Mart, but on some things they were very reasonable is nice to have. Bam's & Dede's had good food. It's funny that I always felt Sonic, for being a national chain out there was hit or miss. The drive wasn't too bad, 1431 is dangerous but w/ the growth of Cedar Park, Round Rock, N. Austin, you don't have to drive as far in to go out to eat, or shop. Overall even though I may have a 45 min. drive home in the evenings, I always felt it was like being on vacation living out there. Even on weekends, when we didn't have much going on, to sit and grill on the back porch and watch the deer. Overall I would recommend Lago. There really is no other town in the Austin area that I would have wanted to live in. They all have pros and cons, but I think Lago is a pretty good place.

[austin-steve]

nice write-up. Changes my perspective somewhat. It's still a long way out there but you did a good job describing what you like about it.
Steve

[choirgirl]

Hi everyone, I too have been trying to research Lago Vista as my husband and I want to move out there in the next 6 months. He'll be working in Round Rock so the drive for him won't be too bad I hope. I'll have to find a job once we get out there; so I'm not sure what part of Austin I'll be working just yet. I'm from Houston so traffic and long commutes are nothing to me. We actually drove out to RoundRock last weekend. And after we finished up there we drove to Lago Vista. We've always loved Lake Travis so this seemed like the perfect area. It was just beautiful. And Cedar Park was only 15 minutes away; Round Rock was only 25. What is 1431 like during peak traffic hours?

And what about flooding? My mom who moved back to the Austin area 15 years ago was telling me that several parts of the Lake Travis area flooded this summer. Do the neighborhoods in Lago Vista flood?

[lago veteran]

been here forever, and wish i had chosen somewhere else. it is beautiful. However, there is nothing to do here. there are no movies, there are only a few places to eat if you only want to skip cooking yourself. Nothing great or unusual. No bars to speak of.
the city taxes are some of the very highest in the state as in one of the top 10 in the entire state. the city council/staff are for the most part bumbling idiots that have gotten the citizens into numerous on going lawsuits that only cost the taxpayers more, and more, and more.
the school district has the highest school taxes allowable in the state and the school district is failing the children of the community. according to the state of texas, the school district's rating has now fallen to "acceptable" which if you follow public education issues, translates to unacceptable for your children. (a child must score only a 70 to pass the taks test. lago only had enough students capable of scoring this mediocre 70 to be rated acceptable. the numbers don't lie, get on the texas education association website and see for yourself).
the parks are private, you must be a property owner to use them. so buy a cheap lot (a mere couple thousand dollars), pay an annual $120 property owners fee, and come to lago to enjoy the parks/lake, but don't invest your life savings or your childrens future.

[racham]

id like to ask you a few questions about lago politics. can we chat on the phone?

[racham]

Lago Veteran--can we chat on the phone?

[lago veteran]

i'll pm you