If commute is not an issue... (Austin, Round Rock: sale, houses, look for a job)

[BobosCurse]

...and your max price is $300k, you want excellent schools, and being in the heart of Austin isn't important.

Where would you target your search?

.25 acres minimum would be nice, but not a dealbreaker.

[shankaupas]

Can you give us some more information. For example, are you looking for a master planned community? Does the age of the home matter? Does the size of the home matter? How many bedrooms/bathrooms? Do you want to live somewhere where there are lots of trees? Do you want hills? What are your hobbies? Do you want to live close to the lake? Do you want to live close to shopping and restaurants or do you want to liver further away in a more rural area?

As far as schools are concerned, you can look at this site to get an idea of where the better rated schools are. The ratings are a couple of years old. Zoom in on the Austin area. Texas School Performance Maps

I'd probably look at both Lakeway and Round Rock near the Westwood High school area. Both of these areas have highly rated schools.

[Zzyzx]

SW Austin

[TexasHorseLady]

Cedar Park, Leander, SW Austin, Georgetown, some parts of Round Rock, for starters.

But, what shankaupas said (in fact, he beat me to what I usually say straight off the bat).

What do you want in a home and neighborhood besides good schools and price? What do you like to do? A commute to work might not be an issue but if there are activities that you like to do outside of the home, it would be nice if they were reasonably close by. What size home for that $300,000? What KIND of home? (Do you insist on new, do you crave older houses/neighborhoods, do you not care, do you like a particular style, etc.)

Also, the ratings are a good place to start, but they are by no means the whole story. Check out Great Schools for feedback and information on schools, from parents as well as others. And remember, a great school for one kid can be a disaster for another, so read all this info with your particular kid(s) in mind. (Heck, the school that was great for my son would have been a disaster for my daughter and vice versa, so it's pretty obvious that there's no "one size fits all" for all kids in any given school.)

[BobosCurse]

Yeah, I really should have given more info. We'd like at least 2500 sq ft (we're used to having basements here), newer home with open floor plan.
Would like a bonus room/study/gameroom in addition to the bedrooms.

4 bedrooms 2 baths minimum. There are so many nice homes on the market down there that I feel we can hold out for a treed lot instead of one of those empty, patchy burned-out yards.

I would like to take advantage of the lake, maybe get a boat or do some kayaking, but I don't need to live BY the lake. Probably couldn't afford it anyway. We would like a community pool rather than our own pool.

We like the subdivision style of living, I guess. I've read nice things about Steiner Ranch, but keep reading about their traffic issues. And there are obviously better bang-for-the-buck homes elsewhere. I've been plugging in names of subdivisions that you guys offer up in other threads and checking out the homes. Looks like you can really get allot of home for the money in some areas. In fact, even though we could go as high as $325k, there are some nice houses for $200k! We'd like to keep as much cash from our home sale here as possible.

What we really want to avoid is horrible traffic just to get groceries or go somewhere local. We lived in a suburb of Cincinnati for 5 years, and we watched it go from small town to traffic nightmare in that time. It would take 20 minutes to go 2 miles to Blockbuster! Chicago suburbs are the same way. Also, we lived in a very "nice" home that turned out to be cheap construction. We'd rather have a smaller high quality home than a huge stinker.

There are so many houses on the market in our price range, it's overwhelming. It seems like finding a house that fits us is not a problem in any of the areas, so now we need to figure out which area. We initially thought we'd rent, and it's not off the table, but the idea of moving twice is not appealing. And since our boys are 11 and 12 now, it's not a good age to move them twice if they would end up in another school district. We'd rather move once and put down roots.

[hoffdano]

In the Lake Travis area (Lake Travis ISD) you might be able to find something in Lakepointe (the realtors here would know better). I live in Spicewood, which is 10 mins from Bee Cave, where all essential shopping is nearby - including the Bee Cave Galleria with a movie theater. Lake Travis schools, and suburban/rural living. Look in zip code 78669.

[iceshots]

Check out Belterra and Ledge Stone in Dripping Springs. What your looking for may be possible. Its a great place to live. Both have community pools.

[shankaupas]

The further away from Austin, the more you can get for your money. You can get quite a bit between 225 - 300K in Round Rock, Cedar Park, and Leander. The West, South, and Southwest tend to be a little more expensive but you will still be able to find what you are looking for. I live in Round Rock so I'm kind of partial to that area. There are some beautiful areas in Round Rock that you might consider. In Round Rock on the east, take a look at Sonoma, Lake Forest, Forest Creek, and Teravista. In Round Rock on the west, take a look at Cat Hollow, Brushy Creek, Brushy Creek North, Behrens Ranch, Mayfield Ranch, Walsh Ranch (I don't see anything under 300K but worth a look), and Sendero Springs.

[FalconheadWest]

For the price and newness you want along with good rated schools, I would stick to Round Rock schools, but that splits city of Round Rock with city of Cedar Park. Even though you say you don't care about any commute, going further north in Leander and Liberty Hill is just getting out of the area completely, in my opinion.

[BobosCurse]

Lots of areas to check out...thanks.
As far as the commute, my wife works from home. I'll continue to look for a job after we move. I know it's risky because I may end up getting a job with a horrible commute. I hope not. But we want to take advantage of the $6500 tax incentive.