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My husband and I are visiting in July and would like to narrow down neighborhoods to look at. I've become so overwhelmed researching and am looking for help.
From what I've gathered, Brushy Creek, Avery Ranch, and Round Rock are all nice areas to live. However, after that it gets confusing to me. Are they all considered separate cities/towns? It seems like Avery Ranch is in Austin, but kids attend Round Rock school district? And within these areas, there seem to be a million communities/developments within each. On top of that, the posters on this site are very helpful, but rattle off zip codes like it's common knowledge...is this an Austin thing?
I guess I'm wondering- is there a specific map/chart that outlines these areas, their home communities/neighborhoods, and schools?
Also, can anyone help me understand the differences between the three communities I mentioned? Are there advantages in living in one over the other? They all appear nice, but are schools, property taxes, etc. things to consider? The only thing it seems is that Brushy Creek is more green, has more trees and trails...but I could be way off. Does one have better access to highways?
Round Rock is a town and Avery Ranch is a neighborhood. Brushy Creek is an actual creek and one of the developments near it is called Brushy Creek. Avery Ranch is in the town of Cedar Park. Maybe parts of it fall in Round Rock, not sure. The Brushy Creek you speak of is in Round Rock, I think. The creek itself runs from some point in Austin, down through Round Rock, Hutto and possibly Taylor. It may run through Pflugerville, but not sure.
Also, can anyone help me understand the differences between the three communities I mentioned? Are there advantages in living in one over the other? They all appear nice, but are schools, property taxes, etc. things to consider? The only thing it seems is that Brushy Creek is more green, has more trees and trails...but I could be way off. Does one have better access to highways?
Honestly, these areas all sort of run together and you really need to look at commute time to work before making a decision. For example, if you and your husband both work downtown, you'd probably be better off in SW Austin which also offers good schools, etc. Avery Ranch actually has a city of Austin address, but it basically borders Cedar Park and West Round Rock.
I can see why it would be confusing if you've never been here before. Things like price range, housing wants, and workplace location need to come into play because all the areas that you mentioned as well as many others throughout Austin will offer everything that you want with minor positives and negatives.
My husband and I are visiting in July and would like to narrow down neighborhoods to look at. I've become so overwhelmed researching and am looking for help.
From what I've gathered, Brushy Creek, Avery Ranch, and Round Rock are all nice areas to live.
Brushy, Avery (& 68 other neighborhood / areas) in Greater Austin are nice. RR is a large city (15 miles East to West). Some of RR is "nice", some is kind of nice & some is just OK.
However, after that it gets confusing to me. Are they all considered separate cities/towns? It seems like Avery Ranch is in Austin, but kids attend Round Rock school district?
Do not research by Zip or Towns. (It'll drive you nuts) Research by neighborhoods & HS feeders.
And within these areas, there seem to be a million communities/developments within each. On top of that, the posters on this site are very helpful, but rattle off zip codes like it's common knowledge...is this an Austin thing?
No. It's newbies (who are looking or who recently bought) who use zips. Zips are worthless since 3 zips might feed into the same Elementary or might split a neighborhood.
I guess I'm wondering- is there a specific map/chart that outlines these areas, their home communities/neighborhoods, and schools?
I'd go to the LISD, RRISD & AISD websites & print off the HS feeder maps (& then MS & ES maps if needed). Know these maps (know them cold), identify neighborhoods on those maps & do the same on regular Greater Austin metro travel maps. Many realtors are clueless on the Feeder patterns & the quality of the schools. You need to know this yourself.
What confuses everyone further is that the best schools in RRISD are in.....Austin. The best School in LISD is in.....Austin. The next best schools in LISD are in.....Cedar Park. You need to look at School Maps (& put Neighborhoods in them) & forget the zip & city that things are located in.
Also, can anyone help me understand the differences between the three communities I mentioned? Are there advantages in living in one over the other? They all appear nice, but are schools, property taxes, etc. things to consider? The only thing it seems is that Brushy Creek is more green, has more trees and trails...but I could be way off. Does one have better access to highways?
The fact that you are comparing those 3 areas suggest that you are off. Avery Ranch is a neighborhood. (or an area) Brushy Creek is an area. RR is a large city.
It's like asking if Alabama is better than Savannah? Or is Ft. Lauderdale better than California?
Round Rock is a town and Avery Ranch is a neighborhood. Brushy Creek is an actual creek and one of the developments near it is called Brushy Creek. Avery Ranch is in the town of Cedar Park. Maybe parts of it fall in Round Rock, not sure. The Brushy Creek you speak of is in Round Rock, I think. The creek itself runs from some point in Austin, down through Round Rock, Hutto and possibly Taylor. It may run through Pflugerville, but not sure.
Understandably, there is a lot of confusion because of the proximity of one neighborhood/town/school district to another.
In Texas, school districts are independent of cities or counties (hence the ISD or CISD (consolidated ISD) moniker). So, Avery Ranch, for example, has homes in both Round Rock ISD and Leander ISD. Mailing addresses for homes in Avery Ranch may be Austin, Cedar Park, or Round Rock. Clear as mud?
Brushy Creek is another neighborhood that may extend over multiple city/ISD/county boundaries.
I would start with the school districts' maps. TEA actually has a map system that's pretty helpful; you can search by school district and see the actual boundary, along with the neighboring districts. It will show each campus in each district, along with a small pop-up about the particular campus. Unfortunately, it's a little lacking in showing county or city boundaries overlaid with the school district. You can find the application at http://tea-texas.maps.arcgis.com/app...a7052fe13f505a
No. It's newbies (who are looking or who recently bought) who use zips. Zips are worthless since 3 zips might feed into the same Elementary or might split a neighborhood.
So I don't agree with this when it comes to searching in Avery Ranch specifically. If you search for 78717, you get all the listings in Avery Ranch along with a couple other nearby neighborhoods including Davis Springs. Realtors put Avery Ranch listings up under all types of different neighborhood names that are internal to Avery Ranch. For example, Avery Ranch Far West, etc. It's easy to just bring up some listings and not others if you do some type of Avery Ranch search, but when you search for 78717, you know that you're getting everything in Avery Ranch, plus not much else (and edit: I guess 78717 will bring up Highland Horizon too, which is probably a good thing for people to see that are looking at Avery Ranch because it attracts pretty much the same type of buyer).
It's a little more difficult for 78613 (Cedar Park), but if you just search for Ranch at Brushy Creek, you'll miss out on Woods of Brushy Creek listings. I agree that doing a search for all of 78613 can give you results all over the place. But, I stand by searching for all listings in 78717 if you're looking in Avery Ranch and then you can just look at the listing and see if they're LISD or RRISD.
Find a great realtor and start working with them now. It will save you a lot of headaches.
A "good" realtor is the key word, but very hard to find. Unfortunately, even though I picked out a good realtor in most areas when I recently bought my second home in this area a little over a year ago, I knew a lot more about which areas of the neighborhoods fed into which schools, etc. She knew what she was doing on the transaction side of things, but in this market you need to move quickly and I didn't want to waste my time looking at houses that didn't meet all of my criteria.
I think researching these things on your own and then verifying it with a realtor is always a good thing, but waiting even a couple hours for a realtor to answer a question over email or a phone call can cause you to lose out on a home in this crazy market my opinion. During my home search, I would normally get a Redfin alert for a home that was just listed which matched my search parameters. I would drive by it within the hour and determine if I wanted to view it. My realtor would normally notify me of the listing about an hour or so after I already drove by it and I would tell her that I already looked at it and either liked it or didn't like it. And I don't think she was a bad realtor, she still got me the information a few hours after it hit the MLS (she does have other clients), but an informed and proactive buyer can help himself get a house in this seller's market as sometimes putting a house under contract the very first day prevents others from looking at it and putting in competing offers.
For example, one piece of information that a realtor generally won't know off the top of their head unless they're very familiar with Avery Ranch is that the West side of Avery Ranch that feeds into LISD has a great Middle School in Stiles (they'll tell you that part), but what they won't tell you is that it's located way up North above 1431. Hopefully it will be rezoned one day, but at this point it hasn't happened. The LISD portions of Ranch at Brushy Creek is currently the same way. It's not a big deal to a lot of people, but it was a deal breaker for us.
Plus, a realtor based in these Northern suburbs probably won't be able to shift gears and provide the same type of information about an area like Circle C (I know I couldn't as I haven't been following that area for the past 9 years). That's when useful information can be gained from the posters here on City-Data familiar with SW Austin. But, I'm a spreadsheet, list, notes/pictures in your phone type of guy. If we viewed 3 homes the previous week, the realtor had no idea what color the tile was in the guest bathroom for home #1 if it wasn't part of the MLS listing. I always had this information in my phone from taking pictures while touring each home. You can have a good realtor and still be an organized and informed buyer. It only takes 2 minutes to look up each listing on wcad.org to get detailed property tax information as well. And I know a lot of buyers just want a realtor to handle all of this stuff, but I just can't put my 100% trust in even a good realtor to do that when I'm making the biggest purchase of my entire life.
So yes, as others have said, go to the Leander ISD and RRISD websites and find their zoning maps. They'll even list the streets. You can use www.greatschools.org as a general guide on the specific school. Then you can look up the address for any listings that you're interested in on wcad.org to get more detailed information about property taxes, about the lot, etc. I've found automated notifications from RedFin along with their smartphone GPS enabled app to be very valuable when driving through neighborhoods. www.austinhomesearch.com should be utilized for searches as well in addition to Redfin as it will generally be the most accurate, but don't trust the specific school listings. Look up the street on the LISD or RRISD website. If an area has been rezoned recently, the MLS listing could be outdated. Sometimes the information is left over from the last time the home was listed on the MLS and the listing agent doesn't know to correct it. Those are just some search tips that I've used over the past couple years.
We did the relocating and buying a house just about a year ago and I feel your pain. We ended up in Avery Ranch which by the way is all in Austin with zipcode 78717. Brushy Creek is the creek and there are a few neighborhoods nearby which are all next to Avery Ranch. They include Ranch at Brushy creek.. perhaps the newest, meadows of brushy creek, villages of brushy creek etc.. I think these are all in Cedar Park at least R@BC is in Cedar Park.. we almost bought a house there but it went under offer within a day before we could get here the next day. For us, we started off by figuring out where we needed to go i.e. work and we also thought about potential areas that with high level of confidence / probability that our next jobs will be near to. Hubby and I both work in tech and we figured NW tech areas and downtown covered 90%+ of the companies that we would possibly work for so we arrived that we wanted to be somewhere north of Mopac/183, then factored in schools, then factored in what we were willing to spend (not the mortgage we could get), Then started looking for a house. Arguably, there may well be good reasons to rent first but for us, we definitely didnt want to and it has worked out so far great for us.
yes, a good realtor is key and we loved ours and she knew a lot about the transaction piece and made sure we got the best deal for us but I had to do all my research about schools including preschools. We are in the LISD part of Avery Ranch and all the 3 schools are great but the middle school is a bit far out in Leander. for me, thats far.. but. .. we have ways to go before middle school and likely not be in the same house by then or may well be rezoned by then
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