Avery Ranch Granite Shoals??? (Austin, Cedar Park: for sale, apartment, HOA)

[akslp2080]

Hi,
I wanted to ask you guys about the avery ranch Glenfield houses by DR Horton. The schools nearby have a great school rating of 7,9,8 which is good and there is a good community nearby for golf, swimming etc. I am curious as to why their prices are on the lower side compare to other communites. I mean a 2700sq ft houses cost about 321K. That is less according to the austin standards.

Link - Find New Homes For Sale in Leander Texas | D.R. Horton

Can anyone shed some light on the community and any cons of living there which I may have missed.

[janineg]

It looks like it feeds to very good schools: Rutledge, Stiles, and Vista Ridge. The prices "starting at" usually get inflated, don't they? I have never bought a new house myself. I'm guessing that the houses may be close together with small yards, too.

[10scoachrick]

The new Granite Shoals DRHorton homes are on tiny lots...not that there's anything wrong with that

With the exception of a few houses with three-bay garages, the 'standard' garage in that 'hood is as small as they can be and still qualify as two-car spaces. The driveway approach to most of the garages is also quite short, as one can imagine with the tiny lots.

I'm afraid the term "cookie cutter" truly applies to this section...virtually identical stone facades, I'm sad to say...again, nothing 'wrong' with that...except these are SFHs, not condos.

It does look like the per sq ft 'value' comes in the larger floorplans...no surprise there...but there is quite a premium on the sub-2000ft homes.

The neighborhood has fantastic access to 183/183A...as in REALLY close. Some folks will like that, I'm sure.

The neighborhood does get you into the Avery Ranch HOA and access to 5 pools, if that's important. The golf course is quite nice; but is essentially a daily fee course with memberships open to anyone. I don't believe there is a "con" to living here as long as one is comfy with the HOA regs. I'm happy to have been here for almost 8 years. The fact that Avery Ranch has almost 4000 homes is impressive; but virtually immaterial to daily life here. You could enter Granite Shoals from 183 and never be aware of the other 3999 homes in the subdivision . It's four miles from that entry to the far east side of the "Ranch".

BTW...that web page is pretty screwy, starting with the "New home in Leander" heading. We have a whole city of Cedar Park separating us from Leander

Also, Glenfield has been built out for nearly two years...the newest construction is in Granite Shoals...across the Blvd. Oddly, Granite Shoals has some homes around 10 years old. Somewhat odd that this last section was 'assigned' the Granite Shoals moniker. They are still using the sales office in the Glenfield neighborhood, even though all the new construction is in Granite Shoals.

If you decide to buy there, have some more trees planted NOW...those two little developer trees in the front yard aren't going to be much help when the summer sun arrives

[Leaving Arizona]

Originally Posted by 10scoachrick

The neighborhood has fantastic access to 183/183A...as in REALLY close. Some folks will like that, I'm sure.

And a rail line runs right through the area, too. I believe that it's a Metro Rail line/spur, not freight, but still... if that's something that might bother OP, OP needs to consider that.

(side note: I seem to remember reading in another thread here that the newer developments west of Parmer do NOT receive access to AR amenities - or was I hallucinating?)

For the money, go somewhere else where you can sneeze and your neighbor doesn't say gesundheit through the walls. This area's like what's being slapped into Mayfield Ranch, Pearson Ranch, and other places - and we ran, fast. Crappy, crammed in construction. No thanks.

[10scoachrick]

Originally Posted by Leaving Arizona

And a rail line runs right through the area, too. I believe that it's a Metro Rail line/spur, not freight, but still... if that's something that might bother OP, OP needs to consider that.

(side note: I seem to remember reading in another thread here that the newer developments west of Parmer do NOT receive access to AR amenities - or was I hallucinating?)

For the money, go somewhere else where you can sneeze and your neighbor doesn't say gesundheit through the walls. This area's like what's being slapped into Mayfield Ranch, Pearson Ranch, and other places - and we ran, fast. Crappy, crammed in construction. No thanks.

It IS close to the rail line(yes, freight, if you consider hundreds of cars filled with granite freight); but not as close as a few hundred AR homes that have been there for a decade or so. Certainly something to consider; but many, many AR homes are much closer and it would take a significant downturn to hurt the value on those.

It may have been Northwoods ("...at Avery Ranch") that is not included in the AR HOA...since it's NOT part of Avery Ranch, the subdivision. I'm 99% sure a final rec area/pool is going in somewhere in this last section...stay tuned. New Granite Shoals folks will have access to all AR amenities, same as the other AR residents.

While the 'crammed in' lot size will be a detriment to some, it's just fine with others who don't care to maintain a larger yard or to those who are coming from an apartment or condo or row house situation. All sorts of buyers out there.

[woodinvilleguy]

I used to own a house in the Highlands part of Avery Ranch which is similiar sized lots to Granite Shoals. IMHO, they are nice starter homes and pretty nice. There is certainly are no frills houses but you have access to good schools and ammenities. If I was going to move into Avery again, I would look at a resale home in the original Granite Shoals sections. The more money you have the more East in Avery you can go.