Neighborhoods are a Changin'

[Eastcoasting]

Holy hell folks...there are 4 of us and while we dine out probably 2-3 times a week all other meals we prepare at home. We go pretty light on anything processed so most cooking is from scratch which can equate to running the dishwasher twice in a day on occasion.

With the exception of a few pieces of tableware picked up in far-off lands and some of the better cutlery if it can't be tossed into a dishwasher it doesn't belong in my kitchen!

[ATX Wahine]

I hear ya, Eastcoasting! There's only two of us in our house and the dishwasher still gets run every night - heavy, regular, or light load as needed. Even my heavy-as-hell Le Crueset pots and wooden cutting boards (which eventually delaminate as a result) go into the dishwasher. All of it except fancy stemware, which we rarely use anyway because we have big beefy Mexican wine glasses that get thrown in the DW, too. Better living through modern appliances!

[Trainwreck20]

And to be fair, a dishwasher uses a lot less water than doing it by hand .

[gpurcell]

Originally Posted by austin-steve

Many of the original homes are worth zero now. The entire value of the property is in the land/lot.

For an owner/occupant who wants to stay put, and make it their "forever home", it can make sense to update/remodel, but once the lot value crosses an inflection point (about $300K +/- in central Austin), the neighborhood will support homes in the $600K-$1M+ range, and thus the "highest and best use" becomes a teardown/rebuilt.

Yeah, we had to make this calculation as well; have an old 2/1 from the early 1900s. Decided since it had good bones and floorplan to go the addition way and move it from 2/1 1100 to 3/2 2100. If the original house hadn't been really solid we could easily have gone the other way; would have been easier for sure but probably about break even on overall cost.

[Denver303TJC]

However, I drove through Windsor Park (near Cameron and Corona) and I liked that area. I liked how it was a lot of 1950s (?) ranch homes and the area seemed to have character to it. :-)

[eirenecat]

We have a house in Windsor Park and it's a cool neighborhood, but my husband was burglarized repeatedly there. (He moved out in 2013 to move into my former house in Quail Creek, which was never broken into despite it's proximity to Lamar/Rundberg.) We even got robbed as we were in the process of moving out!

Now there's the awesome Mueller HEB and the Alamo there and the rejuvenated park--when Mr Eirenecat lived there the only nice thing in the area was Paco's Tacos and the brunch at the Nomad.

[petro]

Originally Posted by eirenecat

We have a house in Windsor Park and it's a cool neighborhood, but my husband was burglarized repeatedly there. (He moved out in 2013 to move into my former house in Quail Creek, which was never broken into despite it's proximity to Lamar/Rundberg.) We even got robbed as we were in the process of moving out!

Now there's the awesome Mueller HEB and the Alamo there and the rejuvenated park--when Mr Eirenecat lived there the only nice thing in the area was Paco's Tacos and the brunch at the Nomad.

I know several people who live in Windsor Park and they've all been burglarized. It's a cute neighborhood, but I'd definitely have a good alarm system and some cameras if I lived here.

[Denver303TJC]

Eek, I had no idea about that aspect of Windsor Park, I just drove through. Ok, X that place off the list, lol.

Agreed that the area around the Mueller HEB seems like a neat little area. :-)

[extremelyonlineguy]

When I lived in Windsor Park we never had the house burglarized, but had our cars broken into multiple times. And this is when they were parked up under the carport, not out on the street. We were renters at the time and had crappy/old cars, too. A lot of the houses in this neighborhood are great, but there is a seedy element for sure.

[Denver303TJC]

Originally Posted by extremelyonlineguy

When I lived in Windsor Park we never had the house burglarized, but had our cars broken into multiple times. And this is when they were parked up under the carport, not out on the street. We were renters at the time and had crappy/old cars, too. A lot of the houses in this neighborhood are great, but there is a seedy element for sure.

that sucks! Reminds me of when I lived in Greeley, CO for a year while I attended UNC before transferring to another college; Never had to worry about break-ins, but at times you'd see broken car windows in the area (including my own once).

Disclaimer: West Greeley was decent, but near the university was fairly scuzzy. Maybe they've given the area near the university a facelift since then..