Area recommendation? Work on East side but live in the North? (San Antonio: 2014, house)

[yaanyang]

Originally Posted by riaelise

Actually that area of pflugerville is very nice and increasing in value year over year. There’s lots of retail options nearby, including torchys, Costco, aldi...low crime and good schools.

You don’t need to use the toll road everywhere. We live just north of that area in round rock and we only use it to go to work.

Property taxes are high yes but purchase prices are lower. For 400k (base without options) you’d get a new home with amenities. Our friend paid more for his Blackhawk home but it’s very nice and loaded with lots of options.

Since you’re already on the east side pflugerville shouldn’t be written off your list in my opinion

You are right we do like where we are now, but I hate the missing part of SH-45 frontage road between Wilke Ln and Louis Henna Blvd.

[yaanyang]

Originally Posted by ashbeeigh

Keep an eye on 'em and move fast if that's an area you like. I subscribe to a "secret market" e-mail just because I love the area and they go within 2 weeks usually. But, if a house is nice, it'll go super fast no matter what in Austin. My parents are trying to move to San Marcos from San Antonio and my father is very non-chalant about his search and I keep pressing him to move on things the second he sees them and he's missed out on a lot of great properties for that reason.

Is this "secret market" email only for Mueller or other areas? 4 beds houses in Mueller are listed at 700K+ now, it might be hard to justify to my wife why to spent that much more...

[ashbeeigh]

Originally Posted by yaanyang

Is this "secret market" email only for Mueller or other areas? 4 beds houses in Mueller are listed at 700K+ now, it might be hard to justify to my wife why to spent that much more...

It's the "Mueller Secret market." So, I assume no.

[srick123]

Pearson Place has quite a few new homes currently being built. Heritage Oaks @ Pearson Place is charging a big premium though. Base price for the lowest end house stands at around 650K and add 30k for land premium on top of that and with upgrades you might end up with around 750 (just for the lowest sq ft floor plan).

There might be some (one or two) relatively new built (post 2015) homes popping up now and then in Pearson Place around 550K - 650K range. You can consider those. Main advantage of that community is proximity to Pre-school (Goddard), Elementary (Elsa England) and Middle School (Pearson Ranch). Most likely a future high school to be built there as well. Depending on where the house is located inside the community, you could literally walk to all these schools.. You can get to Mopac or 183 within 3 to 5 minutes minutes.

If you couldn't find homes in Pearson place, you can find relatively newer (post 2005) built homes in Morning side of Avery ranch for 400K - 500K.

[yaanyang]

Originally Posted by srick123

Pearson Place has quite a few new homes currently being built. Heritage Oaks @ Pearson Place is charging a big premium though. Base price for the lowest end house stands at around 650K and add 30k for land premium on top of that and with upgrades you might end up with around 750 (just for the lowest sq ft floor plan).

There might be some (one or two) relatively new built (post 2015) homes popping up now and then in Pearson Place around 550K - 650K range. You can consider those. Main advantage of that community is proximity to Pre-school (Goddard), Elementary (Elsa England) and Middle School (Pearson Ranch). Most likely a future high school to be built there as well. Depending on where the house is located inside the community, you could literally walk to all these schools.. You can get to Mopac or 183 within 3 to 5 minutes minutes.

If you couldn't find homes in Pearson place, you can find relatively newer (post 2005) built homes in Morning side of Avery ranch for 400K - 500K.

Thanks!
Heritage Oaks is way out of our budget. Cost to build easily exceeds 800K except for the smallest floor plan. We don't really understand why the mid-range priced new home communities are missing in the area with Presidio Station/Parmer Crossing being around 350-500K and Heritage Oaks being over 700K. Where are the 500-700K ones??

[Aquitaine]

The reference may to the 'Mueller Silent Market' which is just one realtor's pre/non-MLS listings for properties here because she's been here forever.

I think if you spend ten minutes in Mueller versus Avery Ranch, you will know pretty quickly which you prefer. Your dollar will go a LOT farther in Avery Ranch and your schools will probably (though not certainly) be better, at least compared to Mueller East of Berkman. "Old Mueller" (west of Berkman) has better schools though the picture for middle school is up in the air with the new school going in off Zach Scott.

You can get a 4BR in Mueller for $650 but it will be a resale or else on the small side and you will be living on a tiny lot. For us that's perfect because we came from NYC so it's still 'wow look at this big yard!'

[riaelise]

Originally Posted by yaanyang

You are right we do like where we are now, but I hate the missing part of SH-45 frontage road between Wilke Ln and Louis Henna Blvd.

Yea, it sucks. It's because of greedy TxDOT. Pflugerville and Round Rock are trying to fix that problem but I'm not sure how far they'll go. TxDOT doesn't want to lose the revenue, which is what's gonna happen once that connection is built.

Pflugerville also landed an Amazon warehouse. I really see nothing but good things to come for that city. I lived there for over ten years and it's amazing how it (and Round Rock) has grown.

The biggest factor that you should consider is price. Why pay 600k to live further WEST when your employer is on the east side of town? Your commute is only 25 minutes, consider yourself lucky. Pflugerville is closer in to that part of town than Round Rock, Cedar Park, or Lakeline area. If you worked on the west side of Austin, I'd say yes, definitely check out those areas.

You'd be getting nearly identical amenities and builders in Pflugerville. Yes, that same home that's 600k would be 450k in Pflugerville. The only thing that sucks is Pflugerville remains car - bound, doesn't have mass transit (rail and bus).

[riaelise]

Originally Posted by yaanyang

Thanks!
Heritage Oaks is way out of our budget. Cost to build easily exceeds 800K except for the smallest floor plan. We don't really understand why the mid-range priced new home communities are missing in the area with Presidio Station/Parmer Crossing being around 350-500K and Heritage Oaks being over 700K. Where are the 500-700K ones??

To me, it's a travesty paying 650k for a Pulte :/

The only reason I surmise is that it's close to the metrorail. There's other places that feed into good schools and such and aren't that expensive.

Does it really have to be a new build?

My home is awesome and the neighborhood is awesome but it's thirty years old. There's good and bad, but the good has outweighed the bad. I just don't like the new builds these days, unless they are custom.

[srick123]

Originally Posted by riaelise

To me, it's a travesty paying 650k for a Pulte :/

The only reason I surmise is that it's close to the metrorail. There's other places that feed into good schools and such and aren't that expensive.

Yes you are right. Pulte used to be mid to low price range builder. Not sure how good their build quality is. They are building huge homes in Heritage Oaks.
I would rather pay 550 to 650 K in the older section of Pearson place which had far more better builders than paying 800k for pulte. But the builder quality is determined by the contractors they use, so I believe we might not be able to generalize either. Personally I would go with older section of Pearson place. There are few homes in Pearson place built between 2012 to 2014 which were also built by Pulte. The price point at that time was between 300k - 400k

[yaanyang]

Originally Posted by riaelise

To me, it's a travesty paying 650k for a Pulte :/

The only reason I surmise is that it's close to the metrorail. There's other places that feed into good schools and such and aren't that expensive.

Does it really have to be a new build?

My home is awesome and the neighborhood is awesome but it's thirty years old. There's good and bad, but the good has outweighed the bad. I just don't like the new builds these days, unless they are custom.

No it doesn't have to be new build. But relatively newer houses usually have more airy/open floor plans we like.