Austin Real Estate Scene

In the location that used to Southpark Meadows where I saw lots of great concerts growing up is now becoming a new community of homes, apartments and retail shopping center for South Austin. 

Construction of the residential portion is about to kick off at the 1.6 million-square-foot shopping center being developed by Austin-based Endeavor Real Estate Group LLC at Interstate 35 and Slaughter Lane.

Lennar expects to start on preparations for streets, utilities and drainage for the first 121 lots in early June.

Construction on the homes would start about six months later, with the first buyers expected to move in by April or May of 2008, Mattox said.

Prices are estimated to range from $280,000 to $350,000, which is in the midrange of Lennar’s price scale. The company builds about 2,000 homes a year in Central Texas, priced from $100,000 entry-level homes to $500,000 homes on 2-acre sites.

A second phase, and possibly a third, would add about 260 homes with similar price ranges, Mattox said.

Mattox said the first phase will take about a year and a half to complete; the first homes in the second phase would be ready by late 2009.

Lennar typically builds in suburban areas, Mattox said. But Southpark Meadows, he said, affords “a rare opportunity for the company to be involved with a mixed-use project of this magnitude,” in a location closer to downtown.

This allure to South Austin is in part of it’s close proximity to downtown Austin. But also because the land prices are reasonable in this area of Travis County. Housing starts in this area of Southern Travis County are very robust according to Eldon Rude, director of the Austin office of Metrostudy, which tracks new home construction in the Austin market. This was the area where homebuyers could find an ample supply of homes under $200,000. But since 2006 that trend is changing as home prices are steadily going up.

More than 1,300 homes, condos and townhomes were started in 2006, representing nearly 8 percent of the total home starts in the region.

New home prices in southern Travis County have been increasing sharply in recent years because of its proximity to Central Austin and the tight supply of lots ready to build on, Rude said.

In 2005, 45 percent of home starts were priced below $200,000, Rude said. By the end of 2006, only 22 percent of starts were priced below that amount, he said.

Southern Travis County also has the tightest market for developed lots in the area, with less than a 12-month supply compared with a 17-month supply overall as of late 2006.

- Source: Austin American Statesman