Lago Vista is Getting Put on the Map!

A Houston developer has snapped up about 900 acres around Lake Travis with the intention of putting Lago Vista on the map for the next wave of Central Texas residential development!

Houston Developer Targets Site Near Lago Vista

Hines Interests LP, an international real estate firm, now owns 875 acres in Lago Vista between FM 1431 and Lake Travis. The plan is to eventually turn the pristine property into an upscale residential development, says Lago Vista City Manager Bill Angelo.

Hines closed on the land, purchased from a group of families in the Rogers Ranch Group, within the past four months for an undisclosed price.

Angelo says right now the land is outside the Lago Vista city limits, and Hines and city officials are talking about a development agreement that could include annexation. While a firm land-use plan is about six months away, Angelo says, the project is slated to have about 2,000 upscale homes.

"It's a beautiful piece of land," says Mark Sprague, a partner with Residential Strategies who's working with Hines on the project. "It's perfectly terraced for a builder."

Sprague says the move by Hines, as well as the completion of U.S. 183A, will open up Lago Vista to interest from developers looking to capitalize on lakefront property and proximity to Central Texas employment hubs.

The city has already seen a sharp increase in proposed residential and mixed-use projects in the last several years, says Klee Lee, administrator with the Lago Vista Economic Development Foundation. If the proposed developments currently before the city come to fruition, Lago Vista could see an additional 4,000 homes in the works in coming years, Lee says.

"I think we have a rise in development just like Leander and Cedar Park," she says. "As Austin expands ... there's nowhere else to go."

Sprague says the price tag on lakefront acreage has gone up dramatically in the last two to three years. While an acre on Lake Travis might have cost around $50,000 three years ago, Sprague says the same land, especially on the south side of the lake, can now run for $100,000 to $500,000.

Austin Business Journal – August 17, 2007 by Kate Harrington, ABJ Staff

Wanna Know What's Up?

Austin Home Prices Up 5.6 Percent; National Trend Down

The cost of Austin-area homes has increased 5.6 percent in the last 12 months as prices on the national stage dropped 1.5 percent, a report released Wednesday shows.

The median price for a home in the Austin-Round Rock metropolitan market stood at $186,600 at the end of the second quarter, up from $176,700 in the second quarter of 2006, according to the National Association of Realtors' quarterly housing report.

Austin is among the 97 U.S. metropolitan markets out of the 149 examined that saw increases in median existing-single family home prices in the last year. Nine of those markets had double-digit gains. However, prices fell in 50 markets-- another telltale sign that last year's rosy U.S. homebuilding landscape is no more. Prices in two of the 149 markets remained unchanged.

"Although home prices are relatively flat, more metro areas are showing price gains with general improvement since bottoming out in the fourth quarter of 2006," says Lawrence Yun, a senior economist with NAR. "Recent mortgage disruptions will hold back sales temporarily, but the fundamental momentum clearly suggests stabilizing price trends in many local markets."

The national median existing single-family home price was $223,800 in the second quarter, down from the second quarter of 2006 when the median price was $227,100. The median is a typical market price where half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less, but NAR points out that there has been a downward skew in the national comparison since sales have declined in many high-cost areas while rising in some lower cost markets.

"Since all real estate is local, this report on metro area home prices is more meaningful than our monthly data on national prices because metro areas are less subject to price distortion that can result from geographic changes in the composition of sales," says Yun.

Austin Business Journal, Thursday August 16, 2007