Austin Real Estate Blog

Austin Volunteering to Give Back

Volunteering, the practice of working for a community or the environment because you choose so and usually without payment, is one of the best ways to give back to a city, neighborhood, state or planet that gives you so much everyday.  Volunteering comes in many forms from building a house for a family looking for a new start and serving food at a shelter to donating your time and services for a charity to just spending some quality time with another person.

Volunteering is an Austin Pastime

Aside from all the activities that you will find in Austin, it seems that volunteering is quickly becoming one of the most popular.  According to an article in the Austin Business Journal, a report from the Corporation for National and Community Service shows that Austin is ranked fifth in most active U.S. cities in volunteerism.  The report states that 35 percent of Austinites donate their valuable time helping others.

Volunteering in Numbers

To put all of this into perspective, volunteers that call Austin home donate approximately 56.6 million hours of their time per year; which equates to an estimated $1.1 billion economic impact.

Now that’s a lot of Volunteering.

Volunteering Opportunities

If you are interested in joining the craze and volunteering in and around Austin, you won’t have to look very far to find a worthy cause.  You will find every area of interest that you can imagine for volunteering in Austin.  You can mentor a child, work towards keeping Austin’s parks and springs in tip-top shape, or build a home for an Austin family in need.  You can even volunteer your time and energy to “Keep Austin Weird.”

Volunteering to Help

Now if you are interested in first finding a home in Austin so that you can start giving back; we can help you there as well.  Give us a call at Home to Austin and we will help you find the right house in the right neighborhood.  Once you get settled in, get out there and start joining one of the favorite Austin pastimes … Volunteering!

Austin Job Market Tops in Great Places for Recent Grads

Recent Grad? Looking for the perfect place to make your home now that you are on your own? Well if you just happened to see the “Best Cities for Recent College Grads” list on Forbes.com, then you already know that Austin, Texas grabbed the number three spot on that list. We were right behind our other favorite Texas cities, Houston and Dallas. We’re guessing that the Lone Star State is looking pretty good to a lot of people right now.

Recent Grads: Plenty of Reasons to Love Austin

Austin was ranked number three on the recent grad best cities for several reasons. According to the article, not only is the average starting salary in the upper $30’s, but we also have a labor force that tends to weather recessions well. This is in part to two of our largest employers the state government and the University of Texas. There also is a major tech presence in Austin with companies like Advanced Micro Devices, Dell, Intel and 3M having headquarters or major offices here. The last reason the article gives for why Austin ranked third is that the percentage of people in their 20’s that reside in Texas’ capital city is 26. So you aren’t going to feel like the youngest person in your neighborhood.

Recent Grads Won’t be Bored in Austin

Aside from the reasons listed in the Forbes article, we think that are plenty of other reasons that make Austin a great place to call home for recent grads.

There is all the music and nightlife. Austin has more music venues and watering holes just in their downtown area than most cities have in their entire city limits. There are also a ton of great parks and lakes in the middle of and throughout the city. Finally, you can’t beat the weather. Sure it gets hot for a few months during the summer, but with an average of 231 sunny days per year you definitely aren’t going to complain.

Recession Proof Austin

According to Forbes magazine, Austin is ranked #3 in recession proof cities; right behind San Antonio (#2) and Oklahoma City (#1). The reason for the high ranking is because of low unemployment and affordable housing costs. Unemployment in Austin, Texas is 3.6% percent down from 3.8% at this time last year and the median price of a home is still under $200,000 in most areas of Austin.

Recession Proof Austin is the Place to Buy

Austin was ranked by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the top places to buy a home. Reporter Danielle Babb based her decision on the fact that Austin and Round Rock have seen incredible job growth and stable home prices even though most of the country is in a downturn. She also cited that jobs are continuing to grow here, which is a strong factor for keeping prices stable and inventory low.

Other cities that were on the list were Mission Viejo, California, Palm Beach, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada. Palm Beach and Las Vegas were citied because of their number of foreclosure homes in 2007 making their market on the low cost end moving back up.

Recession Proof isn’t Only Reason Austin’s Great

Austin is a great city to live in with everything that is has to offer: live music venues, top notch festivals, hike and bike trails galore, rock-climbing, lake living, great shopping and great food. Within the city limits itself, you have several parks and lakes such as; Lady Bird Lake (also known as Town Lake), Lake Austin, Barton Springs Pool, Barton Creek Greenbelt, and Zilker Park.

Many celebrities and world-class athletes have made Austin their home because of the laid-back and welcoming atmosphere of the residents and because of the plethora of outdoors and athletic activities that this community supports with fervor.

A teenager in Canada has discovered a method to degrade plastic bags in three months using a bacterial cocktail. This discovery would be a great opportunity showcase a new “green” technology and reduce the volume of plastics going to landfill. We all know that Austin loves pub from being green. The technology appears to be fairly simple and inexpensive to implement - the kid did the experiments in his garage. There might be a fairly good payback on the investment.

Although the technology is probably years from reality, it would allow the fine residents of Austin to keep their choice for paper or plastic, and it would keep Austinites (and their sales tax revenue) shopping in Austin rather than shopping in the burbs for the choice, no offense to burbs intended.

Austin’s Mayor, Will Wynn, has introduced the Austin Climate Protection Plan. The plan contains provisions to make Austin one the greenest cities in the US. However, part of the plan is raising eyebrows with Austin homeowners.

When a home is resold, an energy-efficiency inspection will be required to ensure the home meets minimal green standards. The improvements must be completed and a certificate of compliance must be obtained prior to closing.

Mayor Wynn explained, “We’re not talking about requiring a comprehensive retrofit. What we’re looking at are the top four or five things with the lowest cost and highest return. Things like ceiling insulation, weather stripping, duct sealing, and solar screens.”

In older homes, improvements could add as much as $10K to the cost of the home. In addition, these requirements could significantly complicate and delay closing. Being green shouldn’t cost so much green!

Perhaps the Austin city council should reconsider the “green inspection” and enhance current incentive based programs such as Austin Energy’s and Austin WashWise Rebate Program.

RodeoHouston Is Here!

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo — aka RodeoHouston — is right around the corner, so it’s time to start planning! This annual celebration of agriculture, education, cowboy boots, the open range, and Western heritage in general will take place March 3rd through the 22nd at Houston’s Reliant Park, the home of the Houston Texans football team and just three hours from Austin and our beautiful Austin homes.

As usual, the Houston Livestock Show brings with it a star-studded cast of country music stars and entertainment luminaries. This year, the cast includes Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Alan Jackson, John Legend, Martina McBride, John Fogerty, Toby Keith, Fergie and Brooks & Dunn. And yes, the Houston Livestock Show lineup is so dense with talent that we’re not listing everyone in the full RodeoHouston lineup!

Teen Dominates the Houston Livestock Show

Arguably, though, the true headliner of the 2008 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a one-girl, two-personality entity known to thousands of screaming teens as Hannah Montana. The singer/actress who plays Montana, Miley Cyrus, will be performing a split set at the Houston Livestock Show, half Montana songs and half her own. Last year, Cyrus opened for the Cheetah Girls, set records for fastest sellout, biggest crowd, and most frantic scalper activity. All for a half-hour-long Houston Livestock Show performance that suffered technical problems thanks to a faulty lug nut at Reliant Stadium.

The third-largest festival in North America, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a world-renowned phenomenon that brings some 1,800,000 attendees, 1,800 foreign visitors, and almost $345 million to Houston. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is also the world’s largest livestock show and a charity that has historically sent more than $200 million to scholarships, research, youth programs, and young participants.

Living in Austin exposes you to a wealth of great diversions and attractions like the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. If you don’t already live in Austin, why don’t you search for an Austin home at our easy-to-use website?

The City of Austin Green Building Program offers a Green by Design Workshop to assist Austinites to improve the energy and water efficiency of new home construction, home remodeling, and landscape projects. The $35, one-day workshop is offered 4 times per year and is taught by Austin Green Building Program experts in the fields of design, building, engineering, and landscaping. The Austin Green by Design Workshop will cover topics such as selecting a green builder or green contractor, selecting a green building site, reducing utility bills, selecting green building materials, selecting green home appliances, and selecting native Texas landscaping that requires less water and maintenance.

Check the Austin Green Building Program website for details about upcoming workshops.

Austin’s Kwik-E-Mart: Go to Dallas for Your Fix

Yes, that’s right, Simpsons fans, your Austin Kwik-E-Mart has be taken by Dallas in what amounts to be the coup of the century - thank you, come again! To enjoy the Simpson pleasures such as Squishees, Buzz Cola, or KrustyO’s (sorry, no Duff Beer yet), you must make the long trip to Big D. At least there’s one in Texas…

To promote the new Simpsons movie, 7-Eleven has retrofitted 12 stores across North America to approximate the fictional Kwik-E-Mart stores from Fox’s Animated Series The Simpsons. From our sources, lines at the Dallas location were out the door this week.

Here’s something you might not know, Austin: appliances use energy even when they are turned off. Austin energy reports that appliances such as color televisions, video tape players and computers draw as much as 10 watts of electricity even when off. That amounts to 7 kilowatt hours per month for each appliance.

Also sucking down energy any time they are plugged into the wall are AC adapters that use transformers, commonly referred to as wall warts. These are the chargers for your cell phones and ipod chargers. Unplugging these unsightly devices, and unplugging appliances you are not using can lead to a lower utility bill and a greener Austin.

The Corporation for National and Community Service has produced a study, Volunteering in America: 2007 City Trends and Rankings, that ranked Austin 3rd behind only Minneapolis-St. Paul and Salt Lake City for large communities with the highest rates of volunteering. The study found that cities with high volunteer rates also have lower crime, higher employment, better education, and a better quality of life. The study also found that home owners with a vested interest in the community are more likely to volunteer to improve the quality of their communities.

It’s a good feeling to see Austin community service getting recognized. Wherever you live, you should consider volunteering to help build the quality of your city or town. For more information, check out the CNS press release.