A first-time buyer recently gave us a very reasonable goal:

“We currently pay $1,200 in rent. If we buy, we would like to keep our monthly mortgage payment around $1,500.”

They hoped to find a single-family home south of Austin with enough land to park a trailer. One buyer had served in the military and expected to use a VA loan, possibly with no down payment.

Then a promising house appeared.

It was listed for $225,000 on approximately one acre with no HOA. The seller was even offering 2% of the purchase price toward the buyer’s closing costs.

At first glance, it sounded perfect.

But would the payment actually be $1,500?

The Home Price Is Only the Beginning

When people say “mortgage payment,” they may only be thinking about…

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When the Culture Can’t Afford the Real Estate

Valhalla has been at 710 Red River since 2010, and now the building has been sold to Gus’s Fried Chicken, leaving the venue with 60 days to figure out what comes next.

And directly across the street, another piece of Red River is on the market.

701–713 Red River, where Elysium and 13th Floor live today, is listed for $4.1 million and, according to the listing, hasn’t been offered for sale in 80 years. There is an extraordinary amount of Austin history packed into that little stretch of buildings, going all the way back to a Red River lined with antique shops, secondhand stores and strange little businesses that could somehow afford to exist right in the middle of town, long before those rooms…

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