Lakeway Living

This $5.4 million Austin dream home comes with music studio and stable on sprawling 7 acres

Escape the hectic life of the city on this 7-acre private estate for sale in Lakeway. Built in 1975, and deemed "Listeners Hill," the modern/contemporary compound features a main home as well as three guest homes for expert entertaining options.

The true beauty of this estate is captured in its exquisite entertainment and leisure amenities.

Located at 16219 Flintrock Road, the 18,000-square-foot property includes nine bedrooms and eight-and-a-half baths; the single-story main-home has four bedrooms and three-and-a-half bathrooms. Guest quarters are ample and provide their own charm as evidenced by their names — there's the Garden Home (1,500 square feet), the Tree House (2,100 square feet) and the Thoughtful Home (500 square feet).

But the true beauty of this estate is captured in its exquisite entertainment and leisure amenities.

A spacious, 8,000-square-foot entertainment annex caters to the fitness enthusiast as well as the creatively minded guest. Not only will you find an exercise room/dance studio here, there's also a media room, art studio and state-of-the-art recording studio (complete with a control room and rehearsal space).

Given its sprawling acreage, Listeners Hill's offerings don't stop when you step outside. For the equestrian enthusiast, there is a five-stall stable on property with an accompanying riding arena. And for those who simply love the outdoors, there's a three-mile hike and bike trail (no need for Lady Bird Lake), as well as a beautiful pool with patios and a fireplace.

This stunning escape right outside of the city is available for $5,400,000 and listed through Turnquist Partners.

16219 Flintrock Road.

Photo courtesy of Turnquist Partners

16219 Flintrock Road.

unspecified

30 years or less

Austin makes new list of 10 easiest cities to pay off a mortgage

Photo by Johnson Johnson on Unsplash

Median interest rates for home loans in the Austin area stood at 6.5 percent in 2023, the report found.

Whether a homeowner's mortgage lasts for 15 or 30 years, paying off such a large debt can be an arduous process. But luckily for homeowners living in the Austin area, paying off a mortgage is much easier than it is in many other large metropolitan areas in the country, according to a new report by SmartAsset.

Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown ranked No. 10 in SmartAsset's new study analyzing the top 40 large U.S. metros where it's easiest to pay off a mortgage. Rankings were determined based on the principal and interest payments for conventional 30-year fixed rate mortgages issued in 2023, relative to the median income of new homeowners.

Leading the nation as the No. 1 easiest place to pay off a mortgage is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

According to the study's findings, the median property value of a home in the Austin metro is $505,000, while principal and interest payments amount to $2,549 per month. SmartAsset also determined that Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown had the lowest interest rates for new homeowners in 2023, at 6.5 percent. The median income of new homeowners (presumably by household rather than individually) comes out to $160,000 a year.

The report's single data source, detailed below, is the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for 2023. Although the City of Austin's Housing Department and Austin Housing Finance Corporation set the overall median income in 2024 at $126,000, this is for a general group that also includes non-homeowners.

Here's how the report broke down the rest of Austin's ranking:

Housing payments as a percent of gross pay: 19.1 percent
Median loan-to-value: 79.87 percent
Mortgage amount: $403,351
Number of conventional mortgages issued in 2023: 37,476

The report also reflects on the different life changes that can happen while paying off a house, such as starting a new job, starting a family, or even large economic events.

"After you qualify and buy the home, you could spend 30 years paying off your mortgage loan...So it’s important to have a strong emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses," the report's author wrote. "You may also decide to pay off your mortgage early, even when having the opportunity to invest those extra funds elsewhere."

Elsewhere in Texas, Houston-The Woodlands-Sugarland ranked as the No. 2 easiest metro for paying off a mortgage, followed by San Antonio-New Braunfels in No. 5. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ranked just outside the top 10 as No. 13.

The top 10 U.S. metros where mortgages are easiest to pay off are:

No. 1 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
No. 2 – Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, Texas
No. 3 – Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Michigan
No. 4 – Cleveland-Elyria, Ohio
No. 5 – San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas
No. 6 – St. Louis, Missouri-Illiniois
No. 7 – Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wisconsin
No. 8 – Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Delaware-Maryland
No. 9 – Cincinnati, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana
No. 10 – Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, Texas

The report used data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for 2023, where median loan sizes and median interest rates were used to determine the monthly principal and interest calculator with SmartAsset’s mortgage calculator. This monthly mortgage payment (which excluded PMI, property taxes, and home insurance) was then compared with the median incomes of new homeowners.

The full report and its methodology can be found on smartasset.com.

real estate reports smartasset rankings austin round rock georgetown