Private property

Exclusive 27-acre Austin estate near Barton Creek flows onto market

The 27-acre property is anchored by a three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom, Mediterranean-style home

Photo courtesy of Austin Portfolio Real Estate

Sprawling ranches are practically as common in Texas as places that serve chips and queso, brisket, or margaritas. It’s uncommon, however, to come across a sizable residential property within the boundaries of a big city.

Now, one of the largest residential estates in Austin is on the market — a nearly 27-acre site anchored by a 3,842-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom, Mediterranean-style home. The property is at 9209 Scenic Bluff Dr., north of the Barton Creek Habitat Reserve and near Bee Caves Road and Creeks Edge Parkway.

Eric Copper of Austin Portfolio Real Estate has the listing, whose asking price is available only by request. When the property was on the market in 2018, it was listed at $5.5 million.

In a recent LinkedIn post, Copper proclaimed that he wasn’t “bluffing when I say this is one of the most unique and exclusive estates you’ll come across in the Austin area.”

Copper says the Scenic Bluff property is well suited for a family compound or a retreat, and feed into the Eanes Independent School District. The land also could be divided into parcels for future development, he says, and boasts plenty of room for a helipad

Instead of focusing on the interior of the home, a marketing video for the secluded estate highlights bluebonnets, plentiful trees, unpaved roads, and wide-open spaces.

Public records show Roy and Eva Strasburger own the nearly 27-acre estate. Roy Strasburger is president and CEO of StrasGlobal, a Temple-based company that provides management and consulting services for convenience stores, quick-service restaurants, car washes, oil-change shops, and coffee and food-to-go stores. Eva Strasburger is the company’s director of strategy.

home-for-sale

LAND OF MANY HIGH RISES

Austin's apartment construction rate is the highest in the nation, says new report

Photo by Cosmic Timetraveler on Unsplash

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If you think new apartment buildings have been popping up nonstop all around the city within the last couple of years, you’d be right. The Austin-Round Rock metro area is experiencing one of the biggest apartment construction booms in the nation, in an effort to alleviate an ongoing affordability crisis.

But while increasing multi-family housing is solving part of the problem, long term it keeps homeownership out of arm’s reach for younger Americans. That’s according to a new report from apartment rental “matchmaker” and marketplace Apartment List.

Austin has spent decades building more housing for its residents, and 2022 saw the highest number – 18.3 – of new unit permits being issued per thousand residents. Austin’s rate is three times larger than the average rate in 50 of the largest American metros.

The top five cities that had highest number of new unit permits issued per 1,000 residents in 2022 include:

No. 1 – Austin (18.3)
No. 2 – Raleigh, North Carolina (14.9)
No. 3 – Jacksonville (14.1)
No. 4 – Orlando (10.7)
No. 5 – Houston (10.5)

In Apartment List’s comparison charts, 2021 saw the biggest-ever leap in Austin-Round Rock area housing units permitted for the year, with 24,000 single-family permits and 26,000 multi-family permits issued.

2022 saw a dramatic decrease in both housing options with 3,000 less multi-family permits being issued for the year, and 4,000 less single-family home permits.

Furthermore, a majority of those housing permits issued last year were not in the city, but in the surrounding area. Only 43 percent of 2022’s housing unit permits were issued in Austin proper, which is a six percent increase over 2021. This spells out the struggle for affordability the inner city has experienced in recent years.

The year that had the most housing permits issued in Austin proper versus the surrounding area was 2013, at 57 percent. Those percentages have dwindled into the 40s since then, with 2021 being the lowest in the last decade.

Austin’s apartment construction boom has not shown signs of slowing, even with concerns about single-family home buying, according to the report. The city has topped the per-capita permit activity ranks for six consecutive years, and has never been outside the top three since 2006.

The full report can be found on apartmentlist.com.

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