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$579,000 Austin, TX
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$980,000 Los Angeles, CA
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Austin, TX Webinar
Everything you need to know about Austin, TX real estate
Webinar originally recorded for LeavingTheBayArea.com
FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPTION:
Jeremy, how you doin', today?
- Good, fantastic, thanks for having me.
- You bet. Okay, so first of all, wanna welcome everybody to this edition of the "Market Insider" series sponsored by leavingthebayarea.com. My name is Scott Fuller. And if it's the first time you joined us today, every week, we travel the country to see some of the more popular destinations that people are looking to move to from the Bay Area and California as a whole. And today, I'm super excited. We're going south. We are heading to Austin, Texas, the Live Music Capital of the World. Jeremy, so I asked you a few minutes ago, "Is it still called that?" And you said that you might still be a close contender for number one.
- Yeah, we're up there still. There's a lot of great live music. Nashville is definitely taking its spot. What's funny is they just did a promo on not moving to Nashville but moving to Austin instead, which was hilarious. Find that video. It was great.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- Awesome. So there's a little competition, it sounds like, for that title.
- There is, yeah.
- Excellent. Okay, so first of all, wanna let you guys know, if it's the first time you've been on one of our webinars, we are doing this live. We're gonna be puttin' out opportunity to ask questions. So if you have any questions for our guest today, Jeremy, feel free to raise that hand, push that little button on there, and ask any questions that you'd like. And we'll also shoot out a couple of polls during this just to make sure we're kind of covering the content that everybody is interested in hearing about. So Jeremy, tell me a little bit about yourself. Jeremy Knight with eXp Realty, tell me a little bit about yourself and your background in Austin.
- Well, thank you, yes. We're a husband-wife real estate team. We started about six years ago in the Austin market. Since then, we've grown to be one of the Platinum Top 50 agents in Austin. It's a yearly award that's given out. We have eight designations in total including luxury, seller, buyer representatives, and negotiation experts. So we generally help about 70-plus families a year, my wife and I. And about 25 of those are inbound buyers from, actually, more than 25 of those are inbound buyers from all over the world. So we really enjoy helping people from all over.
- That's awesome. And so we were talkin' a little bit earlier about where you're seeing people come into. I know you guys helped at least a couple of dozen buyers just this year--
- Just this year.
- Come into the Austin area. Where are you seeing people come from, typically?
- California's up there. I would say number one and two is gonna be Dallas and Houston. Number three, we're seeing a lot of people from the East Coast, New York, Connecticut. And then number four, traditionally, the last three years, they've all ranked this way, California's number four. We personally help a lot of people from the Bay Area, San Diego, LA, Central Valley, so we have a lot of people from California.
- Yeah.
- I'm a California transplant myself. I moved here from San Diego but lived and grew up in Central California in Fresno.
- Got it, okay. So it sounds like a lot of people are coming to Austin because they're either trying to escape the cost of living, which is a lot of California, or maybe they're escaping the weather and the cost of living, which would be the Northeast, right?
- Right, right. It's kinda hard to escape the weather in San Diego, but I understand it.
- You made it happen. It sounds it worked out pretty well.
- Yeah.
- Awesome. So take us through, I think, one of the most important things that people are interested in hearing about is if you're planning a move to Austin, what can you expect to get for the price point? So let's say I'm selling my house, I've got a fair amount of equity that I built up over a period of time, wanna take a look at Austin and see how far my dollar's gonna go. So take us into that on some of the more popular areas that people are moving to in Austin. Obviously, it's a huge city. But then also, what can you get for what price?
- Right so there's, I'm gonna pop up the map of Austin here for ya. So there's price points for everyone. That's a great thing about Austin in general. There's price points from as low as 150 all the way up to the three, four, $10 million range. So it really just depends on kinda the price point you wanna be in. We help a lot of buyers really in all ranges. So the 250 price point right now, depending on where you're going, is a challenging price point just because there's a lot of buyers in that pool. If you're a move up and you're in the four to 600 range, depending on where you're going, it's a little bit lighter. And then if you're going higher than that price point, it can be a challenge, because really not a whole lot of inventory. It's out there, we're helping people find it. But really, the great thing about Austin, depending on where you're going, there's price points for everyone. If you're looking to be under, let's say trying to be 250 and under, Pflugerville's a great spot, which is just outside of Austin. Down here in Hays County, Kyle, Buda, so Kyle's right here, Buda, all of those are relatively about a 15 to 20-minute drive into Austin trying to get to Downtown. This is the terrible corridor right here off of 35, but--
- [Scott] The terrible traffic corridor, is that what you mean?
- Yeah, man. 35.
- Okay.
- [Jeremy] This section, from about right here to right here, is pretty brutal. So I mean, yeah, if you're wanting to be 25 minutes to Downtown and you wanna be in that 250 price point, it's there. If you wanna be close to the Downtown, I'd say the average, like if you're wanting to be really close to Downtown, 450 to about 750 is where you're gonna be.
- [Scott] 'Kay, so take us through. 250, obviously, that's a very low price point.
- Yup.
- But what would that 250 get you?
- [Jeremy] That's actually a great question. So depending on where you're goin', let's say you're in Kyle, you can get a really great single-story home. Fact, I can pull one up here in a second. But you can get a really nice single-story home, 2,000 square feet for about 250, four-bedroom or three-bedroom. If you're wantin' to be up North, Pflugerville, you can still find kinda that same thing, about 2,000, 1600 to 2,000 square feet, single-story. If you're going to a two-story, you'd probably get a little bit higher, 22 to 2400 square feet.
- [Scott] Okay, so really the trade-off in that situation's going to be, you're gonna be, probably have a long commute. If you have to commute, that's gonna be the trade-off for the low price point.
- [Jeremy] Right, you can get a nice condo near Downtown. Sorry about that. You get a nice condo near Downtown around the 300 mark. Just keep in mind, I'm sure the Bay Area's, and San Diego, and LA are the same, but HOA fees are really high.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- [Jeremy] You're around 350 to 650 a month in just HOA fees.
- Sure.
- If you go a little more luxury, then you're gonna be probably two, $3,000 a month.
- [Scott] Take us through Round Rock, because you hear Round Rock quite a bit, lot of times, simultaneously with Austin. So take us, what's the pull to Round Rock? What does it offer? And what kinda price points you lookin' at for let's say a 2,000, 2500-square-foot home?
- [Jeremy] Yeah, great. So Round Rock, what's interesting about Round Rock is there's a lot of development out closer to the 130 here. Same thing with Pflugerville. So you can get a brand-new house in these sections right here, a brand-new house, 2500 square feet, single-story for well under 400,000. You're looking at about, fact, we just closed one for a buyer, 2600 square feet for 380. So you can get some really nice properties in Round Rock. The draw to Round Rock is the taxes in some places aren't super high. So we'll go to taxes in a little bit. But the draw to Round Rock is its proximity to Downtown. You're getting nicer homes, bigger homes. You can really get a nice 3,000-square-foot home for well under 400,000.
- [Scott] So the people that are moving to Round Rock or that area that you identified that's a little bit east, are they working in Round Rock? Are they generally still commuting down the Austin area?
- [Jeremy] Well, I think what's happening is you're seeing in this little Jollyville area, if you can see that on my map.
- Yeah.
- So new tech companies are coming in right here. And in fact, this section right here is, actually right here is The Domain. So Domain has more tech companies, Google, Facebook. They're all opening more campuses here. So a lot of people are going to Round Rock simply because it's really not that far of a commute between Round Rock and Jollyville where a lot of these tech companies are going into. Now there's a lot of tech companies going near Downtown, so those people are looking, oh, I zoomed in. So if you're lookin', like Google's opening a campus right here off Downtown, there's a lot of great properties here off 183, off of 130. You could get something right here in Hornsby Bend for really under 200,000, a nice home. They're all real starter homes, though.
- [Scott] Got it, okay. And then what kinda commute are you looking at if you're going into that area that you talked about that's north a little bit? What are you expecting the commute to get into?
- [Jeremy] So Round Rock, you're lookin' about a 30-minute drive just depending on the traffic and the time of day. Same thing with Pflugerville. It just depends on where you're coming out of, about 30, 35-minute drive. The nice thing is if you're coming out of Round Rock, you can take MoPac, which is the 1. We got a lot of fun names for stuff. But MoPac right here, which is the 1, is a little bit better. It's not great, but it's a better commute. The nice thing is we do have the 130 out here, which takes you out of town quite a ways, but it's nice toll road that is 85 miles an hour if you're driving on it.
- [Scott] So when you're saying 30 to 35 minutes, is that rush hour or is that kind of like non-commute hours?
- [Jeremy] Yeah, I'd say rush hour, you're about 35 minutes.
- [Scott] 'Cause that's a walk in the park here from the Bay Area, right? Yeah, I get a lot of people that say, "Oh, I wanna be," from the Bay Area, I get a lot of people that say, "Oh, I wanna be half an hour from Downtown." Then I show 'em Round Rock, and they're like, "Wow, this is way faster "than I thought it was gonna be. "We're used to an hour and a half commute." Or they're coming in from Dublin and driving into, taking BART in.
- Yeah.
- So we have a lot of clients from Dublin, Pleasanton, San Ramon. Yeah.
- Got it. Okay, excellent. So tell us a little about more of what's going on in the local market there. So how long are properties staying on the market for, average days on market? What are you seeing with home prices over the last six to 12 months, things like that?
- [Jeremy] Yeah, so we're seeing, so from about 2013 till 2018, we were seeing year over year in increase about 6%. This last year, we've seen about a two to 3% increase, which really doesn't sound like a huge increase, but still, it's a decent increase. So prices are continually rising. And since Google announced that they're, or Apple, I apologize, announced they're opening another campus in that Jollyville area, prices, especially in that north quarter, have really skyrocketed. We're seeing, especially in that area, we're seeing properties only last in the market a day, two days.
- Wow.
- And we have a client right now that's writing, they've written four offers, been 20 to 30, even $40,000 over list price and still haven't gotten it. So there's a lot of speculation in that specific area is why you're seeing prices do that. If you're looking kind of outside that area, you're looking about, I would say, honestly, the numbers say 28 days on market. If you're Pflugerville, Round Rock, Kyle, Buda, well, Kyle, Buda aren't as moving as quickly as now, but I'd say if you're in that north quarter, you're looking at, honestly, six, seven days on market.
- [Scott] 'Kay.
- [Jeremy] Yeah.
- [Scott] So there's a lot of competition, it sounds like. But also, it's really determining do you wanna get into that speculative area, or do you wanna say, hey, let's get into an area that is maybe more established and there's gonna be a little bit more of a commute? Might make more sense financially, right, when you're not having to do a bunch of bidding wars?
- [Jeremy] Right, and one area that's actually softened a little bit that's for the last six years it's been a really hot spot. It's still a hot spot. The problem is, is that we have three new builders in there, and it's created a little more inventory. This area right here is probably one of the hottest spots in Austin. This is Austin proper at Circle C Ranch. The great thing is this little community right here, Greyrock, is which where I live, there's a lot of new-build inventory. And so you're pickin' up a really, really, really nice property between right now about five and 550. You can get a really nice brand-new property.
- [Scott] Okay.
- [Jeremy] And you could get a resale property in there for about that same price, about 500, and you're gettin' a... This is only about a 15-minute drive to Downtown.
- [Scott] So what are you gettin' for 500,000? What's that house gonna look like whether it's resale or new construction?
- [Jeremy] So you can get a really nice new-construction home for five to 550. You're lookin' about 3,000 square feet, a really nice-finish house. We're talkin' really nice-finish house in that five to 550 price point. If you're goin' further north, maybe like Rollingwood or like Anderson Mill, you're lookin' six-plus.
- 'Kay.
- Up 50-plus for that same size home.
- [Scott] You're getting a lot of house for what we would consider not a lot of money, right? So it's yeah.
- [Jeremy] And the thing that always cracks me up is I get a lot of inbound clients telling me, "Oh, I'm looking to downsize. "I'm looking to downsize." You ask 'em how big their home is. "It's a standard single-family home, "2,000, 2500 square feet."
- Yeah.
- [Jeremy] They come out here expecting to downsize, and then buy 3,000 square feet. I see it all the time. All the time.
- When you realize what you can get and you're thinking, we didn't wanna have a lot more house to take care of, but seeing as how we can get this at this price point--
- And in this area.
- Now quality of life right there, it makes sense.
- [Jeremy] Yeah, it's great.
- [Scott] So take us through, a lot of the people who are moving out of the Bay Area and California are either retired or they're coming up on the retirement age. So take us through maybe a couple of areas that are popular for the 55-plus, active, what we'll call active adult living communities, where those are located, and then what you can get for prices in those areas.
- [Jeremy] Yeah, so there's one area that has a really good 55-and-over community. We're helping a lot of people that are retirees and they're buying single-story homes, smaller, 1500-square-foot homes kind of all over for about 250. So that one area, Pflugerville, I just helped a client from Houston that's retiring. They bought a 1500-square-foot house right here in Pflugerville. But in Georgetown, Del Webb has a community there. You can buy as little as, I was pullin' some comps, 197 is the absolute low on the market right now. You can build in there. So if you got a single-story, 1500-square-feet, kind of downsized home, 197 all the way up to 1.2 million was the high.
- [Scott] Got it. And what kind of amenities are you gonna find in that type of Del Webb. Del Webbs, obviously, are national. You're gonna have a lot of cool stuff. But what's the draw to that particular Del Webb.
- [Jeremy] Well, look, all the amenities you need. There's golf, there's country clubs. There's the amenity centers, so pools. Really, there's everything you want.
- [Scott] Whatever you want, it's there.
- Yeah.
- If it's not there, though, I'm sure they're probably in the process of building it, right?
- [Jeremy] Right, and I think that's something to think about, too. When you're looking at buying in Austin, there's so many new communities out there that all of those amenities that you're wanting, almost every community has all of those same amenities. If you're looking just for a 55-and-over community, I would highly recommend that area. There's a couple websites that'll help you kinda navigate that. But Georgetown is definitely growing in that respect. We've actually had quite a few people buy really, really, really nice homes that I was kinda blown away with. We're talkin' 2200-square-foot just decked-out properties for 330.
- [Scott] Wow.
- [Jeremy] Yeah.
- [Scott] That makes your dollar go really far. That's awesome.
- [Jeremy] Yes, yes.
- [Scott] So speaking of... Let's talk a little bit since we're kinda talking about the 55-plus communities, talk a little bit about healthcare. So a big concern to people is if I go to Austin, is there gonna be available healthcare services? And obviously, there are, but what's the proximity? And how highly rated are some of those services providers?
- [Jeremy] Yeah, it's a great question, and I get that from everyone. So we'll touch on the jobs that are coming here. But the two main jobs that are coming to Austin are tech and medical. We have a lot of people in the medical field. So Baylor Scott & White's one of the major hospitals and health providers out here. They're huge all over Austin. It seems like every time there's new development, there's a new medical facility going in. So one thing that you don't ever have to worry about is tripping over a medical facility to get to in Austin, because they're everywhere.
- [Scott] They're pretty much everywhere.
- [Jeremy] Yeah. Dell Children's Hospital is in North Austin. That's a huge draw for a lot of people. Round Rock has Baylor Scott & White. Georgetown has Baylor Scott & White. They just opened two new hospitals in Kyle, Buda if you're going down that direction. There's a lot of emergency facilities like what are the walk-in, what are they called?
- [Scott] The clinics, walk-in clinics, yeah.
- [Jeremy] Yeah, there's urgent cares. Every time there's new construction or something's gettin' put in, it's another medical facility always everywhere. And we have a ton of jobs coming in that field.
- [Scott] Awesome, okay. I wanna check to see if we have any questions. Would you mind closing out that desktop view right there for me?
- Oh, yeah, my apologies. Yeah, yeah.
- Awesome, okay. So let's talk a little bit about, you talked a little bit about the top industries being healthcare and tech. And obviously, we're seeing a lot of companies from the Bay Area move into the Austin area because of tech, so that's a huge drive for mid to smaller companies but also just for individuals. Tell us who some of those, the larger players are that you're seeing build campuses, whether it's a secondary campus or maybe moving their headquarters and doing a lot of hiring in the Austin area.
- Yes, so in February, I actually went to a seminar, kind of a economic update, I'm trying to find, okay. So as of February, here's where the announcements were. You had the U.S. Army was bringing in 500 jobs. H-E-B, which is our local store. You got Randall's out in the Bay Area. H-E-B, they are opening a new facility. Is it, Residio corporate headquarters is coming here. Oracle was gonna bring more, another facility here. And then right after that, Apple announced that they're opening a new campus. So Apple's a huge player out here. I think I've helped a client in every single major facility that's out here. Dell is really huge. They're constantly bringing in more jobs. Google just opened, is bringing another 5,000 jobs. They just bought another building. Apple just announced that they're bringing, what was it, 5,000 jobs.
- Wow.
- The only person that decided not to come here was Amazon, and they're crazy for not doing it. Anybody has Amazon, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. You guys might running out of room, it sounds like, with all those other companies bringing people in.
- I think with the timing. Yeah, I did a video on why people are moving here and some of it was talking about the top talent war. Unemployment rate is so low that it's kinda hard to find good talent. They're bringing people in from everywhere.
- The people that you're working with or that you hear about that are coming into Austin, what would you say the ratio is of retirees versus people looking for a better cost of living and a new job?
- I would say, I would say it's about 20% of each. Well, maybe a little bit more. I'd say probably 30% people coming in for tech jobs, coming in for one of the major companies I just talked about.
- Yeah.
- I'd say about 30% are, yeah, 30% are people looking to downsize or moving out to retire. And then the other 30%, which I know that's not 100%, but the other 30% are coming in just trying to get the beat cost of living. So maybe 40% cost of living, I don't know. It's always pretty high, people coming in for cost of living reasons.
- So why do you think, and this is just out of curiosity, why do you think that there's so many people that are moving from Houston and Dallas into Austin? You don't see a lot of same state moves in a lot cases.
- Yeah, yeah.
- But you're seeing that.
- A lot of it are the two main industries are health and they're tech. So we're getting a lot of people coming from those communities moving out. So I think that's the number one driver for most of those people moving here are those positions.
- 'Kay, I've got a question here. So, "Could Jeremy share why he chose Austin "over other cities in Texas "since he relocated from California?"
- That's a great question. I'm glad somebody asked that. So we lived in San Diego. We lived in San Diego for about eight years. We love San Diego. We started a real estate company there. And as we saw kind of what it was like to have an actual business in California, we instantly knew we needed to leave. So we looked at Florida was, we looked at a bunch of cities in Florida. We looked at Dallas, Houston, San Antonio. To be 100% honest, we visited Austin a couple times, and Austin is just one of the most beautiful cities you can visit. There's always something to do. There's always a concert going on. Obviously, we're the Live Music Capital for a reason. But there's just that kind of like, how do I put it? So the people here... It's like my move from San Diego to Austin, the people were a lot nicer. No offense, San Diego. But the people were a lot nicer. It was more of that kind of town home feel, but in a city. And everybody's really accepting here. And it's very, very diverse city. And I think that depending on where you go, anywhere you go in the city, if you go on the fringe, different type of person, but everybody's so sweet. And well, I can't say everybody, but most people are really sweet.
- Yeah, yeah.
- So seeing that we've been to Dallas and Houston, I'm not gonna lie, Houston's a great city, but it is humid. It is disgusting humid. And you can't be outside for five minutes without hating life. Dallas is like LA. If you can equate the two, I already know everybody says that, but Dallas just wasn't my cup of tea.
- Yeah. And we here, it's the same thing, because Austin, like you said, there's diversification in the people. There's diversification in the industries.
- Yup.
- The entertainment. There's just so much that Austin, I think, has to offer. I was waiting for the question of how could you possibly leave San Diego to go anywhere else? But then it's interesting because a lot of our real estate partners in other areas outside of California actually left San Diego, and they said it was tough because it's beautiful, but there's just a lot more opportunities out there.
- Yeah, we make two trips a year to San Diego 'cause I have so many friends there, so we still go back a lot. But if I had to live somewhere... Look, I grew up in the Central Valley. I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area. In fact, in my college years, I was in the Bay Area a lot, and then I moved and went to Arizona State. So I've been all over. I love all of those cities for different reasons.
- Yeah.
- But I think if I had to stay somewhere for a long time, it's gonna be Austin. And we're here.
- Awesome.
- Yeah.
- Well, you're living proof, right, you made it happen. And I think a lot of people are looking for people like you to say this guy's had experience in doing this, right? He's not just saying, oh, theoretically, this is how you could do it, but you're proof that you made it happen.
- Yeah.
- Wanna get to the next question, which actually leads us into the next segment. "Please say something about real estate taxes." So taxes is a very tough topic in California right now. Taxes are already the highest. State tax are already the highest in the country.
- Yup.
- And it seems like every time you turn on the news, there's more taxes that are likely coming our direction. So getting into taxes, let's start with the state income tax rate in Austin, which is a big, fat?
- Boom.
- Zero.
- Yeah. So look, when I moved here in 2012, I move, a lot of that reason, all the taxes then, gas prices, everything. Gas prices right now in Austin are about 2.23 or lower, so that's a huge reason why we left. 2012, I think when I left, gas prices were up 4.30 a gallon. So look, it's offset a little bit. Because there's no state income tax, sales tax is about 8.9%, which isn't terrible.
- Okay.
- But when you're purchasing a home, you're kind of offsetting the cost of not having income tax by buying a home.
- Right.
- Because the tax, when we left, I think it was like 1% in San Diego where we were. So it depends. Wherever you go, if you're going to a new-build community, keep in mind the tax rates will be a little bit higher because there's a development fee, kind of like a Mello-Roos tax, right?
- Yup, yup.
- So it's a little bit higher. So it's about 2.96 all the way up to 3.2, which is high. And reason why we bought where we live is because the tax rate's 2.23. So there's a new build. I'll give you a great example of the difference. So my taxes per year, my house, 500-plus home, are about 10,000 a year, which is high. It's offset. I don't have as much income taxes. Based on my tax bracket, I would probably be in trouble if I paid state income tax.
- Yeah, sure.
- But I'll give you a great example. So we looked at a community next to us. The tax rate was 2.96. We really didn't wanna be in this community. I take that back, we did, we love this community. But the tax rate was 2.23. We could've bought a bigger house for a little bit less, but the tax rate was 2.96. The tax rate first year for that home we would've purchased for probably 480, tax rate, you're looking about $15,000 first year. Where we buy in here is 10,000. Now if you're going somewhere and paying 250, you're looking on average about 5500 for taxes depending on the tax rate. The tax rate's higher in the 2.96, you're looking about between five and 7500 for the year, which sounds like a lot, but again, depending on your tax bracket, it's offset by the fact of not having state income tax.
- Yeah, and kind of what we're seeing here is property tax rates are generally about 1 1/4% of the assessed value which is when you purchase it.
- Right.
- In a lot of cases, you're right. In newer developments, they've got the Mello-Roos, which is going to be an additional component to the tax rate. And then if we're looking at our state income tax, that's up to about 12.3%.
- Yeah.
- So clearly, every state is going to offset. States that don't have a state income tax are going to offset it somewhere, right? They've gotta get the funds somewhere to take care of the roads, and social services, and things like that. You guys do it through the property tax assessments. But it's sounds like there's also, from what you're saying, there's ways to search for properties and communities that may minimize what that hit's going to be, right?
- Yeah, exactly. There's a community for everybody. Like I said at the beginning, there's a community for everybody here, or neighborhood for everybody. I'll give you an example. If you're going to to Kyle, Buda, which is a little bit further south from me, you're looking at the average tax rate's 2.5. So their taxes for $250,000 home are about 6,000. So we just helped a buyer in Southeast Austin purchase same price, 2.19 tax rate, and there's only like 5200. So they're closer to Austin, cheaper, bought almost the equivalent home, and their taxes are about $2,000 difference lower. So there's something for everybody here.
- And it's all about strategy, right? It's determining, okay, here's gonna be the right community based off of whether you have kids or the commute is important to you, and then determining here's how we can maximize it with minimizing what that tax assessment's going to be, so.
- Right.
- We've got a couple questions on the weather. And "You talk about the weather "little bit further south in Houston. "So what's the weather like in Austin year-round? "Can you talk about the summer versus winter? "Is it humid?" Let's start with that. And then, John, we'll get to the second part of your question after we kinda get through more of the climate questions.
- Yeah, it's a great question. So like I said, I went to Arizona State, lived in Phoenix for five or six years. I will take Austin with 104-degree humidity over Phoenix with 112 just straight heat. So yeah, the weather's pretty sporadic. We get a lot of really kind of actually amazing thunderstorms that come through here. Kind of dangerous at times, but they're some of the coolest storms you'll ever see. There's times we'll sit on our balcony and just watch storms because they are super intense and fun to watch. So today's a perfect example. Today's 96 degrees. It's humid, it's hot. Honestly, it's really not that bad, though. It cools down. It takes till about 11 o'clock to actually kinda get hot. It'll be a little muggy. We went down and helped some families during the clean-up efforts for the hurricane. And within 10 minutes of being outside my car, I was completely drenched in sweat. You don't get that as much in Austin. Our humidity is less. It's actually less than San Antonio. If you're going further north, humidity drops down towards Dallas. It drops down, but Dallas gets hotter. So it'll be 107, 108 in Dallas. Here, if the hottest we get on average about, the hottest is about 106, which sounds really bad. But most people work indoors. If you're working outdoors, then--
- Yeah.
- Sorry.
- Sorry.
- I mean it's a good way to lose weight, how 'bout that?
- There you go.
- So I would say in the winter, that's a great question. Really, we get some freezes that come through, and some sporadic weather snaps that come through. But I would say on average the coldest we really stay is in like mid-40s, 45. We'll get some freezing temperatures that come through or a freak storm that drops the temperature down to zero, but it's like one day out of the entire year.
- Yeah.
- So our weather's kinda sporadic. But I mean, really, you gotta take the good with the bad. I don't think there's ever a day where it's like I've said, gosh, the weather's so bad, I wanna move.
- So regarding the humidity, is it humid year-round or is it just a certain few months that you have that humidity factor?
- I would say it stays humid all year. But you don't really feel that humidity really until it turns, what are we in, June?
- Yup.
- I didn't honestly notice it getting that, in fact, I just went to Orlando two weeks ago, and was praying to come back to Austin, and it was the same temperature.
- Yeah.
- It was 96 there. I think it was 94 here when I got back, and I was loving the temperature change. So it does get humid. It's really not as bad as Florida, I could tell you that. I take the good with the bad. I don't think it's that humid.
- And here's the thing we look at, Jeremy. So from the Bay Area, it's a very, very mild climate, right?
- Yeah.
- So we might get, I think a few days ago, we went over 100 degrees.
- Yeah.
- Which we'll get two or three weeks of that throughout the year depending on if you're in San Francisco, we don't get that hot. But you come out 20 miles inland, it's gonna get a little bit hotter. But the temperatures don't fluctuate much day-to-day and month-to-month. Whereas a lot of places in the South, in the Midwest, that's just how it is, right?
- Yeah.
- You're gonna see that fluctuation in temperatures year-round. And that's a lot of the United States.
- Yeah, I'll give you a good example of how our weather fluctuates in the winter. So one morning, I went in, I went to the gym super early. It was like 5:00 a.m. I had a busy day. Went to the gym at 5:00 a.m. It was 70 degrees. I went into my office, didn't leave my office till two. It was 32 degrees at two o'clock in the afternoon.
- So you gotta be prepared for anything, right?
- Yeah, it was 70 degrees. I went in from wearing just a polo and nice pants to praying, and forget it, upset with myself for not paying attention to the weather. I actually wanna do a funny YouTube series on the weather in Austin. I'll do that in the future. But look, it's one or two days where you see freak quick weather like that. We do get really crazy thunderstorms that roll through that are really powerful. Probably once a month, that happens, twice a month, that happens. But again, they are super fun to watch. Maybe I'm weird.
- Yeah.
- My minor was in meteorology, so I guess I like weird stuff like that, but--
- You might be the next storm chaser out there then, if you haven't already.
- I had an opportunity to do it. I didn't take it, so.
- Yeah, yeah. So that kinda leads us into recreation, and lakes, and water nearby. When it gets hot out like it is right now, what are people doin' for fun? What's good out there?
- Yeah, here's a really cool thing about Austin. I think why it's such a draw is they're called lakes. Why I'm air quoting them is they're really just a dammed-up river in four sections.
- Okay.
- So in the middle of town, you have Lady Bird Lake. Up from that is Lake Austin. Up from that is Lake Travis. Then up from that is Johnson Lake. So a lot of people head to the lake. So if it's hot and you're driving past Downtown and you look at Lady Bird Lake, it's completely filled with people paddleboarding, people kayaking, people out running with their dogs. It's gorgeous. Now we do have coastal... We do have coasts. So if it's too hot, a lot of people drive down to Port A, Galveston. My favorite's headin' down to South Padre. I'd say South Padre's the closest to a California beach. But when you get out to a Texas Beach, it's disappointing coming from the Bay Area.
- Well, coming from San Diego, you're up here, and you're. Well, how far is that? Let's say to Galveston, or somewhere.
- So to Galveston, and believe it or not, I actually like Galveston. A lot of people don't. I think Galveston's actually a pretty nice beach for Texas.
- Yeah.
- But to get down to Port A, or Port Aransas, is about a three-hour drive. If you're heading down to South Padre, you're lookin' about a five-hour drive. The good thing about South Padre, and here's one thing that a lot of people won't tell you about Texas, or they do, they say tongue in cheek. Our Mexican food isn't very good. So if you head down to South Padre--
- Oh, boy. I say it. Hey, I kill people with it all the time, I'm telling you.
- Yeah.
- We have Tex-Mex, that's itself. Our Mexican food is more, if you do find Mexican food, it's more interior Mexican. So it's not like Baja style you get at San Diego or the Bay Area.
- Yeah, Tijuana, right.
- Yeah, ah, man, I've had some phenomenal Mexican food in the Bay Area. But there's really, really good Mexican food when you get close to the border over in South Padre. It's a great beach, I love it. That's where we go. Galveston's about four hours. The good thing about Galveston is you get to go through and kinda do some stuff in Houston, go to a Astros game. I got my Dodgers World Series pennant up here. You can't see it. I actually went to a World Series game as a Dodgers fan. Sorry, Bay Area people, but--
- Yeah, I was gonna say, this is disappointing Giants people right now.
- Maybe you just lost a few. Yeah, you just lost the whole feed, sorry. Yeah, so there's a lot to do. As far as the outdoor culture, Austin's actually one of the fittest cities in the US, and it shows. Everybody's always out. There's a lot of really good healthy food options in Austin. A lot of really good food in just general, except the Mexican food. Lot of great barbecue. Oh, my gosh, the barbecue out here is insane. But it's a very fit city, so there's a lot to do. There's a lot of mountain biking. There's a lot of road biking. Lance Armstrong's from here. So there's a lot of huge bike culture if you're lookin' to get up in the morning. I can't do it, but ride 60 miles in the morning, there's a ton of open area for that. There's so much outdoor stuff. If you love live music and love... There's great little places just outside of Austin where you kinda get out in the afternoon, you go sit out. There's a lot of breweries now. There's a lot of really, really great breweries. So you get out to these breweries, they have live music. You kinda hang out and chill on the weekend, and it is... You sit out in these places, and you're sitting there. It's live music, it's very nice. Everybody's super friendly. And you're like, this is why I moved to Austin.
- Yeah.
- And every weekend, I kinda try to take some time, hit a brewery because it's just so much fun. There's a lot of Tito's tequila. Tito's Vodka is from out here. Dripping Springs Vodka, so there's a lot of really, if you wanna go do that stuff, and do wine tours, and all that good stuff. That's another thing. Fredericksburg has got some good wine. It is not Napa, trust me, it is not Napa. But you can get out and go try stuff like that--
- But you could experience it, kinda gives you the similar feel, right?
- Yeah, it gives you something to do. There's not a day where you go, man, I wish there was something to do. 'Cause even on cold, rainy days, there's stuff to go do, lots of museums--
- The few times that I've been to Austin, which has maybe been three or four, had a great time every time and didn't wanna come back, or at least, I wanted to extend the vacation a little bit longer, so it was a lot of fun.
- Yeah. And that's the problem with Austin is that people come out and visit and then they stay. So that's why we're growing. We have 55,000 people moved to Austin last year, so it's growing like crazy, but it's fun. If you're going to South by Southwest, South by Southwest is by far my favorite thing to do.
- Tell people what that is, people who aren't aware of what that is.
- Oh, yeah, yeah. I actually, I just helped a client from the Bay Area. And I said, "Well, why are you moving out here? "Have you been to South by Southwest, ACL, any of that?" And they're like, "What are those?" I'm like, "What?"
- Yeah. 'Cause a lot of people don't know.
- Yeah.
- It's amazing what they put together, those events, but what are they?
- Yeah. So South by Southwest is a three-week event. It starts off with kind of a gaming, tech. Then it goes into talks and movie. And then it goes into bands and live music. So if you're just walkin' around, kinda just walkin' in to some of the events, there's a lot of free stuff. Don't let South by Southwest hear me say this. There's a lot of free stuff to do. So you don't really have to pay the $2,000 for a badge.
- Okay.
- But if you're walkin' around, you're gonna walk into somebody you know. There's times where we've gone to these little, tiny venues with huge, mega bands, and you're sitting there with people from the band watching another band going what is this?
- Right.
- The South by Southwest movie is phenomenal. It's kind of like what's the one in Colorado that they do or Utah that they do, that big movie event? Anyway, it's like that.
- I know what you're talking about, I can't think of the name, but yeah.
- Yeah, so it's like that. And so what's really cool is it's 10 bucks to go watch a movie. And who was it? Franco, what's his name, James Franco was out doing a movie, and we ran into James Franco. It's so cool. It's one of the best events. Austin City Limits is a two-weekend event, and it's three days all bands, all music, all day. That's a lot of fun. But South by Southwest, the interactive, the talks. It's really is really one of the coolest events to go to. I go every year. I try to take a week off in March, it's hard to do, and just go out, have drinks, hang out with people, it's fun. It's a lot of fun.
- That's awesome. That's great.
- Yeah.
- We're gonna wrap up in a couple of minutes, so if anybody has any other questions that they want answered live, please let us know. So let's touch on real quick, we've talked about the growth, everything that's happening with new construction and development. And as we see in a lot of large cities like Austin, they're experiencing this growth. You have the sprawl.
- Right.
- Are there some transportation options or things in the works, more public transportation, lines, things like that that you're seeing that they're put into place to ease the commutes?
- Yeah, there's a line. The commute is the toughest part about Austin. If you ever Google traffic in Austin, it's always like top three worst cities, or worst four. It's not the Bay Area. But I've been in the Bay Area, I've lived in the Bay Area, I know that traffic's bad.
- Yeah.
- There's not really a whole lot of great options. There is several bus options. They're workin' on more freeway lanes, developing the freeways. They opened up some toll roads. The options just aren't there.
- 'Kay.
- They've opened up recently the Violet Crown Trail, which is South Austin. And I think in the last year, in the last three years, I think they've passed $1.5 billion in new trail development. So it's something crazy like that number. So there's a lot of really cool trails, and that's nice. So bike lanes, if you're biking, it's really easy to bike. But as far as transportation options go, it's really limited. There are a few train options, but they're very small. So that's the toughest thing, I think, about Austin. The problem with Austin is it really pushed back on development for years, and years, and years. If you ask somebody stories about Austin, they'll always tell you that it's been here, that we didn't want all these people here. And so that has put them behind a time. If you go to Houston, Houston's bad traffic, but they have a huge freeway system. Dallas, there's ton of freeway system. Austin doesn't have that. And so I think that's the biggest challenge Austin faces is as we grow, creating more transportation. Instead of opening more toll lanes, how do we open more bus like a BART system. That would be phenomenal if you had--
- Yeah, like a public mass transit type of a thing.
- Yeah, I know--
- And I think that's a struggle that a lot of cities are having, especially like what you're saying, cities that have pushed back for a while, and then just realized it's inevitable, so now you're trying to play catch-up a little bit.
- Yeah.
- So the end result is you might have a 30 to 35-minute commute, which, which in the scheme of things, the scope of things, isn't that big of a deal, right? It's not too bad.
- Yeah, right. Yeah, the commute's not... If you're coming from Georgetown, and you're trying to get to South Austin, be prepared for a well over an hour drive. If you're coming from Kyle heading north and you're trying to get to Georgetown, you're looking about an hour, 20-minute drive.
- Yeah.
- Or if you're Round Rock, Pflugerville, Cedar Park, Leander, a lot of people are movin' up that direction, you're lookin' at about 35-minute drive on most days. Yeah, it's a pain, but it's not as bad as some of the cities I've lived in for sure.
- Yeah.
- San Diego was pretty bad, yeah.
- And it's also strategically saying, hey, here's where we're gonna consider living based off of what our needs are, and our lifestyle, and where we're working, and where we want our kids to go to school, and everything like that. And that's where you guys come in to help with that. So we are 45 minutes.
- Okay.
- A couple minutes after 45 minutes on this. Jeremy, if somebody is interested in maybe coming out and spending an afternoon or a day with you guys to look around in Austin, is that good with you guys?
- Yeah, give me a call. What's great is in this industry, we meet a lot of people. And there'll be people come out just wanna hang out just for a weekend and check Austin out, kinda comparing buying and not really, they just wanna see it, we'll show 'em around.
- For sure.
- Yeah, so yeah, give me a call. We'll definitely--
- That's the biggest thing I think people have to do is it's gathering information like what we presented today, maybe doing a little bit more researching on their own. But you've gotta get there in person, put your feet on the ground, and be able to look around and spend a little bit of time to determine, yeah, this maybe is a viable option as our next step, so.
- Yeah, right.
- That's great. Well, Jeremy, hey, this has been awesome, man. Thanks for all the information.
- Sure.
- And for anybody watching, if you wanna get a hold of us directly, info@leavingthebayarea.com. And also, we're gonna have this recorded. We'll have this available. We'll be on the website in probably the next five or six days. And so if you wanna pass this along to anybody who might be interested in taking a look at this, that would be awesome. So Jeremy, thanks again, buddy. We'll be in touch, I appreciate it.
- Thanks.
- And bye to everybody. Awesome, have a good day.
- Okay, you too, take care.
Cost of Living Comparisons
Austin, TX VS Los Angeles, CA
38.8% less
Cost to Rent
5.8% more
Utilities
7.1% less
Food & Groceries
5.6% more
Health Costs
33.5% less
Transportation
43.1% less
Auto Insurance (Annually)
17% less
Auto Sale Tax
27.1% less
Auto Registration (Annually)
13.1% less
Sales Tax
100% less
State Income Tax
28.5% less
Child Care
Commute Comparison
| Austin, TX | Los Angeles, CA | |
Average Commute Time |
24 mins | 31 mins |
Comparison of gas prices |
$2.38 | $3.79 |
Live Traffic Comparison
Austin, TX
Los Angeles, CA
Climate
Austin
Los Angeles
94
Average Summer High84
72
Average Summer Low62
62
Average Winter High67
39
Average Winter Low46
228
Sunny Days Per Year284
35
Rain (inches per year)16
0
Snow (inches per year)0
Current Temperature in Austin, TX
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