"New Price"

Austin consistently ranks in the top 10 or so “Best Places to Live.” According to a recent Money Magazine poll this is the 2^nd best big city to live, trailing only Colorado Springs, CO. I wouldn’t mind living there either. Often Austin gets ranked in the best places to retire but usually only because the Hill Country is included in the demographic. When Bergstrom Airbase was in operation, Air Force personnel retired here in droves, attracted by everything Austin offered plus access to the subsidized base facilities, such as the PX and hospital.

The housing crunch has been milder here and the real estate market is still brisk, with houses bought and sold at near market value. However, from time-to-time one does see "For Sale" signs with attachments that say “New Price.” That’s ever so much more marketing-friendly than “Reduced" so I’m sure that’s what was on the sign outside a Barton Creek house featured in the Sunday paper. Its New Price was $2.995 million. Its old price was $3.5 million.

I don’t know why it’s still on the market – check out the description: “The house on a double lot on Winding Creek Drive was designed by David Shiflet of the Shiflet Group (yes, the David Shiflet that attended Brentwood years ago; the same David Shiflet that has done Lance’s last two houses) and built by Jim Fortune” (if ever there was an appropriate name for a homebuilder).

“The house features more than a million dollars in landscaping alone, according to the listing agent for the property. The exterior brick is handmade, and the slate roof is from the quarry that Thomas Jefferson used to build the University of Virginia and Monticello. The house has plenty of extras (one would hope): a five-car garage, three game rooms, a large pool, a mahogany office, walls that are 12 inches thick (I think that’s what caught Mom’s attention), five bedrooms, six bathrooms and 2 half-baths” (‘Honey, can you bring me a towel?’ ‘Sure. Where are you?’). And – get this – “$60,000 in hand-painted wallpaper in the dining room.”

After supper, maybe we’ll drive over and check it out. Never know when you might want to upgrade the old homestead. Plus, it has a “New Price.”