Southwest Austin Real Estate Blog

How Much Money Does it Take to Live Comfortably in Austin?

GoBankingRates.com has released a new list of cities where cost of living is matched well with a resident's capacity to earn, and Austin is one of a few cities whose median household income proves capable of shouldering the estimated annual cost to live in the city comfortably.

Cross-checking the population with the average median household income, and then using the 50-30-20 budget rule for essentials, discretionary spending and savings respectively, the money management site aims to see if the average median income of the city can sustain the cost of living there.

Austin fared well with its $55,216 median household income and $53,225 required earnings to sustain a comfortable living in the city. For Austin residents earning more than $55,000, there is a surplus of $1,000 left to spend at the end of every year.

Other cities in Texas, however, didn't fare as well. Houston had an average median household income of $45,728 but requires $60,796 to live comfortably; Dallas has a median household income of $43,359 but requires $55,651 for comfortable living. In spite of the common knowledge that Austin has a higher standard of living compared to its other Texan counterparts, data from this recent study shows that the capacity of Austin residents to earn matches the more expensive living standards of the fast-developing city.

To read more about how other U.S. cities fared in the study and to access the original article, please click here.

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New Southwest Austin Development an $80 Million Dine-in Theater Tie-up Project

A 42,700-square-foot theater project by the partnership of Stratus Properties Inc. and Moviehouse & Eatery will cater to the Southwest Austin community by the first quarter of 2018, Gary Dinges of Statesman reports.

A 10-screen, dine-in movie theater of Moviehouse & Eatery will be further developed by Austin-based Stratus Properties Inc. into a 325,000-square-foot project at Southwest Parkway and West William Cannon Drive, a location more commonly known as Lantana Place.

The new project of Stratus is a proposed $80 million mixed-use project with emphasis on providing entertainment to the local market, says CEO Beau Armstrong, with the new project boasting of a hotel, shopping centers, a dining strip, and office spaces. The basis of the project is another successful project by Stratus-- the Parkside Village in Southwest Austin-- that also features its own theater.

Construction is scheduled to commence in the 4th quarter of 2016 with an estimated completion date of March 2018. The establishment will open over 150 jobs to manage its entertainment complex.

Stratus' partner, Moviehouse & Eatery's principal Leslie Sloan, is very excited about the project. Citing that there are no entertainment options and restaurants in the area, she says that, “honestly, we’d love to be open next week.” 

With several large-scale employers in the vicinity and the growing number of residential projects under construction, the partnership is eager to capitalize on the area's strong daytime population and attract visitors until night time, until the local population eventually grows in the area.

To learn more about this Southwest Austin development, you can read Dinges' original post ...