8212 Barton Club Drive. Here’s your opportunity to own a home right in the heart of Austin's Barton Creek Country Club for only $65,000 (plus dues)…for 27days per year. “Fractional Ownership” is what it is called. For almost one month annually you can live in a fully furnished home that is easily valued at a half million dollars right on the prestigious Barton Creek Country Club golf course. While in residence you are a FULL MEMBER of the Club with all rights and privileges. Play golf with the pros on any of Four Courses, enjoy Three Pools, a 14,000 sq. ft. Fitness Facility, frequent the Spa, play Tennis, visit the18 hole Miniature Golf Course, Dine like Royalty…experience the best of everything in this scenic getaway.
Memberships in the club run $70,000, monthly dues on top of that, and a home in Austin near the club may be as high as a million dollars…but with fractional ownership you can enjoy all the benefits of club membership for a whole lot less. And the best part is that you can turn around at a later date and potentially sell your investment for a profit. Additionally time at Barton Creek may be exchanged for time at other exclusive venues including: Hilton Head, The Homestead, Puerto Vallarta, Bear Creek Lodge, and Porto Cima. Exchange privileges with RCI at over 3700 locations also accrue.
Several of these properties are listed at higher prices...some as high as $180,000. You may stay in any of the thirty six units based upon their availability...So why would you pay more for the SAME thing?
In many ways I think this modern world is absolutely the cat’s pajamas. I do however occasionally feel just a bit…actually more than a bit…completely overwhelmed by modern technology. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no one to blame but myself. I’ve got just enough nerd in me that I can never say no to a good gadget, but alas I fear it has snowballed out of control. After all, how much time can you have left after acquiring, learning to operate, installing, programming, and maintaining the following:
A big screen HDTV, an Amplifier/Tuner, a DVD Player/Recorder, a VHS Player/Recorder, a Cable Box, an IPod, an IPod car adapter, and an IPod Stereo Adapter. A Cell Phone that texts, has voice mail, sends email, acquires ringtones, has a phone book, plays games etc. An Internet telephone, a Fax Machine, a Scanner, a digital Voice Recorder, a Camcorder, a Night Vision Scope, a programmable GPS with computer chip and software, a Laptop Computer with a GPS and software. Five Digital cameras each with multiple lenses, filters, chips etc. Two Desktop Computers each stocked with Adobe software for digital photography and Microsoft software for everything imaginable, Two Printers, and a Copier. There are assorted Computer Games, an Astronomy Program, Google Earth, Publishing Programs…not to mention Internet Explorer, a massive Email Program, two Websites built and maintained, an MLS presence as a Realtor…yes of course I have broadband. That’s just the electronics.
An SUV, a sedan, a boat, two trailers, three lawnmowers, weed eater, edger, and a leaf blower. Then power tools: two Miter Saws, a Band saw, Drills, Router, Table Saw, Chain Saw, Compressor, Nail Guns, Paint Sprayer, and Pressure Washer. I’m not bragging about all this stuff. I have it to make my life easier. Does it? I’ll let you know as soon as I get through checking my email and go get the SUV out of the shop.
Luxury Golf Course Community
• 2,600 sq. ft., 3 bath, 3 bdrm 2 story "Balcony with View" - 
MLS® $65,000 - Why Pay More
Barton Creek, Austin - STUNNING FURNISHED HOME on the Exclusive Barton Creek Golf Course at a Bargain Price, HOW? Fractional Ownership, 27 days per year with All the privileges of being a Full Golf Member at Barton Creek Country Club when in Residence, without the $70,000 initiation fee. Also includes benefits at Affiliated Clubs Worldwide including Hilton Head, The Homestead, Puerto Vallarta, Bear Creek and Porta Cima. It’s the Least Expensive Way to have a luxury vacation in Barton Creek with ALL the amenities. Several of these properties are listed at higher prices...some as high as $180,000. You may stay in any of the thirty six units based upon availability. So why would pay more for the SAME thing?
Property information
My newest listing is in Westside at Buttercup in Cedar Park. A great Family Neighborhood of Newmark, Meritage, and David Weekley Homes. It is over 2900 Square Feet with 4 bedrooms, 2 Dining Areas, 3 Living Areas, and a 2 Car Garage. There is a Study and Guest Bedroom Downstairs. It's a superb family home in quiet a neighborhood that backs to a greenbelt which contains hike and bike trails, many trees, and underground caverns. It's on a very low-traffic street which is safe for neighborhood children. Many energy features have been incorporated into this solid Newmark Home. An Air Recirculation System, HEPA Filters on the HVAC, Tech Shield Roof Decking, and Double Pane Windows make this home state of the art. Upgrades also include: Granite Counter Tops, Crown Moldings, Rounded Corners, Theater Wiring, Two Satellite Dishes, Water Filter at Sink, Direct Vent Fireplace and Gas Logs, Sprinkler System, and Wrought Iron Rear Fence. It has a Study and Guest Bedroom Downstairs. A New Elementary School is just around the corner. The Neighborhood has several Parks, Pools, and Hiking Trails. It is close to shopping, theaters, restaurants, and medical facilities...did I mention lake Travis? Come take a look.
I am STILL on an OPEN HOUSE crusade on my two Tarrytown listings (see my home page)…they are very close-in west Austin…new construction with a fabulous finish out, both have Garage Apartments that can be leased to a friend, relative, or college student. Now they are priced at $180 per square foot in a neighborhood in which $296 per square foot is the average for comparable homes. Why so low? They back to Mopac Parkway, and yes it’s pretty noisy, but consider this…the builder constructed a beautiful 10-foot high stone and stucco sound wall at the rear. He also used 2x6 studs on the back walls of the house, and expensive sound absorbing Jeld-Wen windows. Across the street is the lovely Tarrytown Park, which is filled with trees and a great place for children to play. You be the judge…take a look and see if “HALF PRICE” on a new home makes sense to you. Come on out Sunday 1:00 to 4:00 and see what I mean.
On The Barton Creek Greenbelt
• 144,184 sq. ft. lot / land "In a Private Gated Cul de Sac" - MLS® $439,500 - Priced to Sell
Barton Creek, Austin - Exclusive BARTON CREEK ESTATE HOME SITE. This Sprawling 3.310 Acre Heavily Wooded home site overlooks Austin's most famous and protected natural treasure, Barton Creek. You can go directly out your back gate into the Barton Creek Greenbelt. Take a short treck through the woods, meander through a grassy glen, and there you will find the year round creek with a pool and an old-fashioned tire swing. The home site rests on a private cul-d-sac and has a deep setback that provides exceptional privacy and safety for your family. It's around the corner to the prestigious St. Gabriel's School and St. Michael's Academy. Property owners in the exclusive gated Wimberley Lane enclave receive a social membership to Barton Creek Country Club without paying additional initiation fees. Membership privileges include use of the private member's pool, health club, Spa, dining facilities, and social events. Comparable acreage sites in the neighborhood are can be twice the price.
Property information
I am a big believer in OPEN HOUSES. It seems to be a solid way to get at least a dozen people through a listing even when the market is extremely slow. People are always out and about on weekends, and even if the visitor isn’t a direct prospect for the listing, he or she has their own network of friends and relatives. I am on an OPEN HOUSE crusade right now on my two Tarrytown listings (see my home page)…they are right down town Austin, Texas…brand spanking new with a fabulous finish out, both have Garage Apartments that can be leased to a friend, relative, or college student. Best of all they are priced at $194 per square foot in a neighborhood in which $300 per square foot is more common than not. Why so low? They back to Mopac Parkway, and yes it’s pretty noisy, but consider this…the builder constructed a beautiful 10-foot high stone and stucco sound wall at the rear. He also used 2x6 studs on the back walls of the house, and expensive sound absorbing Jeld-Wen windows. You really don’t sense any traffic sound from inside the home. Across the street is the lovely neighborhood Tarrytown Park, which is filled with trees and a great place for children to play. Come on out Sundays 1:00 to 4:00 and see what I mean. I believe the trade off will be worth it for some intelligent buyer who really wants Austin’s most prestigious neighborhood at a bargain price.
As I watch the seemingly endless debate about the fate of The Big Three in the halls of government and in the media, a phrase from the past haunts me… What’s good for General Bullmoose is good for the Country. This line is from Al Capp’s “L’il Abner” cartoon strip, which was famous in the fifties…about the same time General Motors was the most powerful corporation on earth. General Bullmoose is General Motors, and in many ways General Bullmoose appears to be an archetype of the USA today. The General is on the ropes and gasping for breath…hoping to ward off the next possibly fatal blow. How did it come to this? Where do we go from here?
If congress is correct, a radical re-tooling of this wheezing giant is necessary to save it. Many say that it is the legacy costs that are sinking the ship…i.e. health care costs and pensions. Many say it is the fact that they are not producing the cars that the world wants right now, but are still building gas-guzzlers that belong to a by-gone era.
Well if those things are true…shouldn’t we as a nation be taking a hard look in the mirror too? We are rushing headlong toward the same kind of government that appears to be sinking GM. We are staring a legacy cost of Social Security and Medicare in the face that most economists say will destroy us when the baby boomers retire. We have outsourced many segments of our manufacturing industry to others leaving us weak. We have grown fat as a people…both literally and figuratively. We cry out for some form of Socialized Medical Care that will further overburden the system. We have used our houses as a vehicle to financial well-being for decades…flipping and speculating on homes as if they were stocks or bonds. Now a burst housing bubble has become the catalyst for a financial meltdown.
The leaders of the big three are scorned for lack of vision and poor management of these huge beaucracies. Isn’t this equally true of our elected officials…once they are in office, it is nearly impossible to get them out (even if they are guilty of crimes in many cases). One wonders if any of the current crop have the interests of our nation at heart, or are merely looking toward the next election. Can General Bullmoose change if we bail him out? Can America rise to meet this financial challenge…to pay this overdue bill, which has come in the mail? Let’s see how the Big Three make out in the days ahead.
Don’t miss the Open House Weekend at my two Tarrytown listings. Both 2517 No. 1 Winsted Lane and 2517 No. 2 Winsted Lane will be open from 1:00 until 4:00 in the afternoon. They will be all lit up and lovely, so come on by. In case the addressing confuses you, here’s why it’s that way. There was one double lot with an old house in the middle that was torn down, and then the lot was officially subdivided. The houses already there on the street had the logical correct addresses, so a number one and two designations was the only solution. They are not duplexes…they are two glorious 4000 sq. ft. five bedroom homes with garage apartments to boot. Please look at the pictures on the Listings pages. SEE YOU THERE!
Let me try to reason through this…Let’s say that my wife likes to spend money and I can’t control her compulsion. I have two college-age kids in Ivy League Schools and the cash out-flow to take care of their needs is killing me. I have four foreign cars with huge payments on each one. My house has a gigantic mortgage on it, and I am a member of not one but two exclusive country clubs…my personal banker and financial advisor calls me and says, “Randy, what’s going on? You know that since you took that pay cut to stay in Austin you won’t be able to even come close to making your payments. What are you going to do? You are in so far over your head it’s absurd.” So I reason…Borrow $750K from Uncle Bill, and I will be OK. Old Randy may figure that he is going to win the lottery so he can get flush again, or maybe he is banking on a fat inheritance down the road from that rich uncle. This kind of risky financial shenanigans may not be the worst thing in the world, and we have all heard of it before, but on an individual basis.
Isn’t this what we are doing right now on the national level? To make my little comparison a bit more accurate I guess Randy would have to be borrowing closer to $5 million. How in blazes are all these borrowed money bailouts and stimulus packages going to solve this problem. This, our financial wizards say, is the way to “solve the problem now, and not keep kicking the can down the road”. Really! Does Uncle Sam have an inheritance out there that will make him flush again? The rich uncle is for the most part China. Am I just an unfortunate optimistically challenged individual, or are we stepping into what we Texans euphemistically call deep do do.
I love to fish. As a consequence, I spend a certain amount of time in boats. It you have ridden the waves, you will likely have at some time experienced being sea sick Technically, the phenomenon is caused by the body i.e. your inner ears perceiving motion, but your eyes perceiving none. When most folks are confronted with this disagreeable experience, they try to lie down and close their eyes, which exacerbates it. Standing up and looking at the horizon in the fresh air will stop it. What does this have to do with Real Estate? Current events are creating in me a slightly different form of motion sickness. I turn on the TV or read the newspaper, and I am clobbered with news that the financial sky is falling, but as I look around the room everything seems OK. I drive around in my car, look at the people, smell the air, and see no debris. The Dow goes up, and the Dow goes down…nothing new. Once again there it is…we must act NOW! If we don’t, Real Estate values will plummet, and my poorly performing retirement account will really start to stink. When buildings fall over from flaming jet fuel, or a city is flooded by a hurricane, the results are extremely tangible. Yes, some of our financial institutions have stumbled and fallen, but there seems to be a backstop. Must it be the taxpayer who has to be the lifeline? Many economists that I read take exception with this bail out plan. Is it the equivalent of lying down and closing your eyes? I think some of us may need to see more or feel more before we can accept these dire projections. Will it then be too late? Right now I am doing my best to look for the horizon and fill my lungs with fresh air.
Anyone who has studied American manufacturing concepts is surely aware of the phrase “planned obsolescence”. The term came into wide spread use 1954 when American industrial designer Brooks Stevens coined it at a speech he gave in Minneapolis at an advertising conference. The idea being that a thing is deliberately built to lower standards than had been traditionally acceptable for two reasons. First, when it breaks one has to buy another…which feeds American industry. Second, the longer-term goal is to create a mentality in the consumer of always wanting something newer and more “up to date”. If you have a 30 year old refrigerator in your garage cooling drinks, and a new $2500 one in the kitchen with an admitted life expectancy of eight or nine years…you know what I mean. This has had an interesting impact on architecture? The Seattle King Dome, one of the modern super domes built as a sports venue, was completed in 1976 at a cost well into the millions. It was demolished in 2000, twenty-four years later because it was outdated. TWENTY-FOUR YEARS. The Colosseum in Rome was completed in 80 AD.
The Imperial Tokyo Hotel designed by genius architect Frank Lloyd Wright was built in 1923 and survived a magnitude 7.9 earthquake soon after it was completed. His revolutionary floating slab concept saved it from nature, but not from progress… it was demolished for future development in 1968. The Pantheon in Rome, another revolutionary design…the first large masonry domed structure was completed in 125 AD and is still in use today.
What’s wrong with this picture? If we are serious about future concepts like “going green”, and I don’t think we are quite there yet, maybe thinking more than a quarter century ahead would be a good place to start before we put up the next multi-million dollar structure. More to come on this subject…
It’s summertime in Austin, and if you don’t know what that means…it’s hot! The kind of hot that can melt a massive iceberg in about twenty minutes if you could put it in a Walmart parking lot. But, you know what…I like it. When that sunshine falls on my body, I feel life flowing into me. I know…the dermatologists say, “Stay out of the sun and if you go outside, put on sunscreen”. But doctors have been proven wrong about many things, and a part of me thinks this is one. I’m not saying go out and char yourself, but nothing that feels that life giving can be that bad. So here we are, the sun lovers of the south in our shorts and flip-flops soaking up those rays. I have lived through the artic blasts of New England, and the four foot blizzards of Washington state and been rewarded later with about one week of real summer, but that isn’t for me. I suspect it isn’t for most of us Austinites…we like it when it’s hot.
So if you prefer a beach to a snow bank, or a bathing suit to a parka, maybe you should consider Austin living. This place is full of smart people, music, high tech jobs, a booming oil business, new high-rises galore down town, University of Texas athletics, and loads of glorious scorching summer sun…it’s hot!
I think it is Warren Buffet who is credited with the investment strategy of buying stock in a company whose products you really like and use. The same kind of thinking can apply to Real Estate.
For example, my wife and I have enjoyed visiting the Texas Coast for years, and almost always go to Port Aransas. It’s convenient to Austin and generally a lot of relaxing fun. It used to be a fishing village, but now it is developing into something quite different. Ten years ago one could easily purchase a condo there for $25,000 in a very beautiful building with nice amenities. We just spent a week there and I drove my poor wife crazy looking at Real Estate too much of the time…what I realized left me speechless. The same condo that was $25,000 is now closer to $250,000 or more. The newest condo project in town brags at a starting price in the $400’s.
Bottom line…if you like a place, and think it’s great, invest in it…other people probably feel the same way you do.
Here is your chance to have a piece of Austin’s most treasured asset…the Barton Creek Greenbelt. I first moved to Austin in 1976, and was amazed by the buzz that surrounded Barton Springs and Barton Creek. The Creek runs all year, and even in the driest years. It is a pristine piece of Texas history that runs through the most affluent sections of the modern city of Austin. Land that borders the Creek does nothing but become more valuable as time passes by. We just reduced the price of the estate home site located at 2320 Swirling Wind Cove. They aren’t making any more of these lots, so don’t miss this one…see my website for details.