The most contentious Austin zoning battles relate to development close to Ladybird Lake. The prime downtown lake is considered one of the city’s most important natural assets. As a result, the City has been closely examining proposals to protect the lake from future development. Essentially, the City Council would like to limit the height of…
Brazos Place Auction Results: All Units Sell, 29% Discount
Today was a big day for Brazos Place as all 19 remaining units were sold in less than 90 minutes to a packed room of bidders. On average, the units sold at a 29% discount to the original listing price. This is, however, a useless barometer as the units were not selling well at the original prices….
BartonPlace Event Invitation
BartonPlace would like to invite Austin Towers readers to a live radio discussion on “Dissecting DowntownFacts vs. Fiction” to be followed by a construction tour of BartonPlace and an afternoon reception. The details are: What: Live Talk Radio Show (1:00pm) BartonPlace Site Tour(3:30pm) Afternoon Reception (4-5pm) When: Sunday, May 24th @1:00pm Where: BartonPlace PresentationCenter (1800…
Star Riverside Proceeding with Construction
Star Riverside has announced plans to proceed with construction of the first two planned buildings with completion expected in the first quarter of 2010. The project may be the last major condo development to break ground during the current building boom. With tight credit markets and slack demand, most drawing board projects have been indefinitely…
Brazos Place: Auction Fine Print
In eleven days, B razos Place will auction as many as 20 units to the lowest bidder. The May 17 auction has received lots of press and attention — in particular because the units are being promoted with incredibly low opening bids. The opening bids start at a too-good-to-be-true $80,000 — as much as 58% lower than the original unit…
New Condo Mortgage Restrictions
Earlier this year, Fannie Mae stopped guaranteeing mortgages in new or newly converted condo developments in which fewer than 70 percent of units have been sold or are under contract. Fannie’s previous rules set the cutoff at 51 percent. Freddie Mac recently sent a bulletin to sellers and servicers announcing plans to adopt similar restrictions…