As Lake Travis continues to grow, so do the many shopping options in the area. Residents can choose to shop from the local boutiques throughout Lakeway to the Hill Country Galleria Mall in Bee Caves, offering 500,000 square feet of retail stores and boutiques. Barton Creek Square Mall, home to major department stores and specialty retailers, is also only a short drive away form Lake Travis homes!
Hill Country Galleria
The Hill Country Galleria has everything from retail shops to residential apartments to office space. This lifestyle center will keep you entertained for hours with its wide variety of shopping, dining and various events throughout the year.
Shops at The Galleria
The Shops at The Galleria has more to offer than its breath taking views, open courtyards and fountain ponds. This premier shopping destination has national, regional and local tenants available to its visitors. Some of the featured shops include Lowe’s, Newflower Market, Petsmart, Bestbuy, Maudie’s, Waterloo, Mandola’s and Spec’s.
Texas Treasures
Texas Treasures features local artists who produce original paintings, designed furnishings and decorative items perfect for furnishing your Lake Travis home. With over 3,000 square feet of shopping, visitors will undoubtedly find that special something they are looking for.
Lakeway Commons
Lakeway Commons is the perfect Hill Country setting for visitors to enjoy shopping and dining. With delicious restaurants and boutique shopping, Lakeway Commons has something for everyone to enjoy. Featured stores and restaurants include John Ryan’s Clothing, Mad About Shoes, Mulligan’s Sports Grill, Vino 100 and much more! All of this shopping is just minutes from great Lake Travis homes!
Archive for the ‘Buying a Home’ Category
7. Realtors Don’t Like Inspectors (Unless They’re in Cahoots)
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
I’m going to keep this one short.
Now this may be complete speculation, but I’m going to say it anyways because the internet is free press and as a real estate observer and writer, I feel I’m somewhat justified in my claim, if not completely: realtors sometimes don’t like inspectors (unless they’re in cahoots.)
As I’ve mentioned before, several times, and if you’ve followed this blog at all over the past year and a half, then you’re probably sick of hearing it, but realtors do have a certain code of ethics that they must adhere to, and sometimes they do things that aren’t necessarily in line with their code.
Home inspections are a part of the majority of real estate transactions, and as the frequency of home inspections has increased in recent years, there has been a growing concern of brokerages working with realtor-referred home inspectors. The problem arises in the field of conflicts of interests. In fact, stories have emerged about some realtor agencies actually forcing inspectors to lower their rates in exchange for jobs.
According to a New England-based home inspection service, Applewood Home Inspection, there is a growing concern for this conflict of interests and they proclaim on their website that they are not involved in the growing trend. 1goodhomeinspection.com cites the home inspector as a buyer’s “last line of defense” in order to ensure the validity of a home’s integrity.
“In my experience as an inspector,” one blogger writes from 1goodhomeinspection.com, “the vast majority of referrals come from Realtors. In my not so humble opinion this is significant error in judgment on the part of the buyer. I will say there are a few Realtors out there that do genuinely have their clients’ best interests at heart. This is significantly easier for the Realtor if they are working for the seller, but requires amazing moral fortitude when working as a ‘Buyer’s Agent’.”
So there you have it folks, something to look out for when dealing with realtors and inspectors. The real estate world can be a very strange place sometimes, and the more you know about what to expect the better off you’ll be.
6. Know Your Zone!!!!
Monday, February 21st, 2011
In keeping with our TEN THINGS ABOUT REALTORS column (which has taken much longer than I expected) we now move on to number six: Your realtor, although he/she may act like he/she knows about zoning laws about what you can and can’t do on your own property, they’re probably not as eloquent in zone-talk as you might think.
A lot of times, zoning restrictions are apparent. If you’re in the middle of an office park, then it’s probably safe to say that there’s not a chance you’re going to find a residential property there. Same goes vis-a-versa. If you’re a home-buyer, then typically you’re not too worried about zoning. Residential living is hardly ever offered in a commercial zone. By the time you get there, the restrictions have already been read, and followed. And your realtor’s not going to try and sell you a property that you’ll have to give up in a week because you intended it for residential purposes and legislative mandates said it was purely for business. That would be bad business.
However…
There is a phenomenon occurring across the nation. As throngs of people move from the suburbs back into urban areas, we are seeing the rise of mixed-use developments. When walking was the primary mode of transport, all that existed was a form of mixed-use developments. However, as individual transportation became more and more the norm, it was a completely viable business model to stick your retail store in a shopping complex as opposed to opening it closer to where people live. Now that gas is so expensive and traveling proves to be more and more of a hassle for the everyday American, people are migrating closer to the places they work, thus the mixed-use developments are once again on the rise. Sorry suburbia. As specific-use zoning becomes more of a thing of the past and residencies move into the city, zoning laws will become a bit of a blurry subject, and sometimes, a touchy subject.
If you’re a home-buyer that’s looking to purchase a property and make major renovations, it would bode well for you to take a little extra time and figure out your property’s zoning restrictions as well as the ordinances therein.
Here’s an example: My friends who are brand now homeowners, purchased a house in the northern suburbs of Austin, TX. They bought it with plans to remodel their kitchen and once they started to do so, a neighbor called them in to the city on account of their minor remodel job. Now their kitchen is gutted with nothing but the drywall up, no sink, they have to eat out every night, their refrigerator is in the kitchen, and they’re so hung up in paperwork applying for a permit to finish the job, it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to host a party for the Texas Rangers season opener.
The above is a minor case of a zoning and ordinance mishap that can hinder any homeowner at having their dream home. It’s important to know what you can and can’t do with your land, and what you can and can’t do with your property. Although your realtor may seem like the expert when it comes to specific zoning and ordinances, every place is different. There would be nothing worse than buying a house with the intent to add a pool house and then find out that zoning laws say otherwise. Realtors aren’t planners.
5. The Ill-Conceived Notion of an Impartial Buyer’s Agent
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011
This one if for the buyers out there.
When hunting for a house out there on the market, there are several people you deal with. Unfortunately, most of all of those folks are attempting to sell you something based on the fact that they’ll get a commission out of it.
So, you go searching for that helping that’s just there to guide you and ask for nothing in return. You find a “Buyer’s Agent”. Contrary to common belief, these buyer’s agents don’t necessarily always operate in the buyer’s best interest. They’re working for a commission too—3%, which is usually what sellers get on sales. It has also been documented that many buyer’s agents are sourced by brokerages that pay them more to sell an in-house listing, so although this house may seem perfect and your agent may seem unbiased, you’re actually only seeing the one piece of the pie that they want you to see.
But who can blame them. It’s nearly impossible to remain unbiased when there is a financial incentive. It’s something that we call a conflict of interest here in the real estate world and it plagues more real estate professionals than you know. In fact, according to a study performed in February, 2010 at Carnegie Melon University, researchers found out that when there is a conflict of interests (such as financial endorsement) it is almost an unconscious act to favor that which might benefit you more.
“The evidence from Experiment 2 suggests that financial incentives had a stronger influence on public reports than on private beliefs. However, agents’ relationships with their principals acted as a more powerful influence on their private judgments than did financial incentives.” (Judgement and Decision Making, vol. 5, no. 1, February 2010, pp. 37-53)
This basically, means that folks who were asked to be unbiased, appraised the value of the test company higher when dealing with sellers and lower when dealing with buyers. There was a financial incentive in place to reward them on how high they sold the test company for and how low they bought the test company for. Researchers found that, when offered financial incentives, appraisals were much more biased than when all agents were paid a flat fee. (You can read all of this in scientific jargon if you click the link above and scroll down to Experiment 2.)
What I’m trying to convince you of is the fact that those completely objective buyer’s agents do not exist. It’s the commissions that sway their ethics. So next time you’re thinking about who’s really looking out for who in the real estate world, just remember this: it is every man for himself.
