Good morning my fellow Austinites! Hope you all are having a great week so far, the weather is starting to cool down and the Halloween decorations are going up! Who will you be dressing up as for Halloween? reply to this newsletter with your answer! I need some ideas! For this months episode we will go over some interesting Austin news along with a brief summary of the 2024 "downtown report" I will be implementing a new section to the newsletters, a small section for anyone interested in learning about multi-family investing and what its all about. I will be starting from the basics and over time you will know enough to get started in your own multi-family investment journey! And who knows, maybe we will get a chance to work together on a deal!
Alright! Lets dive in. Overall, there seems to be a slight correction happening in Austin currently. Inventory is on the rise with the average time on the market being around 79 days, up from around 65 days in the recent months of 2024, depending on the area. However, Austin steadily continues to make headway with new housing, even with the slight downturn in the market. The housing authority of the City of Austin (HACA) recently finished a huge project that started its planning phase in the 2010s named the "Pathways at Chalmers Courts". This project now provides 400 units of mixed income housing in the east side of Austin and is a real milestone for HACA. With the rising need for more low income housing in Austin, this will definitely help the community. In the downtown area, the newest and now the tallest (865 ft) sky scraper in Austin was recently completed this year, called the "6th and Guadalupe". It will now be the 6th tallest building in Texas! The 6th and Guadalupe is made up of 1626 parking spaces and 50 electric vehicle charging spots. Floors 14-32 are made up of 589,000 sqft. of office space, and floors 34-66 contain a 349-unit apartment complex! It is a site to behold for sure!
The 2024 Downtown Report has just been released! The first Downtown Report was published by The Downtown Austin Alliance in 2019. The report is basically a snapshot of the overall development of the 600 acres that make up the downtown area. There is a super cool animation that you can see by clicking Here to view a visual graphic of a before and after of downtown and the different buildings that have been erected. According to this article, here are a few figures that really breakdown the growth in 2024. 22% of growth in downtown was for office space, 38% was mixed use, 40% was residential, and projects currently under construction will deliver around 3,000 residential units! The Red-Line commuter rail ridership has increased a whopping 170% since 2020 and there will only be more expansion in the coming years. 29.9 million sqft. of power washing was completed and 43,105 pounds of trash was removed in order to beautify the downtown area. For a full breakdown of the Downtown Report, visit this Website. Swinerton, one of the largest contracting companies in the US, based out of California just broke ground on their new timber office they will be building in east Austin. At this new building , they will be manufacturing Cross-Laminated Timber which is more sustainable than regular timber and helps the environment by absorbing carbon monoxide. Swinerton is just another big player growing their roots in our great city! I am excited to see what the rest of the year and 2025 has to bring for Austin.
OK! Now for the Multi-Family Minute! Multi-Family (MF) investing is nothing new. There are many facets to the MF space that we will cover in future news letters but for now, lets just go over some advantages and reasons as to why someone would want to pursue this type of asset. Flipping houses, house hacking and BRRRs are a great way to invest and bring good returns with single families. However, those strategies are not very scalable for most people. When you have 7 different properties all undergoing different renovations in different locations with different time constraints, it can be hard to keep up! There are many people who are able to scale those strategies and be successful but I have found along with many others, that MF investing can be more passive and it provides less volatility and more stable income over longer periods of time and larger amounts of equity as well. Next episode we will go over the first steps of how to start your new MF investment journey!
Well, that is all for episode 4 ladies and gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed the read and learned something new. Stay safe out there and don't work too hard! See you next time for Episode 5!
FUN FACT: Whole Foods originated in Austin TX
