Are Austinites buying these condos or mostly investors or out-of-towners?
Today, most buyers are Austinites, and nearly all plan to live in their units. That’s a change from the market through 2007 and early 2008. Presales to investors and speculative flippers tended to be the ones that fell out; the replacement buyers intend to be real residents (some part-time). Broker Kevin Burns said, “Approximately 90% of the deals that UrbanSpace has done in the past year have been sold to owner-occupants. About half of the deals that we have done have sold to locals, the other half to people moving into Austin.” At the 360, buyers for 18% of the residences stated they were purchased as investments. At both the W Residences and Spring, about 80% of buyers are from Austin. Some 20% at Spring are from elsewhere in Texas, said Warshaw. At the Austonian, approximately 50% of buyers are local, while 40% are from other Texas cities. Mitchell said: “We did not market the project to investor-buyers, because they have a tendency to walk contracts. I have had that happen in othe
