Austin Real Estate Blog

So I have been writing about minimalist living for awhile. I thought I would post on here about minimalist living as it relates to real estate and Austin in particular. First off, what is minimalist living all about. Its the idea that we have become bogged down by our possessions. And that by having less possessions we can lead a simpler life. Additionally, by lowering our spending we can either reduce the number of hours we work in order to retire earlier.

Ok so first off if you want to reduce your house size we need to look at the getting rid of some of the stuff in the house. We grouped our stuff into three categories. First was stuff that we have no idea why we ever got it in the first place. This included furniture kind of thrust on us by our relatives. We got rid of everything in the first group. We shipped it all off to goodwill. Second were items we couldn't part with that we had to keep. This included a few musical instruments and books. The middle were items we were unsure about. Things we didn't use frequently but we felt we might use in the future. For items in the third group we put them in storage. If we kept them in storage for 6 months and never needed them we figured we could then get rid of them. After we have determined the amount of items we want to keep we can estimate the square footage we need.

Second our goal is too lower our total property bill not just our mortgage payment so there are multiple factors to take into account namely mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance, and heating and cooling costs. Additionally your proximity to work and other places you travel to frequently should be taken into account because of the amount of money you pay in gas. What all this adds up to is that buying a small centrally located house for say 150k can end up leading to lower total expenses than buying a larger house in the suburbs for the same price. The reasons for this are that your gas bills for your car will be lower and your heating and cooling costs on a smaller house will usually be less. In our case we moved into a cheaper house that was more centrally located so we were able to sharply cut into our property related expenses. Now I know its difficult to find places that are affordable in Austin but there are still some affordable places in central Austin. Crestview which is between burnet and lamar Around Justin lane is still decently affordable. Also Huntland Hieghts which is between I-35 and lamar around Justin is also pretty affordable.

Lastly our advice is to get a duplex. I cant put enough emphasis on this. The reason for this is it drastically lowers your monthly expenses. In many areas of Austin a duplex is the same price as a house. So you can often cut your property related expenses in half. Its a great way to move into a centrally located neighborhood and not have high monthly property bills.