Austin TX in the News

Here’s a brand new one, hot off the presses for our awesome list of Things To Do In Austin! Beauty Pageant At Bikinis Sports Bar And Grill According to this article from Herald Online, The founder and CEO of Bikinis: Doug Guller, has announced plans to roll out an annual beauty pageant on top of his growing franchise. The first beauty pageant is set to go off in 2014! Doug Guller is something of a serial entrepreneur  founding several businesses and even buying the town of Bankersmith and renaming it Bikinis after his restaurant  He has also been busy registering some very interesting Trademarks recently which you can read more about on the official Bikinis blog here. Bikinis would have already earned a top mention among the things to do in Austin, but...

President Obama is going to be making the first of several stops today on his Jobs and Opportunity Tour, in our very own city of Austin. Here’s what White House representative, Todd Park, says about it: “…we’re looking forward to showcasing the innovative spirit of Austin, as a model for the rest of the country.” So here’s the $16 trillion dollar question: is the President coming here to learn, or to preach? It’s great that President Obama recognizes Austin’s leadership in creating jobs and hosting a model economy, but it has nothing to do with anything he’s proposed so far, and in fact, most of the rhetoric coming from Washington stands in stark opposition to the philosophy of Austin and the great state of...

Mobility 35 is the organization dedicated to collecting proposals and public feedback on ways to improve traffic flow through Austin i35. Recently, architect Sinclair Black has suggested moving the entire interstate [between Lady Bird Lake and 15th Street] underground; a concept which is quickly gaining a lot of support and traction. The news crew over at KVUE hit the streets to get residents’ reactions, all of which seemed to be positive. The major notion is that i35 acts as a makeshift border through the town, and really not much to look at. Sinking interstate 35 would open up a large expanse of developable Real Estate and do wonders to bring the ‘East’ and ‘West’ communities together, raising property values across the...

Austin is at it again! Getting in front of the latest tech before everyone else. Well… just about. Google Fiber is currently in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas. You think Google execs have a Wizard of Oz fandom going on? Maybe? Well, we’re not in Kansas anymore! After those two cities: Austin is next! And here’s what this means: while other people are posturing and preening over their FiOS connections with Verizon at 100/mbps maximum (you pay out the ass for that by the way) we’ll be enjoying 1,000/mbps! And to put that in perspective, most broadband internet runs at an average of 10/mbps. If you’re not super nerdy like some of my friends who know about this stuff (you know who you are, Squall), mbps stands for...

On March 1st, Austin became one of the first places in the US to institute an official plastic bag ban. Fox 7 ran this story: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/21437411/austins-bag-ban-is-now-in-effect?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=8537491 So far the reactions from the public seem pretty divided, though it’s the unhappy customers that tend to make the most noise (as usual). Looking at it realistically, I can see why people might be a little irritated that the plastic bags they’re so used to are out. It’s essentially a matter of convenience, which is primarily concerned with saving time. Being a Realtor, I’m all about saving time (it’s a 25/8 job), but the time savings here seems minimal. It’s not that much...

I’m not one for hyperbole… I just know how to do math. Here’s what I mean: Business Insider – Housing Inventory Shortage I draw your attention to this particular point: “The number of available homes, which is not seasonally adjusted, fell 4.9% from December and is 25.3% lower than a year ago. With 1.74 million homes on the market, at the current sales pace, supply will be exhausted in just over four months. It represents the lowest housing supply since April 2005. In a normal market, a healthy supply level is about six months.” That’s badass by itself, but Austin’s situation is even more impressive, with closer to only two and half months of supply. That’s significantly less than half of what is typically...