Real questions from buyers, sellers, and people moving to Austin from abroad. If yours isn't here, ask me.
Central and west: Tarrytown, Pemberton Heights, Clarksville, Old Enfield, and Bryker Woods on the historic side; Westlake, Zilker, and Barton Hills; and the Lake Austin waterfront. I know these streets house by house, which matters more than knowing the whole city a little.
Send me a note through the contact page or call 704.502.4508, and tell me three things: what you are looking for, roughly where, and when. We will talk for half an hour, on the phone or over coffee, and I will tell you directly whether I am the right person for your search. If I am, we put the terms of working together in writing before we tour a single house, so you know what I do and what it costs before anything starts. If you are overseas, the first conversation is a video call and we plan the visit around it.
You are allowed to go without one. I would not advise it. At two million and up, the listing agent works for the seller, the contracts run long, and the expensive mistakes hide in inspection periods, appraisal gaps, and what "as-is" means on a 1930s house. A buyer's agent's job is to see those before you sign, and to know which sellers will take a lower number without saying so. In Texas we put the terms of working together in writing before we tour, so you know exactly what you are getting, and what it costs, before we start.
Ask three things. How many clients are you working with right now, and will I have your attention or your assistant's? Do you have access to homes before they are listed, and can you tell me about one? And which neighborhoods do you know house by house, rather than by reputation? The answers tell you whether you are getting their time, their network, and their judgment, or a good website and a handoff. Then notice whether they push. At this level you want someone precise and calm, who tells you when to walk.
Often, yes. Pocket listings, private exclusives, off-market sales: whatever you call them, some of what sells in Tarrytown, Westlake, and on Lake Austin never appears on the public sites. I belong to private groups where homes trade only off market, including the Austin Luxury Network and Top Agent Network, which I have access to through The Lewis Group, I keep the agents who work these streets aware of what I am looking for, and through The Lewis Group at Kuper Sotheby's I can put your requirements in front of every agent in the brokerage, so if someone has a house coming, they call me. If you are specific about what you want, I can be specific about where to look. The full picture of what "off-market" means here, and the rules behind it, is on my off-market homes page.
The house is half the purchase. The other half is the water: how much shoreline you actually own, what the dock and lift are permitted for, whether the lot floods, and who controls what you can build at the water's edge. Lake Austin is a constant-level lake, which is part of its value, but the rules for docks, bulkheads, and tree removal are specific and enforced. A standard inspection does not answer those questions, so on a waterfront purchase the first calls are to a surveyor who knows the shoreline and an inspector who has done docks, and we read the permits before you fall in love with the view.
That the charm and the surprises come as a set. Older homes here need a sharper inspection than a new build: foundation, plumbing, electrical, and what past renovations were done with and without permits. I have been through this enough times to know which inspectors to call and which findings are normal versus a reason to walk. Go in prepared and these homes are wonderful. Go in blind and they are expensive.
Two different things, and buyers mix them up. Pemberton Heights is in a National Register district, which is an honor, not a rulebook. What Austin adds on top is an advisory review of exterior work on contributing houses, and a real process if you ever want to demolish one. The city can hold a demolition application on a contributing house for up to 180 days. City landmark designation is a third thing again, and that one is zoning. I wrote the whole thing out, with the city's own sources, on my Pemberton Heights historic homes page.
Not what the online estimate says. Above two million the houses stop being alike, and a sale down the street from six months ago can already be stale. I price from what has actually closed in your neighborhood, adjusted for what your house has that those did not and what it lacks, and then from what is sitting unsold and why. You get a range and a recommendation, with the reasoning written out. If you want a number that flatters, I am the wrong agent. If you want one that sells, we will agree quickly.
Three things largely determine how a house sells: location, price and condition. We can't change the location, so the work goes into the other two. I usually recommend a pre-inspection, so we deal with what an inspector would find before a buyer's inspector finds it and turns it into a negotiation.
With your written authorization, we can start with an Unlock MLS Flex listing. The house goes into the MLS where every agent in Central Texas can see it and show it to their buyers, but it stays off the public search sites and no public days on market accrue. That's the phase for testing a price while there's still no clock running.
At public launch the listing goes to Realtor.com and its hundred-plus partner sites, and through Sotheby's own distribution, which reaches 46 million visitors a year in 14 languages across more than a hundred brokerage websites. Alongside that: professional photography and drone, a 3D tour, a dedicated property website, direct mail, open houses, a broker opening, and geo-targeted advertising. Reverse prospecting puts your house in front of agents whose buyers already match it. You get weekly reports on showings, feedback and online activity.
Yes. Flex, Unlock MLS's delayed-marketing option, puts the house in the MLS where every agent in Central Texas can see it, while it stays off the public search sites unless the seller allows display on certain registered-user sites, and accrues no days on market. An office exclusive stays inside Kuper Sotheby's. Beyond that there are private networks you need access to, and there's the part that isn't a platform at all: agents talking to agents about what their buyers are looking for. Any of it needs your written consent. What you're weighing is exposure against control, and at this end of the market that's a closer call than it sounds. We'll decide it with numbers, not assumptions. The routes and the rules are written out on my off-market homes page.
Longer than the average home, and that's normal. These houses aren't interchangeable. A buyer at this level isn't choosing between twenty similar options, they're waiting for the one that fits, so the house has to find its person rather than the other way round. What shortens it: pricing right on day one, preparation done before the first showing, and getting in front of the right agents before the listing is public. What lengthens it: an aspirational price followed by reductions. Buyers watch that, and every cut costs more than it saves.
With a conversation, ideally before you have fallen for a listing photo. I made the same move from London, so I know which questions you do not know to ask yet: how neighborhoods differ in feel, what "close to downtown" actually means here, and how the buying process differs from England. We will build a shortlist before you fly in.
Yes. What you need is a plan, a few early mornings for the time difference, and someone here who will walk a house the way you would. I made this move myself, so the things that catch British buyers out are things I have dealt with personally, and the biggest one is financing. It works differently here: US lenders decide on US terms and your UK history does not carry over, but there are lenders who work with buyers arriving from abroad, including non-resident and expat mortgage products, so if you intend to finance rather than pay cash, that conversation starts months before you fly. We narrow neighborhoods by video and conversation, I preview homes and send you unedited footage, and we make an offer when the right one appears, whether you are in London or on a flight.
Four places, and none of them are edited by me. Google, which is where most recent clients have left theirs. Zillow. Yelp, which shows eleven. And my testimonials page, which carries thirty-five, each one tagged with the neighborhood and the year so you can find someone who bought or sold where you are looking.