How many cities still have downtown department stores?

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by JManc

There's no reason Austin should be that expensive. It's still Austin. I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. Texas has an ever increasingly property tax unlike California so if someone from the Bay Area and Austin bought their houses for $500k and they're now worth 3x that now, Californians pay tax on the $500k while Texans pay based on the current $1.5 million value.

Houston has plenty of high paying jobs and wealth too but housing market still less than half what it is in Austin. However, million dollar houses in Houston are typically furnished with high end appliances and furniture.

Yeah, a million dollar house in Austin is a whole lot different than one in Houston. There are lots of more expensive ones here, though, in the range of $1.5M and up, and of course they're furnished with high end stuff. A lot of those are new construction in inner city areas where tear downs are occurring all over the place.

There were media reports today about how our housing market here is cooling off a lot. Due to high interest rates, a lot of buyers are sitting things out, so our inventory is increasing rapidly. That puts a damper on the growth in prices we were experiencing. There are still a lot of cash buyers as well as those who can get a mortgage, so it's not like a housing crash. It's just not crazy like it was. Zillow is showing my home's estimate to have leveled off, compared to the enormous growth over the last couple of years. I think things will accelerate again at some point, but not for a while.