Leander vs Pflugerville

[Hemal Patel]

Being remote and have never lived in Austin, it's quite confusing to know that between Leander and Pflugerville, which one is a better prospect for investment, say we'll keep it for 5 years. We've observed that Leander is around 220-225/sq ft whereas Pflugerville is around 215-220/sq ft. Pflu also offers newer construction and larger homes but overall Leander seems to have a full package, such as schools, shopping, ameneties, metro etc. Our main concerns are:

- Which one will rent better? So far the rental comps show a mixed (or similar data) as newer communities in Pflu and Leander have average school rating. Not talking about the established neighborhoods where the schools are excellent.

- Which one has more foundation settlement issues? We've heard that East of Austin has more clay in soil and perhaps more prone to settlement issues.

- Which one has higher property tax and chances of hiking every year? Blackhawk and Avalon communities in Pflu has 3.25% property tax but the hike year after year is not too high. Leander is about 2.8 but the hike seems to be 7%

- In terms of HOA, Leander communities run slightly higher on HOA

[Dan Burstain]

@Hemal Patel in my opinion Leander is the better bet but Pflugerville is not bad.  Some things you may not know is that Leander has a metro rail stop where Pflugerville does not, so you can hop on there and go all the way to Downtown Austin.  Leander is building a billion dollar lagoon area where there will be restaurants and shops.  It also sits just about 15 minutes from the new Apple campus that is still being built.  Leander does have better schools than Pflugerville as well.  Pflugerville is closer to central Austin and it is starting to quickly see pretty good appreciation as well.