WholeAustin · Austin metro · Condos
The complete Austin guide to condos — the local businesses and the firms that shape the market, each read for how findable it is online, alongside the concepts, the news and the questions that define the field. Own one? See where you stand and exactly what to improve.
The firms, funds and institutions that set the terms in condos — context, not local listings; never scored.
A page per submarket — Downtown/CBD, Rainey Street, Seaholm and the Second Street District, Market and Warehouse districts, South Congress and Bouldin, East Austin, the Domain and North Austin, plus lake-adjacent product. Condo buyers shop by building and district, not by ZIP, and this is the highest-intent pillar.
One page per named tower: age, unit count, HOA dues structure, amenity set, parking arrangement, master insurance posture, known assessments, and what actually trades there. Building-level content outranks generic city-level content because it answers the question a buyer is really asking.
Projects under construction or in pre-sale — contract structure, earnest money and deposit escrow, construction timeline risk, presale thresholds, developer warranty, and what happens if delivery slips. Covers the specific risk of buying an unbuilt unit.
The core commercial content of this cluster: what makes a project warrantable, which Austin project characteristics break warrantability, and what a buyer's options are when the building fails review. This is where buyers get blindsided at day 20 of a contract.
Limited vs Full review, Condo Project Manager and Condo Project Advisor, PERS for new construction, the specific ratio tests (investor concentration, single-entity ownership, commercial space, delinquency, reserves), and the unavailable-project lists that quietly kill deals.
FHA project approval, single-unit approval, the HUD condominium lookup, VA-approved condo lists, and how these programs differ from conventional review — often the only path for a lower-down-payment buyer in a specific building.
Declaration and CC&Rs, bylaws, rules, budget, reserve study, meeting minutes, insurance certificate and resale certificate — what each document tells you, the Texas condo-docs delivery period, the buyer's right of rescission, and a practical read-order for a seven-day review.
How dues are calculated, dues per square foot as the comparison metric across buildings, what dues do and do not include, operating vs reserve line items, the reserve study, percent funded, and why the cheapest dues in a district are often the most expensive building to own.
Why assessments happen, how they are voted and allocated, deferred maintenance and critical repairs, facade and envelope work, elevator and mechanical replacement, and what a pending or rumored assessment does to a listing, an appraisal and a loan.
Master policy forms (bare walls, single entity, all-in), the unit owner's HO-6 walls-in policy, loss assessment coverage, the master deductible allocation and who pays it, and the premium escalation that has been reshaping association budgets.
Property Code Chapter 82 — declaration and condo regime creation, common elements and limited common elements, association powers, assessment liens and their priority, records access, resale certificates, and the declarant control and turnover rules.
Which Austin buildings permit nightly rental, the city's STR licensing regime, how a rental-permissive building is underwritten (and sometimes disqualified) by conventional lenders, and how condo-hotel and branded-residence product differs from a standard condominium.
The honest comparison — total cost of ownership including dues, appreciation behavior, maintenance burden, lock-and-leave value, resale liquidity, and the Austin quirk that many detached and small-lot homes are legally condominium regimes rather than subdivided lots.
Rental caps and waiting lists, minimum lease terms, leasing registration, how investor concentration affects both the association and the next buyer's loan, and the math of owning a downtown unit as a rental against dues, taxes and insurance.
Contract addenda specific to condominiums, the resale certificate and its timing, transfer fees and capital contributions at closing, estoppel, title and survey differences, the appraisal's project section, and the realistic timeline when a lender orders a project review.
Parking (deeded, assigned or leased), storage, pets, guest and move-in rules, amenity access, board elections and meetings, proxies and quorum, management company relationships, and how a resident actually gets something changed.
fee title to the air space inside the unit plus an undivided interest in the common elements, and membership in an association you cannot opt out of
condo is a form of ownership, not a building shape; a townhome can be either fee-simple or condo, and a condo regime can cover detached houses
define the shared-by-all versus assigned-to-one-unit distinction and use parking, balconies and patios as the examples owners actually argue about
list the components — insurance, utilities on common areas, management, staff, amenities, reserves — and say that reserves are the line most often underfunded
a one-time charge levied when reserves cannot cover a capital repair; explain how it is allocated by ownership interest, not by unit size preference
it is the association's forecast of component life and funding; explain that its absence is itself a finding
define it as a project that passes Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac project review so a conventional loan can be sold to the agencies; the unit is not what is being reviewed, the project is
walls-in coverage for what the master policy excludes, plus loss assessment; explain that the declaration decides where the master policy stops
the agencies drew a line between routine deferred maintenance and critical repairs affecting safety, soundness, structural integrity or habitability, and made unresolved critical repairs a disqualifier; cite the Fannie Mae Selling Guide
the association's statutory disclosure package under the Texas Uniform Condominium Act; describe what it must contain and that the buyer's review clock runs from delivery
explain the hotel-like operations test — rental desk, mandatory rental pooling, daily housekeeping — and that it moves a project out of conventional eligibility rather than making it unfinanceable
answer with the total-cost-of-ownership frame — dues, taxes, insurance and assessment risk against price per square foot — and do not assert an appreciation gap without citing ABoR or TRERC data for a stated period
commercial square footage, shared podium systems, hotel or retail co-owners and cost-sharing agreements all enter both the budget and the lender's review
explain warrantability, investor concentration and the reserve requirement; do not quote a threshold percentage without citing Fannie Mae
the answer is a lender-run project review plus the association's questionnaire; the agency project lists are lender-facing, so no buyer can look this up from a listing
explain the mechanism — too many units held as rentals shifts the project's risk profile — and point to the Fannie Mae Selling Guide for the current limit rather than stating a percentage
Get your free website score and the exact list of what to fix — no charge, no pitch. Claim your listing or ask for the full report.