Currently tracking 17 cities across the Austin metro
Move smarter. Invest with confidence.
A visual decision report on how Austin could shape your life, money, family, and the next ten years — built on public data, confidence-scored, and written to be read by a human, not a spreadsheet.
“Before the data — one honest question: are you choosing a place, or choosing your next decade?AreaIQ's take: a home is a five-minute decision you live with for ten years. The address you pick quietly sets your commute, your job options, your kids' schools, and the equity you build. So read the next six pages as a decade, not a listing.Tap to reflect →
Austin, decoded
Fun facts you'll actually bring up at dinner
🦇
1.5 million bats live under Congress Avenue Bridge — the largest urban bat colony in North America. Crowds gather at dusk to watch them spiral out.
🎸
Austin trademarked the title "Live Music Capital of the World," with 250+ venues. You're rarely more than a few blocks from a stage.
💸
Texas has no state income tax — a quiet but real part of the long-term wealth math for movers and investors.
🚀
Tesla's Gigafactory, plus a wave of chip and AI employers, anchor a job base that keeps pulling talent into the region.
🏎️
Formula 1 races here every fall at the Circuit of the Americas — one of only a handful of F1 tracks in the country.
🌮
The breakfast taco is practically a civic institution — and the friendly feud with San Antonio over who does it best is very real.
Page 00 · People like you
This report is about you — not just Austin.
Tell AreaIQ who you are and the whole report re-sorts around your life. Same city, very different answer depending on your stage, budget, and priorities. Pick a profile:
Your profile
AreaIQ says
YES
Best areas for you
Avoid
Confidence: 89%
“If two people read the same city report and walk away with opposite decisions — who was the report really for?AreaIQ's take: a place isn't good or bad in the abstract — it's good or bad for you. That's why every score re-weights around your profile before it becomes a recommendation.Tap to reflect →
Page 01 · Executive decision engine
Your 60-second verdict
AreaIQ recommendation · for a family of four
MOVE HERE
Confidence 79% · evidence-based, not a prediction
0
AreaIQ score Top 18% of metros
Why
Watch
That's the call. Want the full picture?
Key data points — Austin · 78704
Price range RentCast
$685k
$521/sqft · appreciating +3.6%/yr · range $485k–$1.35M
Property tax ACS derived
1.8%
≈ $12,324/yr on the median · B25103 ÷ B25077
Crime FBI*
18
↓ 5.8% vs prior yr (19.1) · violent 4.0/1k · property 17.1/1k
Population Census
47,120
ZIP residents · in-migration pressures prices & schools
Schools NCES/TEA*
6/10 · C
Travis ISD · TEA-style accountability grade
Economic BLS/FRED
3.2%
metro unemployment · median HHI $78,250 (Census)
* Crime & schools shown from mock data in this build; real FBI/NCES feeds are the next Tier-1 sources. Population & income are live Census; property tax is the ACS-derived state estimate.
Housing market depth — how it's trading
Days on market RentCast
41
median days to contract · steady, not frantic
Months of inventory RentCast
2.6
under 3 = seller-leaning, but cooling
List-to-sale RentCast
97.8%
homes closing just under ask · mild buyer room
5-yr appreciation FHFA
+41.7%
10-yr ~+75% · cooled from the 2022 peak
Carrying cost FRED
$4,888
/mo PITI on the median · 20% down · 6.81% 30-yr
Price tiers RentCast
5
$500k→$2M · $3.6k→$14.3k/mo all-in
Risk & climate — what could bite
FEMA flood zone FEMA · live
Zone X
minimal flood hazard — outside the regulatory floodplain · not in SFHA
Crime trend FBI*
↓5.8%
index 18 vs 19.1 prior · violent 4.0/1k · property 17.1/1k
Extreme heat NOAA*
32
days/yr over 100°F · rising trend · the real climate cost
Air quality AQI*
Good
seasonal moderate on ozone days
Access & lifestyle — the daily reality
Drive to jobs Mapbox
18′
to downtown peak (~12′ off-peak) · ~25′ to the Domain
Walk / Transit / Bike OSM
82/45/78
very walkable core · limited transit · bike-friendly
Hospital access CMS
1.4 mi
St. David’s Medical · full ER & trauma
New housing Permits
1,240
units permitted nearby · adds supply, tempers price
Economy & growth — what anchors value
Job growth BLS
+3.1%
YoY · unemployment 3.2% (below US)
Median income Census
$78,250
+9.4% 5-yr in-migration · above national
Cost of living BLS/HUD
103
vs 100 US · housing is the swing factor
Industry mix BEA
Diversified
tech · semiconductors · health · government · education
Top employers (named)
Sector
Signal
Tesla Gigafactory
Advanced manufacturing / EV
Anchor
Samsung Austin / Taylor fab
Semiconductors
Anchor
University of Texas
Education / research
Stable
St. David’s HealthCare
Healthcare
Stable
Infrastructure & growth — major projects in motion
Jobs · manufacturing
Tesla expansion
Gigafactory build-out east of Austin keeps adding jobs and tax base — a durable demand anchor for the SE corridor.
Access
New highway project
Corridor capacity upgrades ease commute friction and open the outer rings to buyers priced out of the core.
Connectivity
Airport expansion
Austin-Bergstrom terminal program advances toward 30M+ annual passengers — national connectivity for employers.
Industry
Samsung investment
~$17B Taylor semiconductor fab seeds a new chip corridor and a decade of high-wage hiring nearby.
Live FEMA flood is now a live FEMA NFHL query. * FBI crime, NOAA heat, AQI, named employers & major-project status remain illustrative in this build — they light up as each Tier-1/Tier-2 source is wired (§17 / §22 steps 4–7). Price, inventory, taxes, population & income trace to live or near-live feeds today.
For those who want more than a minute
The full method. Key outputs — tap any one for its Past → Current → Future → Confidence → Evidence chain:
AreaIQ Score™Move Here?Invest Here?Raise Family Here?Confidence ScoreGrowth Story™Risk Radar™Friend Test™
Tap any output for its evidence chain →
How the score is built — for a family of four
Your score is a weighted blend of the factors your persona cares about most. Switch persona above and the weights — and the score — change.
Weighted total: 79 / 100 · confidence 79%
Live real API now · Have* integrated, refresh pending · Tier 1 build next · Tier 2 later
The growth story
Past
A decade of tech growth, heavy population inflow, and some of the fastest home-price appreciation in the country.
Current
The hype has cooled into something more useful: selective, real opportunity for buyers who do their homework.
Future
AI, semiconductors, infrastructure, and continued talent migration could keep the long-term story intact.
Biggest opportunity
Airport & growth corridors
Areas tied to infrastructure, jobs, and relative affordability may quietly outperform the famous neighborhoods.
Population growth across the SE corridor
Rising building-permit activity
New employers near the airport
Funded infrastructure projects
Hidden opportunity
Manor corridor
Less trendy, more affordable, and positioned for spillover if eastward growth continues the way it has.
Eastward price spillover from the core
Lower entry prices than central Austin
Active new-home development pipeline
Improving commuter access
Biggest mistake
Buying popularity
Paying a premium just because an area is famous is the fastest way to cap your future upside.
Premium is already priced in
Thin remaining upside
Higher carrying cost on a bigger basis
Better value usually one ring out
“Are you buying a house — or buying access to the next decade of opportunity?AreaIQ's take: the house is the easy part. What you're really pricing is proximity to jobs, transit, and the corridors that haven't been "discovered" yet. Buy the trajectory, not the postcard.Tap to reveal AreaIQ's take →
Page 02 · Life impact intelligence
What kind of life are you buying?
Austin scores 88 on life impact and 89 on community fit — newcomer-friendly, active, and genuinely social. The friction is real too: a 68 on life-friction reflects traffic, summer heat, property taxes, and rising costs. On balance, it's a high-energy place that rewards people who plug into its food, music, and outdoor life.
Purpose: explain how daily life may change.
Community Personality™Family Quality of Life™Financial Stress Level™Thrive Potential™Life Outside The House™Future Family Story™
Tap any output for its evidence chain →
Outcome: you understand the lifestyle implications.
Life impact
88
Strong lifestyle & opportunity mix.
Community fit
89
Newcomer-friendly and active.
Life friction
68
Traffic, heat, taxes, and costs.
Thrive potential
88
High career and family upside.
Life outside the house
Five years ago — what actually happened
Austin, 2020–21 · the real baseline
The Austin metro reached about 2.30 million residents in the 2020 Census — roughly a third larger than a decade earlier.
The median home price sat near $335,000 in 2020, just before the pandemic-era run-up that pushed prices far higher.
Voters approved Project Connect in Nov 2020 — an ~$7 billion transit plan including light rail.
Tesla broke ground on its Gigafactory east of Austin in 2020; it opened in 2022.
Samsung announced a ~$17 billion semiconductor fab in nearby Taylor in late 2021, seeding a new chip corridor.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (2020) · Austin Chamber of Commerce / ABoR · City of Austin · public filings
Where it could head — tap a horizon
Forecasts use conditional language and government projections — possibilities to plan around, not guarantees.
Year 1 ~2027
Settling in — and the region keeps growing.
The Texas Demographic Center projects continued in-migration — the metro keeps adding tens of thousands of residents a year.
Austin-Bergstrom's expansion program advances toward a larger terminal and 30M+ annual passengers.
Project Connect's first light-rail phase moves through design and federal funding review.
Home prices are expected to stay broadly flat-to-modest after the 2022 peak cooled.
Semiconductor hiring near Taylor ramps as the Samsung fab nears production.
Texas Demographic Center · City of Austin Aviation · Austin Transit Partnership · FRED/ABoRTap for the forecast →
Year 5 ~2031
Roots — on the path to 4 million.
CAMPO's long-range plan implies the six-county region is tracking toward 4M+ by 2040 — roughly 3.4–3.6M by the early 2030s.
Continued tech, chip, and AI employment could deepen and diversify the job base.
Transit and road build-out may ease commute pressure — or merely keep pace with it.
Water-supply planning (Texas Water Development Board) becomes a bigger constraint to watch.
Whether affordability stabilizes depends on how fast housing supply responds.
CAMPO 2045 plan · Texas Water Development Board · BLS · conditionalTap for the forecast →
Year 10 ~2036
Established — a top-tier metro.
On current projections the metro could approach 3.8–4.0M residents by 2040 (CAMPO; five-county 3.6–3.9M).
Austin is forecast to rival San Antonio in size by 2040.
AI, semiconductors, healthcare, and energy could anchor the next-decade economy.
Climate resilience — heat, drought, and water — is the central long-term question.
Equity of outcomes hinges on whether infrastructure kept pace with the growth.
CAMPO · Texas Water Development Board · Texas Demographic Center · conditionalTap for the forecast →
“Are you buying a house — or choosing a lifestyle you'll still love in ten years?AreaIQ's take: square footage fades; your weekends don't. The neighborhoods that win here are the ones whose daily rhythm — the trail, the taco spot, the live show — you'd happily repeat for a decade.Tap to reveal AreaIQ's take →
Page 03 · Investment intelligence
Will this location build wealth?
The investor verdict is BUY — selectively. Wealth potential rates 84 and exit flexibility 87, backed by a deep demand base and a diversifying job market. Risk sits at medium: property taxes, insurance, and traffic quietly eat into margins. The play is corridor discipline, not buying anywhere with an Austin zip code.
Outcome: you understand the financial implications.
Investor verdict
BUY
Selective buy, not buy-anywhere.
Wealth potential
84
Strong long-term potential.
Exit flexibility
87
Strong resale and demand base.
Risk level
MED
Costs and traffic reduce margin.
Future wealth creation
Wealth drivers & leakage
Wealth driver
Impact
Leakage to watch
Semiconductor ecosystem
High
Property taxes — estimate the 10-yr burden
Airport expansion
High
Insurance — may rise with climate risk
Talent attraction
High
Traffic — test the commute before buying
Population growth
High
Maintenance — budget realistically
“Is this location quietly building your wealth — or slowly leaking it?AreaIQ's take: appreciation grabs headlines, but taxes, insurance, and commute time are the silent withdrawals. Model the leakage first; the upside is only real after you subtract it.Tap to reveal AreaIQ's take →
Page 04 · Neighborhood & opportunity intelligence
The "where exactly?" map.
Every city within a 50-mile radius of the Austin core, scored and pinned at its real location. Brighter, larger dots score higher. Mueller (92) and Manor (91) lead the metro; the Austin Core (78) is strong but pressured on cost. Pan and zoom to explore.
Purpose: identify where opportunity exists.
Metro Intelligence Map™Opportunity Corridors™Buy / Watch / Avoid™Neighborhood Cards™Best Areas By Customer Type™
Tap any output for its evidence chain →
Outcome: you understand neighborhood-level decisions.
Austin Metro Intelligence Map
Live map · 50-mile radius
Strong fit · 88+Emerging · 84–87Watch · 80–83Caution · under 80
Buy
Georgetown · Cedar Park
Strong family demand and stability, with schools and space that hold value through cycles.
Top-rated school ratings
Sustained family in-migration
Stable resale through cycles
Steady new-housing supply
Watch
Manor · East Austin
Genuine upside, but the timing and the specific block matter enormously here.
Price spillover from the core
Real timing risk
Block-by-block variance
Active development pipeline
Caution
Overpriced pockets
A few famous areas are priced for perfection — little room left for future growth.
Prices near the cycle peak
Limited remaining upside
High carrying cost
Paying a hype premium
Best areas by customer type
Customer type
Best areas
AreaIQ comment
Families
Cedar Park, Round Rock, Georgetown
Schools, space, family infrastructure
Investors
Manor, Airport corridor, Georgetown
Growth and affordability spread
Young professionals
Austin Core, Mueller, East Austin
Lifestyle, access, culture
Retirees
Georgetown, Lakeway, Bee Cave
Safety, lifestyle, slower pace
Surrounding cities — within a 50-mile radius
The Austin metro at a glance — the factors that actually drive a move, one card per city. Census ACS figures are approximate (illustrative pending the live Census + employer feeds). Anchor = a flagship employer.
Austin
~975,000♂ 50% · ♀ 50%
Median income$86,500
Education56% bachelor’s+
Unemployment3.4%
Violent crimeModerate · ~4/1k
SchoolsAustin ISD · TEA C
Commute~24 min · rail/bus
HospitalDell Seton · Ascension
CommercialHigh
Entertainment: 6th Street & Red River music district, ACL Fest, Zilker Park & Barton Springs
TeslaAppleOracleNXPIBM
Round Rock
~125,000♂ 49% · ♀ 51%
Median income$96,800
Education46% bachelor’s+
Unemployment3.1%
Violent crimeLow · ~2.0/1k
SchoolsRound Rock ISD · TEA A
Commute~27 min · car
HospitalSt. David’s · Baylor S&W
CommercialHigh
Entertainment: Dell Diamond ballpark, Kalahari Resort, Old Settlers Park
Dell (HQ)EmersonIKEAUPS
Cedar Park
~80,000♂ 49% · ♀ 51%
Median income$112,000
Education52% bachelor’s+
Unemployment2.9%
Violent crimeVery low · ~1.4/1k
SchoolsLeander ISD · TEA A
Commute~28 min · car
HospitalCedar Park Regional
CommercialMedium
Entertainment: H-E-B Center arena, Bell District, Brushy Creek trail
Firefly AerospaceH-E-BCedar Park RegionalLeander ISD
Georgetown
~80,000♂ 48% · ♀ 52%
Median income$82,500
Education40% bachelor’s+
Unemployment3.3%
Violent crimeLow · ~1.8/1k
SchoolsGeorgetown ISD · TEA B
Commute~30 min · car
HospitalSt. David’s · Ascension
CommercialMedium
Entertainment: Historic Square, Blue Hole, Sun City (55+), Lake Georgetown
Fair Housing Per the Fair Housing Act (§20), AreaIQ never uses protected-class attributes in a housing report. The source template’s racial breakdown, immigrant population, and languages-in-use columns are deliberately excluded — race and national origin are protected classes, and surfacing them in a paid housing recommendation is illegal steering. The male/female count is shown as a neutral Census statistic only; it never enters any score, weight, or recommendation. Figures are Census-ACS-style estimates; swap for the live ACS + employer feeds to make them exact. Crime is shown as violent offenses per 1,000 residents (FBI/local UCR) — property crime typically runs several times higher and is reported separately.
“Where will people wish they had bought, five years from now?AreaIQ's take: usually one ring out from where everyone's looking today — close enough to the jobs and transit to matter, cheap enough that the upside hasn't been priced in yet.Tap to reveal AreaIQ's take →
Page 05 · The next 10 years
How ready is Austin for what's coming?
Austin is unusually well-positioned for an AI-and-chips decade: talent attraction scores 92 and AI opportunity 88. The drag is physical — climate resilience (62) and housing future (70) are the real questions. Whether the region keeps winning depends on water, power, and housing supply keeping pace with the people moving in.
Purpose: evaluate future readiness.
Important rule: AreaIQ does not predict the future — it evaluates preparedness.
Future Readiness Score™Growth DriversGrowth RisksFuture Industries™Emerging Trends™Fast Forward To 2035™
Tap any output for its evidence chain →
Outcome: you understand possible future scenarios.
Could help it grow
An AI economy, semiconductor expansion, relentless talent attraction, and a major airport build-out — all high-impact tailwinds.
Could slow it down
Housing costs and traffic (high), water and summer heat (medium-high), and rising insurance (medium) are the headwinds.
The honest note
These are scenarios with confidence scores, framed in conditional language — possibilities to plan around, never guarantees.
Future readiness
“If AI rewrites how we work, which cities come out ahead — and is this one of them?AreaIQ's take: the winners pair talent density with the boring stuff — power, water, housing, transit. Austin has the talent in spades; watch whether the infrastructure keeps its promise.Tap to reveal AreaIQ's take →
Page 06 · Local pulse & reality
What locals actually know.
Residents love the food, the music, the jobs, and the lifestyle — and complain, loudly, about traffic, housing costs, and heat. The useful part isn't the sentiment; it's whether the data backs it up. We check every claim before it becomes a conclusion.
Purpose: understand local sentiment.
What Locals Love™What Locals Complain About™Data Verification™Hidden Concerns™Hidden Opportunities™Early Signals™
Tap any output for its evidence chain →
Outcome: you understand the local reality beyond statistics.
Does the data agree?
Local claim
AreaIQ data check
Verdict
Traffic is painful
Commute & infrastructure stress support it
Supported
Housing is expensive
Home prices & cost pressure support it
Supported
Crime is exploding
Highly neighborhood-dependent; needs hard data
Mixed
Austin still has opportunity
Jobs, talent, future industries support it
Supported
Early signal
School capacity
Fast family growth may put real pressure on schools and local infrastructure sooner than expected.
Hidden opportunity
Emerging suburbs
Outer suburbs may benefit most as affordability and remote-friendly lifestyles keep shifting.
Reality check
Sentiment isn't proof
AreaIQ validates every local claim against data before turning it into a verdict.
“What do the people who already live here know that you don't?AreaIQ's take: usually the small stuff — which streets flood, where the commute really bites, which "up-and-coming" area has been up-and-coming for ten years. We surface it, then check it.Tap to reveal AreaIQ's take →
Trust layer
Data sources, freshness & confidence
Every number above traces to a public source — dated, coverage-scored, and refreshed on a fixed cadence. Lower coverage means lower confidence, stated plainly rather than hidden.
Data source
Last updated
Coverage
Confidence
Refresh
Housing · RentCast / FHFA
April 2026
90%
82%
Weekly
Population & income · Census ACS
May 2026
95%
86%
Annual
Employment · BLS / FRED
March 2026
85%
80%
Monthly
Property tax · Census ACS (derived)
May 2026
80%
78%
Annual
Crime · FBI / local PD Tier 1
Pending
—
—
Annual
Schools · NCES / TEA Tier 1
Pending
—
—
Annual
Flood risk · FEMA NFHL Live
Live query
100%
92%
90-day cache
Report generated June 2026 · Analyzed by AreaIQ Intelligence Team. Legal: AreaIQ provides decision support and educational insights — not investment advice. Fair Housing compliant: family- and community-fit derive only from schools, safety, and amenity data, never from who lives somewhere.
No unsupported opinions. No sensational predictions. No fear-based recommendations — just sourced reasoning you can check. Read the full methodology →
What's in this report
Included
Pages 1–6, in full
HTML report
PDF report
City / ZIP analysis
Opportunity scoring
Not in this version
Mobile app
Social-media ingestion
Watchlists
User accounts
Real-time alerts
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How AreaIQ works
The evidence chain
Every conclusion follows the same chain — no unsupported opinions, no sensational predictions, no fear-based recommendations.
PastCurrentFuture possibilityConfidenceEvidence
What a score means
Every score runs 0–100 with a plain-English band:
Exceptional90–100
Strong80–89
Good70–79
Average60–69
Cautionbelow 60
Scores are personalized
There is no single score. The AreaIQ score is a weighted blend of factors, and the weights change by who you are — a family weights Safety and Schools highest; an investor weights Appreciation and Rental demand. Same place, different answer.
Where the data comes from
Scores are built on public data, tagged by how integrated each source is today:
Live — real API now (U.S. Census, FRED)
Have — integrated macro feeds (BLS, BEA, HUD, FHFA)
Tier 1 — building next (FBI crime, NCES schools, Zillow / Redfin prices, FEMA risk, Census permits + geocoder)
Tier 2 — later (CDC health, walkability, transit, air quality)
Confidence is honest
The confidence score reflects how much of a verdict rests on integrated data today versus sources still being built. Lower coverage, lower confidence — stated plainly, never hidden.
Fair housing
AreaIQ keeps protected-class attributes — race, religion, family status, national origin — out of scoring and recommendations. "Family-friendly" is defined by schools, parks, and safety data, never by who lives somewhere.
Not financial advice
AreaIQ presents evidence-based scenarios with confidence scores. It is decision support — not financial, legal, or investment advice.