Agave

I have lived in Agave since ’10 and absolutely love it. Everyone who lives here genuinely loves living here, which is refreshing. The homes are modern, the people are vibrant and the location is perfect — 10 min to downtown, 10 – 15 min to Domain, 10 min to Airport.

I’ve lived in Agave since 2009 with my husband and two daughters and we’re still in love with our house, neighborhood and most importantly our awesome neighbors! It’s a great neighborhood for so many reasons:
1) It’s close enough to the city (6 miles), but far enough out that you can sit on your back patio with a fire in your chiminea, BBQ on the grill and the crickets chirping.
2) There’s kids in the neighborhood that play together. Most afternoons and weekends we’re outside with kids running back and forth between the homes. The charter schools out here are awesome and close by. Our eldest and several other kids in our neighborhood go to Magnolia Montessori, which is the first Montessori public charter school in the city. It’s located 3 miles away and we ride our bikes on a regular basis to and from the school. Other schools that friends in the neighborhood speak highly of are: Kipp, Austin Discovery School, Harmony School of Science, Magellan International School and Oak Meadows Elementary.
3) A sense of community. Neighbors get together for what we call «House Crawls» and potluck dinner in the park. We have an awesome neighborhood association that works hard for the benefit of all of us. We use Nextdoor to share important information, get togethers, referrals for lawn care, home maintenance, selling items ect.
4) The views. I love walking the neighborhood and taking in our cool modern homes, the city in the distance and the rolling hills. The sunsets here are killer!
5) Our future. Already there have been some really cool developments since we moved in. The Southern Walnut Creek hike and bike trail runs next to our neighborhood. its over 7 miles from 5^th Street up to Decker Lake. Only minutes away on 51^st there’s a beautiful new HEB, Target, Dell Children’s Hospital, Home Depot, Torchy’s Tacos and tons more shopping. InTown Homes has stepped into our neighborhood. A lot of cool new plans are being built, which only adds to the diverse collection of homes here. The 208 acres of city owned property across the road from us (Loyola) is under way to become a large neighborhood (Colony Park) with shopping, schools and over 80 acres of park and recreational area.
Hope this helps anyone wanting to know a bit more about my awesome neighborhood!

We purchased our house in Agave earlier this year and we are incredibly happy. We spent about a year looking for a house in Austin that was under $ 350K and didn’t fit the typical cookie cutter model. The first time we drove through Agave, we knew we wanted to live here.
After moving in, we were surprised to find out how amazing our neighbors were. We knew we had scored a deal with our amazing modern house, but the community came as a surprising bonus! My husband is a professional musician and we were pleasantly surprised that many of Austin’s musicians call Agave home, which makes for fun neighborly jam sessions. Agave had a very diverse blend of residents that all have a few things in common… They value creativity, sustainability, and community. There are art directors, artists, web developers, marketers, band directors, photographers, chefs, professors, architects, software developers and actors. We fit in perfectly.
We have noticed that development in East Austin has really picked up in the past year. We now find ourselves spending most of our time on the east side at places like Justine’s, El Chile, Hotel Vegas, Salty Sow, Contigo, and the Sahara Lounge (some that just opened in the past year). It’s nice to be able to see the stars at night from our backyard, but I wonder how long that will last seeing how fast the city is engulfing this area. Currently we have an 8 minute commute to a show downtown and a 15 minute commute to the technology corridor along Mopac/​183 where we work.
Our biggest concern with moving to Agave was school districts for our kids (none yet) since Agave is barely across the Manor ISD line. We did a lot of research (and interviewing of neighbors) before buying our house and we found that most of the kids in the neighborhood go to the Austin Discovery School. Many of my friends and acquaintances who live on the opposite side of town have kids that attend or are on the waiting list to be enrolled in the school because of its values (
). We’ll be sending our kids there as well (once we have them). The school currently accepts k-​6 grade with plans of extended that to 8^th grade in the next two years.
All in all, Agave is a hidden gem that is bound to be found soon. I’m just glad we got in at the price point we did (with super low interest rates) before the masses found out about it. :)

People are always asking me how I like living in Agave. I’ve been a resident of Agave for 4 years and love it here for so many reasons. When I moved from the SF Bay area, I wanted a modern, minimalist, «green» home at a reasonable price. Not only were the «modern» homes I was seeing around Austin a very mixed bag, not consistently adhering to that aesthetic, but the prices were more than I wanted to spend. I was thrilled when I found exactly what I was looking for here in Agave — super-​cool design with «green» amenities like low-​flow toilets, low-​e windows, incredible insulation, low VOC paint, concrete and bamboo floors, tankless hot water system, etc.
Yes, I was choosing to move into an area that, being on the east side of Austin, at that time was less than desirable. But I have to admit, I like being a pioneer. Did that in Boston in the ‘70s when I redid an 1865 townhouse in the South End, a rather sketchy area then, and, boy, that neighborhood became the hippest place to live in Boston in a matter of years, the unbelievable rise in prices there reflecting that.
I knew that the east side of Austin would be «where it’s at» in a short time. It’s still amazing to me how quickly that change has taken place. In fact, close-​in tiny little boxes that need tons and tons of work are going for astronomical prices. So Agave is quite the bargain.
At exactly 6 miles from downtown and 1 mile from the intersection of MLK and 183, I can get to any part of Austin, pretty much anytime, without traffic. The Arboretum area is 12 minutes, downtown 10 minutes, Mueller in less than 10 minutes, and south (say, the Lamar exit off 71 in 15 minutes).
It’s great to be able to so easily take advantage of all the cool restaurants, coffee shops, film events at Austin Studios, EAST (East Austin Studio Tour) and stuff like that that now characterize east Austin and yet live in a place that is relatively quiet and uncongested. I love the fact that we are not surrounded by malls, their associated traffic, and generic-​looking homes. And the light out here is amazing — the homes, with lots and lots of windows, definitely taking advantage of that.
From a neighborhood point of view — it’s wonderful to live in such a friendly community, especially when it is such a varied and accepting one. We’ve got a little of everything here, and yet there is so much common ground — the love of the aesthetic, concern about the environment, our general passion about this particular
’hood. On the neighborhood blog, we get everything from someone selling an item at a great deal, young entrepreneurs talking about the food trailer they are opening, someone spotting a dog (or even a chicken!) that appears to have gotten out, someone organizing a neighborhood «crawl», recommendations on service people, vets, pediatric dentists, pet sitters, you name it.

Very interesting place, but judging by the extremely poor service from the agents, the house paint is the only color welcome in this ‘hood.

«2007: Best Cubist Neighborhood»… I think it was a Chronicle critics choice, which can be a bit dubious… If ya enjoy Dwell Magazine this will probably appeal to ya… If you are considering a condo this may also be of interest… For me, it was a stop on a Sunday drive… poked around the sale office model which was furnished with Ikea stuff… Downstairs it had nice volumes and great natural light… Upstairs were three bedrooms and two baths… nice light again, but room size seemed a bit sparse for me. Woulda been better to have a master suite and office/​den perhaps… Some nice artwork by local abstract artist Caroline Wright
star value based on drive by novelty entertainment, your mileage will vary dependent upon your needs and interest… I liked the Ikea stuff and the artwork as well… the house is not me though… lots of other plans and architects involved in development