Central Austin Neighborhoods: Boundary Definition Difficulties

I received a contact request this morning from someone apparently upset about my boundary definition of Hyde Park.  I attempted to email her back, but the email address wasn’t valid.  So…I thought I’d post the conversation here and get others’ thoughts:

Just so you’re aware, Hyde Park doesn’t run “east of Guadalupe, west of Red River, north of 38th, south of 51st.” Those a attempts for the outlying neighborhoods to boost their prices to Hyde Park levels. They do not fall under the same codes as real Hyde Park. Hyde Park is actually 38th to 45th and guadalupe to duval. No other exception.

And my response:

Hi [name] -

I appreciate your email regarding Hyde Park.  Central Austin neighborhood boundaries can be a bit fuzzy at times, so I try and define them as is generally accepted by the public & the real estate community.  It’s difficult to define properly because the legal descriptions don’t match what is generally accepted.  For instance, using your boundaries, there are 12 total property matches for sale, but only 7 are legally described as “Hyde Park” (ex. 3811 Avenue F is in “Shadow Lawn.”)  Applying those boundaries also excludes 5 properties currently listed that are legally described as “Hyde Park” (ex. 4511 Ave C, 4608 Avenue G, 4507 Ave D, etc.)  So, you can see the difficulty in applying hard & fast boundaries when the legal descriptions themselves are fuzzy.  Most agents & buyers generally consider Hyde Park as the boundaries I’ve described (and some are even looser – my sister lives ~54th block of Avenue H and considers herself in Hyde Park.)  So…I go with what I feel is best.

This isn’t unique to Hyde Park.  Tarrytown is a mess of legal descriptions, and homes in Deep Eddy are generally referred to as in Tarrytown.  Clarksville is very similar.  South Austin (78704,) and East Austin are both even more difficult.

Regardless, I appreciate your email and feedback…

Looking back at my original boundary definition, going as far east as Red River might be a bit liberal, but not too much so.  To give an idea of, there are 12 total properties on the market w/ “Hyde Park” in the legal description and 34 properties with “Hyde Park” in the agent remarks.  These properties stretch as far north as 54th St and as far east as I-35.

For comparison, there are 5 properties on the market with “tarrytown” in the legal description, and 48 with the term in the agent description.

What does this mean for someone searching in Central Austin?  Use the keyword tool along with the subdivision tool.

For example, if you can’t find a lot of listings with a Tarrytown Subdivision Search then try using the keyword tool to search for properties with Tarrytown in the agent remarks.