AUSTIN, Texas — Just 1.5 miles from The Domain is a developing community that allows all buyers to use their homes as short-term rentals.
"We're a 48-unit townhouse community," said Cerca at The Domain owner Jonathan Hubbard.
Hubbard said Cerca at The Domain is 100% short-term rental friendly, which means owners can put their homes on Airbnb, VRBO or any other STR company service.
"What you're going to find is 90% of HOAs in Austin are not going to allow short-term rental," he said.
The two-story units run from $450,000 to $475,000. They are 1100 square feet with two full bedrooms and two full bathrooms. Hubbard said the HOA fees are $100 a month.
"Creating flexibility, promoting that type of lifestyle, and just letting people control their investment," Hubbard said. "Most of our owners and people who are going to buy in this project are going to be people who want to live here most of the time, right? When I say most of the time, it's over 50% of the time, up to 100% of the time."
This comes when some analysts are predicting an Airbnb collapse nationwide due to a saturated market and expensive operating fees. Austin was just named the city with the third-most costly Airbnb rentals in the country.
"The fact that people say the short-term rental industry is collapsing in Austin, I think, is completely false," Hubbard said. "We've got, you know, a much-growing population, a growing business community, and I don't see that stopping for the next couple of decades."
Cerca at The Domain is on Albury Cove. Hubbard said he isn't worried because it is so close to large corporations, Q2 Stadium and one of the few places to buy a home in the area.
"We've got eight units under contract," Hubbard said. "They're actually going to close here later this month, early August."
Hubbard expects the entire project to be done by late October.
Boomtown is KVUE's series covering the explosive growth in Central Texas. For more Boomtown stories, head to KVUE.com/Boomtown.