If music festivals such as South by Southwest and the Austin City Limits festival are testament to the city’s reputation as the Live Music Capitol of the World, the Texas Book Festival is proof positive that Austin is a hotbed of creativity in the literary world as well. Founded by Laura Bush in 1995, it has grown to become a nationally important event, featuring over two thousand authors, local, national and international, in twelve years of existence. Exciting, fun, musical and educational, this all-ages event is considered to be one of the premiere literary events in the country.

Located primarily in the State Capitol, the festival takes place every fall, drawing upwards of 40,000 spectators to delight in panels, concerts, demonstrations, and other activities in the House and Senate Chambers, as well as tents and stages erected on the sprawling green lawn of the Capitol grounds. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and other high-profile politicos have given keynote addresses, and the late Governor Ann Richards was a regular as well. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Jim Lehrer, and Roy Blount Jr., and other such notables have made appearances as well.

A variety of themes are represented at the festival, with panels dedicated to mysteries, biographies, photography, retrospectives, periodicals, journalism, and many other topics. A “Lifestyle” tent hosts discussions and activities including parenting, wineries, birding, and yard art.

In keeping with the interests and expectations of Austinites, the festival emphasizes a high level of entertainment and music, dedicating one tent to musical performances throughout the festival, and hosting events at satellite locations including the legendary Continental Club. A concert featuring Austin’s finest musicians is held on the Capitol steps. Musician authors such as Joe Ely read from their works, as do those who write books about musicians, including Kathleen Hudson and Joe Nick Patoski.

Other aspects of the entertainment world are well-represented also. Actors including Eli Wallach and Marlee Matlin have appeared there, and Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi offered live cooking demos for exotic recipes. Food and cooking are also highlighted, with an entire tent equipped with cooking supplies and dedicated to cookbooks and examinations of food culture.

The Texas Book Festival has raised over two million dollars for Texas Public Libraries, and their commitment to children is clear. With one tent dedicated to children’s authors, one to children’s entertainment, and one to activities for the little ones, this festival is a perfect way to combine books and literacy with a fun and exciting event. Storytimes abound throughout the festival, and activities can include hula dance, puppet shows, drawing, and sing-alongs. When children’s authors are in town for the festival, they often take part in “Reading Rock Stars,” an affiliated program that brings them to public schools to read their works.

A truly Austin event in spirit, the Texas Book Festival is a lively, creative and exciting way to explore the literary world both on a local and national level.

Ki is a realtor and a blogger in Austin Texas. He runs his Austin real estate blog writing about market trends in Austin. His site features information about mortgage interest rates and general information about Austin real estate.

The University of Texas at Austin is one of the five largest universities in the country, and currently nearly fifty thousand students attend the university, which is home to the U.T. Longhorns. Most of the students live in the U. T. campus area, which encompasses an area from Interstate 35, which runs along the eastern perimeter, to Lamar Boulevard, which circles the western edge of the campus, including numerous fraternity and sorority houses. The campus also extends to Martin Luther King to the south and the campus itself is just a mile or so north of the State Capitol Building and the Capitol complex. The northern edge is roughly around 27th Street, and among these fours borders are some of the most interesting sights in the Austin area.

There are many nice apartment buildings, condominium projects and single as well as multiple family dwellings in the campus area, with prices affordable enough for new students and nice enough for faculty, grad students and the more affluent. There are many “commune-style” homes in the area, which require the residents to share the chores, bills, meals and other expenditures and are very affordable due to the shared financial input of the inhabitants, but don’t offer quite as much privacy as a traditional apartment complex. However, these residences do offer more of a home-like atmosphere, which appeals to the newer students. Many of the commune-style homes, apartments, condos, sororities and fraternities are situated within a block or two of “the Drag”, which is how the students refer to Guadalupe Street, the major thoroughfare through the campus area. North of the University of Texas is the neighborhood of Hyde Park which some students can on occasion find a house to rent. But since Hyde Park has become a more desirable neighborhood over the last 10 years rents can be expensive. If students go a little farther north they find the North Loop neighborhood where rents are a little more affordable.

The east side of “the drag” skirts the western edge of campus proper, which includes the U.T. Tower, student union, various education halls, and the West Mall, where campus-related political gatherings are held outdoors. Many students can be found reading, walking to and from class, or eating on the steps and benches which are strategically located in the west campus area, or at many of the food kiosks and stands, which feature ethnic fast foods of all kinds, especially many oriental and Indian foods.

Students of all nationalities attend U.T., and all of them can find regional cuisine in the area, even on the campus itself, with the Texas Union offering a wide selection of meals, drinks and snacks. The other side of “the drag” encircles an area which is full of shopping boutiques, churches, student centers, restaurants, bookstores and one of the largest assortments of street vendors in the Austin area. The street vendors sell a little bit of everything, but seem to specialize in silver jewelry and Indian clothing, as well as hats, shirts, other clothing items, music, posters and memorabilia. These items are usually quite inexpensive, and a vast selection of styles, colors, and regional favorites can be found in the numerous stalls full of merchandise which line the west side of Guadalupe Street. There are also ice cream shops, pinball parlors, and many clubs, some of which offer live music.

Ki helps individuals looking for Austin real estate. His website provides updated statistics on his Austin real estate blog along with a search for Austin Homes.

Lying just west of IH-35 and south of Riverside Drive is one of Austin’s most appealing neighborhoods, Travis Heights. Its rolling hills and winding roads have long been a haven for a diverse culture, with a mixture of housing to match: perfectly kept bungalows, a few large estates and smattering of shabby cottages. Housing in South Austin began later than other centrally located neighborhoods due to difficulty getting supplies across the Colorado river. Once a stone pier bridge was built on Congress avenue in 1883, the area began to flourish. General William Harwood Stacy, along with partner Charles Newning, began the Travis Heights development in 1913. Newning had some luck in developing Victorian homes on large lots south of the river before the turn of the century with his development known as Fair View Park, but Travis Heights was the most promoted subdivision of its time. Stacy set up the area with grid streets, and curvy roads, and a variety of lot sizes to maximize his potential buyer pool. He also set up a trolley car to run clients from the capitol building to Travis Heights before it was even developed, and gave away Ford Touring cars as well. Stacy dedicated an area along Blunn Creek, and cliffs that drop down to Town Lake, to be set aside as public park land. Later Stacy’s sons added more land to the area, and it’s now known as Stacy Park, and still very popular today with Travis Heights residents who take good care of the land set aside for them. Today many of the original houses from Stacy’s development still stand, as well as some from Newning’s earlier turn of the century push. Some houses, such as the Gullet House and the Red-Purcell house built in 1885, have been deemed historic landmarks by the city of Austin. The Miller-Crocket house was originally built by Newning for Henry W. Dodge in 1888, and was purchased in 1901 by Eugene Miller at a courthouse auction for $1,800. Currently the two-story slat roofed house is owned by Kathleen Mooney and run as the Miller-Crockett Bed and Breakfast. Mary and Joe Lawrence purchased the 1914 house owned by Joe Steiner, whose brother Buck owned the land Steiner Ranch sits on now. Steiner was long cared for by Sister Madeline Sophie Weber, who began the nonprofit Faith in Action Caregivers. Steiner left Weber the house after his death, wanting the profit from its sale to go towards the nonprofit’s cause. The Lawrences bought the home from “Sister Sophie” and saved the classic revival style house, and its carriage house in the back, that had fallen in disrepair, and reused as much of the building material as possible, with its original Doric columns and pilasters still intact. Travis Heights continues to draw homeowners to the neighborhood with its winding streets, rolling hills and large trees. Its close proximity to downtown, IH-35, and the newly revamped South Congress shops, clubs and eateries also make it a desirable area to live. Others enjoy the diversity of the people in the neighborhood, since the crowd is a mix of families, downtown business professionals, artists, and musicians, all of whom feel a strong sense of community. The neighbors recently took initiative and put on a concert in Stacy Park to raise money for the pool there. As WH Stacy stated in his original Travis Heights newspaper advertisement, “It’s a real residence community. One with a soul; the realization of a purpose, where homes are homes, not mere houses." Ki works as an Austin real estate agent. He writes an Austin real estate blog to help investors keep up with the Austin market along with a free search of the Austin MLS.

The January stats are out for the Austin real estate market. While the market is doing better than most real estate markets in the US it is down from what we were seeing this summer. Below is a chart showing the stats for the last few years.



In January we see the year over year decrease in sales at 10% which is better than what it was in previous months but was still negative. To see more statistics you can see the lastest installment of the Austin real estate blog

Ki is a realtor in Austin. He runs a site about covering Austin real estate and provides a free search of the Austin MLS for Austin Homes and Austin Condos.

While Austin seemed to escape most of the slowdown that affected other parts of the country over the last year Austin is feeling the changes in the credit markets. The amount of sales in September 2007 was 1824 or falling 22 percent from the sales in 2006 of 2341. The amount of inventory also increased 22 percent. On one hand the amount of inventory last year was incredibly slow but its still a sign we would rather not see. It looks like East Austin is seeing larger inventory increases than most areas. If we break out the increases in inventory by area we see. Suburbs +21% Central Austin West +18% Central Austin East +62% It looks like East Austin is seeing large inventory increases because investors are pulling out and the total amount of homes in East Austin has increased due to rapid new construction. Looking forward what happens in the Austin real estate market depends largely on what happens with the more stringent lending practices currently gripping the nation. While the major banks and the government are looking at possible solutions to the current credit crunch we will have to wait and see if any of the solutions pan out. Ki is a realtor in the Austin Real Estate market. He runs a blog with general information on the Austin market called the Late Night Austin Real Estate Blog. He also provides a search for Austin Homes.