Buying a lot in Austin: what to check before you sign
A short, boring list of checks that has saved more Austin projects than any design decision we have made. The list is our judgment. Every constraint on it is code, and we link to the code.
Due diligence is the cheapest money in a build, and it is the money owners most often skip. In our experience every item below costs less than one week of a stalled project, and any one of them can — and should — end a purchase.
We do the research ourselves. The two things we pay for are a survey and title work; everything else on this list is reading we do in house, so there is no consulting bill attached to it. That is worth asking any builder before you assume this is a line item on your side. Either way it belongs inside the lot price rather than beside it: every check here is cheaper than the constraint it finds.
What we check, and in what order
- A survey — boundary, and a tree survey if there is anything mature on the lot.
- A utility check: where water, wastewater and power actually terminate, and what it costs to bring them to a house rather than to the kerb.
- A floodplain and drainage read, which on some Austin lots takes much of the buildable area off the table before anyone has drawn anything. How much is lot-specific and we will not put a fraction on it.
- Deed restrictions and private covenants, which we read before we get to title. They are not city code and no page in our code hub can answer them, but they can be stricter than anything Austin requires.
- A title review that someone actually reads, for easements running through the middle of where you meant to build.
Do the survey first and everything else after. We think it is the most load-bearing document on the list: it is the item most likely to change the answer, and the rest are cheaper to commission once you know where the real boundary is.
Walk if two of these come back bad. One constraint is a design problem and usually solvable. Two interacting constraints — a creek setback plus a heritage tree, say — tend to leave a buildable area that no plan we would want to build fits inside.
The checklist is ours. The constraints are code.
Each report above is being read against a rule, and the rules are not ours to state. Everything below links to the page that cites the ordinance and carries a verification date. We deliberately do not repeat the thresholds, widths or percentages here — a number copied onto this page is a number nobody re-checks.
Water: floodplain, creeks and drainage
Why the regulatory floodplain here is not always the FEMA one, and what it prohibits.
What has to be mapped and shown, and what happens when no map has been delineated.
Austin regulates by watershed classification and by zone within the site — you need both answers.
Where development near a creek is prohibited outright, and how the buffer is measured.
What an application has to show about stormwater, and who ends up maintaining it.
The lot itself: trees and ground
Which trees need a permit to remove, and how narrow the criteria are.
Two more site constraints belong on this list and we are not linking them yet, because the pages that cite them have not published: steep slopes and cut-and-fill limits, and critical environmental features such as springs, sinkholes and rimrock. Ask your surveyor and your civil engineer about both. We would rather tell you a page is missing than answer from memory on this page.
What the lot lets you build
The reports tell you what the ground is. These tell you what you are allowed to put on it — which is the part that decides whether the lot is worth its price to you specifically.
What each single-family district allows, side by side.
What you may build after HOME, and what the old ADU rules became.
The cap on total floor area, and what counts toward it.
How much of the lot may be covered by anything water cannot pass through, and what counts.
What creating a new lot requires — a different question from building on one.
The sequence approvals come in, which is what sets your calendar.
We do this research ourselves on every lot we buy, so it costs us time rather than fees — and we are happy to run it on yours. Send the address and whatever you already have. No charge and no strings, and if it is a lot we would walk away from we will tell you that too.
Send us the addressWhat we are not telling you
We do not quote per-report prices, review durations, or a cost per square foot anywhere on this page. We could give you numbers from our own jobs, but stated flatly they would read as researched figures, and they are not. Your surveyor and title company will each quote you in a day.
Put the whole list under an option period long enough to actually run it, and negotiate that length harder than you negotiate the price. A short option period is how owners end up buying the lot and finding the creek buffer afterwards.
Written by KiliGray Homes from projects we have built in Austin.