Cedar Park Emerges As One Of State's 'Best Affordable Cities'

CEDAR PARK, TX — A new study found that Cedar Park is among the state's "best affordable cities," citing the city's mix of businesses and quality of life amenities as adding to its appeal.

Market Watch ranked the city as the third most affordable in Texas, followed by Odessa in the eastern part of the state and Frisco, just outside of Dallas in North Texas, respectively, in the top three.

Located some 17 miles from downtown Austin, Cedar Park remains one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the country — a brisk growth driven in large part to an economy anchored by Dana Company, National Oilwell Varco, and high-tech companies such Firefly Space Systems and Fallbrook Technologies, researchers noted.

Analysts also touted the city's mix of quality-of-life amenities. Another nearby town, Round Rock, was ranked fourth on Livability’s 2016 list of best affordable places to live for many of the same reasons, researchers noted.

Back in Cedar Park, researchers ticked off some of the city's other attributes: "The Cedar Park Center, a state-of-the-art sports and entertainment venue, counts both the Texas Stars (the American Hockey League affiliate of the National Hockey League’s Dallas Stars) and the Austin Spurs (the National Basketball Association D-League affiliate of the San Antonio Spurs) as its resident teams, and hosts countless popular entertainers and performers," analysts gushed. "Like Lewisville, Cedar Park fares well in terms of health care thanks to its location in Williamson County, which has a ratio of 1,581 residents per doctor, third among Texas counties."

But then, the report's findings become reductive and oversimplified: "Affordable housing is plentiful in Texas, which explains, in part, why Texas cities are commonly identified as some of the most affordable places to live in the country," researchers wrote in their report. "But Texas isn’t merely inexpensive, it’s also known for the economic and leisure opportunities available to residents..."

Some in Austin would beg to differ with the assessment. Various other studies have pointed to the increasing lack of affordability of Austin living as the city lures an influx of highly paid tech workers in the burgeoning industry. As luxury housing sprouts up across the city to accommodate the new residents, property values — and, subsequently, property taxes — continue to rise. The higher cost of living in the capital city has prompted a fair amount of hand-wringing at city hall as elected officials scramble to find paths to affordable housing for beleaguered longtime residents.

Often, longtime residents are displaced as big companies move in to snap land on which they had long lived in relative affordability. The trend was dramatically illustrated in December 2015 when dozens of residents — largely Hispanic families with children enrolled in school — were ousted from their longtime dwellings just a few days before Christmas after Oracle bought the land on which they lived to build a corporate campus.

Related stories:

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• Austin Office Rents Now Rival Silicon Valley's Amid Tech Growth
  
• Austin Seeks To Stem Gentrification Tide With 'Strategic Housing Blueprint'
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• Austin 'Cost To Live Comfortably' Increase Is Highest In Nation

A recent study by Move.org in June analyzed data from the 75 largest cities in the U.S. to determine which had the lowest cost of living and which had the highest, as the Austin Business Journal reported. The upshot: Austin emerged as the least affordable city in Texas, according to the nationwide analysis.

That lack of affordability is fast creeping northward in cities such as Cedar Park and Round Rock once seen as a haven for those seeking a lower cost of living and reprieve from the notorious traffic in Austin. Anecdotally (particularly in neighborhood pages on Facebook and based on interviews Patch has previously conducted), Cedar Park residents report an ever-creeping jump in costs in what once was a more affordable hamlet.

Studies bear out such perceptions. The apartment locator Zumper consistently ranks Cedar Park among the cities in the Austin metropolitan area with the highest apartment rentals. At one point, the city jumped from the sixth rating to the fourth in a span of a single quarter alone.

In their most recent Austin Metro Report released last month, Zumper researchers found the price of an average one-bedroom unit grew 2.9 percent from last month to a median of $1,080, while two bedroom units increased 0.7 percent to to $1,410. The state median one bedroom rent was $960, analysts noted.

Still, the Market Watch report suggested, it's all relative as residents' average monthly expenses still pale in comparison to many coastal cities along California. "It's a reminder of what makes Austin so attractive to people moving here from the California and New York — we remain the fastest-growing major metro in the country — as well as a warning as our region deals with the steady population boom and escalating prices for things such as housing," the report noted.

Austin ranked No. 19 on the list with a total average monthly cost of living of $2,321, according to the report. The city was flanked by No. 18 Anaheim, California, at $2,324 and No. 20 Denver at $2,299.

From their far-flung environs, Market Watch analysts paint a rosy picture: "Following are five other very affordable Texas cities, which also benefit from a strong job market and the type of amenities that make them a great place to live and work," analysts wrote.

The top five most affordable cities, according to the report, in descending order are:

• Odessa.
• Lewisville.
• Cedar Park.
• Pearland.
• Frisco.

>>> Read the full report at Market Watch