Jessica Martinsen · Austin Real Estate

WEST LAKE HILLS

Explore West Lake Hills homes, neighborhoods, lifestyle, commute, market context, and the questions to ask before you buy or sell in Central Texas.

West Lake Hills sits in Travis County, immediately west of downtown Austin, with TX-360 and Bee Cave Road carrying most of the traffic in and out. Which county a West Lake Hills home falls in sets the taxing authorities, the permitting office, the recording process and often the insurance picture, and two homes a few miles apart can sit under entirely different jurisdictions.

Before touring anything in West Lake Hills, pin down the facts that cost money to discover late: the exact taxing entities and current rates for the specific parcel rather than the city average, an insurance quote for the actual address, whether the property sits inside West Lake Hills city limits or in the extraterritorial jurisdiction (which changes the rules for additions, short-term rentals and septic), and, where there is an HOA or a municipal utility district, what its documents actually oblige you to before you are under contract.

The West Lake Hills guides below are organised by what you are trying to do; start with the one that matches, and bring the questions it raises to a conversation.

WEST LAKE HILLS West Lake Hills is the most expensive residential market in Central Texas. Positioned in the hills immediately west of downtown Austin, between Lake Austin and Loop 360, it combines a downtown commute measured in minutes with estate lots, mature tree canopy, and Hill Country topography that no closer-in Austin neighborhood can match.\n\n

The 78746 ZIP code — covering West Lake Hills and the surrounding Westlake corridor — carries the highest median sale price in the Austin metro, well ahead of Tarrytown, Barton Creek, and every other luxury submarket. Homes here range from roughly $1.3 million for an older property on a smaller lot to well past $10 million for waterfront and view estates.\n\n

What matters most about this market is that citywide numbers don't describe it. West Lake Hills closes a small number of homes each month, which makes reported medians swing dramatically — public sources currently disagree by more than a million dollars on what the \"typical\" West Lake Hills home costs. Two properties a quarter mile apart can differ by several million based on Lake Austin frontage, view corridor, lot buildability, and school feeder. Pricing off a per-square-foot average is how sellers leave money on the table and how buyers overpay.\n\n

Below is our current market read, the enclave-by-enclave breakdown, the school detail, and the development constraints that determine what a West Lake Hills lot is actually worth.

Read any West Lake Hills statistic as context, not as an answer. With only a handful of closings in a typical month, a single $8 million sale moves the median by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Month-over-month figures here reflect which homes happened to close, not what the market did.\n\n

The useful frame is twelve-month sold comparables filtered to genuinely similar properties — comparable lot size, view, buildability, and feeder pattern — not a citywide average.\n\n

With that caveat, the structural picture is clear. Austin's luxury tier has behaved differently from the broader market through this cycle. While the metro corrected substantially from its 2022 peak, the segment above $1.5 million has held up considerably better, and several West Austin ZIP codes have appreciated year over year while mid-tier and outer markets declined. Limited buildable land, Eanes ISD, and proximity to downtown continue to support the top of the market in a way that does not extend to the suburbs.\n\n

At the same time, this is not the 2021 market. Inventory has increased, and the reality across the luxury segment is that days on market run substantially longer than in mid-priced Austin neighborhoods — a correctly priced, well-prepared West Lake Hills home still transacts, but the timeline is measured in months rather than weeks, and buyers are negotiating.\n\n

For sellers, that produces a specific and common mistake: reading metro-wide headlines about Austin prices falling and pricing defensively, when the luxury tier hasn't followed that pattern. The opposite error — pricing to a neighbor's aspirational list price — is equally costly. Homes that sit in this market accumulate days on market conspicuously, and in a submarket where buyers track inventory closely, a stale luxury listing is a visible problem.\n\n

For buyers, the leverage is real but uneven. Properties that have been marketed for months carry genuine negotiating room. Exceptional lots — true Lake Austin frontage, protected view corridors, large buildable acreage close in — remain scarce and competitive regardless of the broader market, because the supply is physically fixed.

This distinction confuses nearly every buyer new to the area, and it has real financial consequences.\n\n

West Lake Hills is an incorporated city with its own municipal government, tax rate, and — critically — its own development ordinances. \"Westlake\" is the broader West Austin corridor built around Eanes ISD, encompassing West Lake Hills plus Rollingwood, Rob Roy, Davenport Ranch, Lost Creek, and portions of the Barton Creek area.\n\n

Listings, market reports, and casual conversation use \"Westlake\" for all of it. But the city limits determine which building rules apply to your lot, which municipal tax rate you pay, and which permitting authority you deal with on a remodel. A property described as \"Westlake\" may or may not be inside West Lake Hills city limits, and the difference matters the moment you want to add square footage.\n\n

We confirm jurisdiction before you make an offer — not after.

Rob Roy — Guard-gated estate living on a bend of Lake Austin between the lake and Loop 360, just north of Bee Cave Road. One of Austin's largest private residential communities, with estate-size lots, extensive greenbelts, mature trees, and Hill Country and lake views. The privacy and security standard for the area.\n\n

Davenport Ranch — Set high in the hills with panoramic views stretching toward downtown, adjacent to Austin Country Club. A broad mix of product — from townhomes and condominiums to multi-million-dollar estates — which makes it one of the more accessible entries into the corridor depending on property type. Many properties enjoy direct lake or marina access. Davenport Village provides upscale retail nearby.\n\n

Lost Creek — The most attainable meaningful entry into Eanes ISD. Established, ungated, largely built in the 1980s, with hill country views, sidewalks, parks, and trails. Lost Creek Country Club sits at the center with tennis courts, pools, and dining. Frequently the answer for families who want Eanes ISD without West Lake Hills estate pricing.\n\n

Rollingwood — A separate small incorporated city immediately adjacent to Austin, closest to downtown and Zilker Park of any Eanes-served neighborhood. Compact, civic in feel, walkable, with frequent teardown-rebuild activity and correspondingly high per-home pricing. The shortest commute in the corridor.\n\n

Westlake Highlands, Cuernavaca, and Seven Oaks — Established neighborhoods offering value within the corridor. Older housing stock on good lots, often prime candidates for renovation or rebuild.\n\n

Austin Lake Estates — Further west, with a more rustic, laid-back character than its polished neighbors. Homes vary widely in age and size, with private access to a Lake Austin boat ramp, a community pool, and a park. One of the lower-priced ways into Eanes ISD.\n\n

Woods of Westlake and Treemont — Established single-family neighborhoods west of Loop 360.\n\n

A note on how to shop this market: the enclaves serve genuinely different priorities. Rob Roy is privacy and security. Davenport Ranch is views and club and lake access. Rollingwood is proximity. Lost Creek is Eanes ISD at a reachable number. West Lake Hills proper offers the widest range of lot sizes and the most variance. Deciding which of those matters most to your household narrows the search faster than any price filter.

Eanes ISD is consistently the highest-rated school district in the Austin metro , and it is the single largest driver of value in this corridor. Westlake High School is nationally recognized. Hill Country Middle School and West Ridge Middle School serve the district's secondary students, and elementary campuses include Bridge Point, Forest Trail, Valley View, Cedar Creek, Barton Creek, and Eanes Elementary — all known for small class sizes and strong programs.\n\n

The Eanes premium is real, durable, and priced into every property in this corridor. It is also the reason families relocate here specifically, and it supports resale value in a way few other factors do.\n\n

Eanes ISD itself advises buyers to verify assignment by address rather than assuming — using TCAD records and the district's own school search tool. That advice is worth following. Feeder patterns within Eanes vary by neighborhood, and an address in the \"Westlake area\" is not automatically an Eanes ISD address. Some properties in the broader West Austin corridor fall outside the district entirely.\n\n

Ask Jessica Martinsen about WEST LAKE HILLS