Real Estate on the North Shore of Lake Travis

Buy or Sell on the North Shore of Lake Travis

Hill Country Lakes Rentals is a licensed Texas real estate broker as well as a property manager. Bill Wallace has spent 15+ years buying and selling on the North Shore, and the two sides of the business feed each other: when a client asks what a house would earn as a short-term rental, the answer comes from properties we actually manage, not from a national estimate tool.

What makes this market unusual

The North Shore is not one market. Pricing, rental demand, and buyer profiles differ street by street, and the differences matter more than the averages:

• The Hollows — a 1,400-acre gated community in Jonestown with a Beach Club, marina, pools, and trails. Homes here carry HOA dues and community amenity access, and they perform well as short-term rentals because guests are buying the amenities as much as the house. Rental demand is strongest for properties that sleep 8+.
• Escalon Ranch — larger acreage and hilltop lots with long Hill Country views. A different buyer entirely: privacy and land rather than resort amenities. Fewer, larger transactions.
• Jonestown and the wider North Shore — a mix of full-time residences, weekend houses, and rentals. This is where most of the entry-level buying happens, and where the gap between a good and a poor rental investment is widest.
• Lago Vista and Point Venture — separate communities with their own POA amenity structures and their own rules about short-term letting. Worth understanding before you buy, not after.

Buying a property to rent it out

Most people who call us about buying are trying to answer one question: will this house cover its costs?

We can answer that with real numbers, because we manage comparable properties in the same communities. What we look at:

1. Realistic occupancy for that property type — not the optimistic figure, the one our own calendars show for similar homes.
2. Achievable nightly rate by season — Lake Travis is highly seasonal, and an annual average hides most of what matters.
3. The cost side — HOA dues, insurance, utilities on a house that runs air conditioning all summer, cleaning turnover, and management.
4. Short-term rental rules — permitting and HOA restrictions vary by community. Some neighbourhoods allow short-term letting freely; others restrict or prohibit it. This is the single most expensive thing to get wrong.

If the numbers don’t work, we will tell you. We would rather lose a transaction than manage an unhappy owner for the next five years.

Selling

If you own a rental property, timing a sale around the booking calendar is worth real money. We can sell a property with bookings on the books and transfer them to the new owner, or wind the calendar down ahead of listing — whichever produces the better outcome. Because we manage the property, we already have the performance history a serious buyer will ask for.

For an owner-occupied home, the process is the ordinary one: valuation, preparation, listing, negotiation, closing.

How we work

1. A conversation, not a pitch. Tell us what you’re trying to do and we’ll tell you whether we’re the right fit.
2. Property analysis. For buyers, a realistic income projection. For sellers, a valuation grounded in what has actually traded nearby.
3. Search or listing. We look at everything on the market, not only what we manage.
4. Through closing. Inspection, negotiation, and the paperwork.

There’s no charge for the initial consultation and no obligation attached to it.

Contact Bill Wallace | Broker, Realtor

📞 (512) 267-7000 Office | (512) 970-5999 Direct ✉ inquire@hillcountrylakesrentals.com

Hill Country Lakes Rentals is a licensed real estate broker in Texas. Information About Brokerage Services (IABS) disclosure available here. Rental income projections are estimates based on comparable managed properties and are not guarantees of future performance.