Looking to buy in West Lake Hills? Here’s what it will cost you

What does it cost to buy a home in West Lake Hills right now?

In an ongoing series with Curbed Austin, real-estate analytics site NeighborhoodX takes a close look at the range of sales asking prices in the area, ranked by cost per square foot, to find out.

West Lake Hills is a bit more difficult to define than most neighborhoods in Austin. The separately incorporated city of West Lake Hills has specific and somewhat wonky boundaries within the area between the Colorado River/Lake Austin on the east and Highway 360 on the west, with the Wild Basin wilderness above and Rollingwood and Westlake drives marking the south boundary, sort of.

More generally, Austinites—particularly real-estate professionals—tend to refer to areas between the river and Hwy. 360 (and occasionally even west of Hwy. 360) from MoPac to northerly points as "Westlake."

The current average listing price in West Lake Hills is $411 per square foot. That said, the prices within the neighborhood vary greatly. If we exclude the two most expensive properties (for reasons explained below), the price range of the properties make up this average range from $272 per square foot (2516 Watkins Way, a three-bedroom condo asking $799,000) to $852/per square foot (1887 Westlake Drive, a large, architecturally distinctive home asking $5 million).

There are two properties that sit on sizable parcels—3148 Above Stratford Place and 900 Live Oak Circle (The Floating Box House)—and the value of the land can drive the apparent asking price of the built square footage higher. That said, the two properties also measure 9,000-plus and 11,000-plus square feet, so the value of the land is spread over a considerable square footage.