A pool terrace at golden hour, loungers and scalloped umbrellas along the water, with residential towers behind.

78703, west of downtown

Tarrytown, Clarksville, Old Enfield and Pemberton Heights. Two historic districts, a lake, a freeway, and a market where the house is often the least of what you are buying.

What you are buying

The house came with the lot

In most of Austin a buyer prices a house and the land under it comes along. In 78703 it runs the other way, and understanding that is the difference between reading the market and being surprised by it.

The reason is simple. The ZIP was platted between the 1870s and the 1930s on large, deep lots under a tree canopy that the City now protects by ordinance, and it has not been subdivided since. Land that cannot be made more of is priced on what it is, and what it is here is a finite number of large lots ten minutes from the Capitol. So a 1950s house in Tarrytown that a buyer would call unremarkable trades on its lot, and the house is a question of whether the next owner keeps it, restores it or takes it down.

That last option is where most of the new construction in the ZIP comes from, and it is why the streets do not all look the way the listing photographs suggest. A block in Tarrytown can carry a restored 1930s Georgian, a 1960s ranch waiting its turn, and a two-year-old house on the footprint of a third, and the three are priced on the same thing. Where a lot sits relative to the historic district line and the tree survey decides which of those three futures it has.

An entry hall with a console table under a tall mirror, light falling across a stone floor.

East to west

From Clarksville to the water

The ZIP was settled from the east and the ground rises to the west, so it reads best in that order. Each of these is a different purchase, governed by a different set of rules.

Clarksville: The eastern edge, up against Pease Park and downtown. Founded in 1871 by Charles Clark, a freedman, on two acres bought from a Confederate general, on land that had been Governor Pease's plantation. It is the oldest surviving freedman's town west of the Mississippi and has been on the National Register since 1976. Small lots, small frame houses, and a design review that comes with the designation.
Old Enfield: The oldest and southernmost part of the Old West Austin Historic District. Houses from the 1920s through the 1950s, covered porches and columned facades, on lots that have not been subdivided. The historic district's eastern edge is Pease Park; its western edge is the old railroad line, which is now the MoPac corridor.
Pemberton Heights: North of Enfield Road, the grandest of the pre-war streets. Georgian and Tudor revival houses from the 1920s and 1930s on large, deep lots with the mature tree canopy the ZIP is known for. The tree ordinance is a real constraint on what a buyer can do here, and a real reason the streets look as they do.
Tarrytown: Everything west of MoPac to the lake, from Lake Austin Boulevard north to 35th Street. Broader in every sense: 1930s revival houses, a great deal of 1950s and 1960s stock, and the largest share of new construction in the ZIP, most of it on lots where the previous house was taken down. Reed Park, Mayfield Park and Muny are all inside it.
The lake edge: A small number of Tarrytown lots touch Lake Austin directly. They are the rarest thing in central Austin, they trade quietly, and they come with a second regulator, described below, that the rest of the ZIP does not have.

The house isthe least ofwhat you arebuying.

The lake

A second regulator at the water’s edge

Lake Austin is the stretch of the Colorado between Tom Miller Dam and Mansfield Dam, and unlike Lake Travis above it, it is held at a near-constant level by the Lower Colorado River Authority. That stability is why the waterfront here is worth what it is. It is also why buying on it is a different transaction from buying two streets inland.

Every structure on or adjacent to the water, a dock, a boat lift, a seawall, is permitted by the LCRA rather than by the City, and that process routinely runs six months to a year and a half. The City’s rules apply on top of it, not instead of it: impervious cover limits, tree protection, and the hillside and water quality overlays that govern much of the west side. Recorded shoreline easements, utility corridors and public access reservations are common along this bank, and any one of them can quietly decide where a dock may or may not sit.

So on a waterfront lot the option period is for three things the inland buyer never thinks about: the LCRA file on any existing dock, the recorded easements on the survey, and a frank read of whether the dock in the listing photograph has a permit behind it. A structure without one does not transfer as an asset. It transfers as a problem.

A living room with a limestone fireplace set between white oak built-ins, under a vaulted beadboard ceiling.

MoPac

The line that divides and defines

The Missouri Pacific railroad ran north to south through the west side in the 1870s and drew the western boundary of what is now the Old West Austin Historic District. The expressway was built along the same corridor a century later, and it still divides the ZIP: Clarksville, Old Enfield and Pemberton to the east of it, Tarrytown and the lake to the west, with Enfield Road and Windsor Road the two crossings that matter.

It is also the single largest street-by-street price factor in the ZIP that no listing mentions. Some of the most expensive addresses in Austin sit within a few hundred feet of six lanes of traffic, and whether a given lot hears it depends on the grade, the trees between, and the wind. There is no substitute for standing on it at five o’clock on a weekday. Sunday morning, when the photographs were taken, is the one hour that tells you nothing.

The green

A great deal of it, and one open question

For a ZIP this close to downtown, an unusual share of it is open ground. Pease Park runs along the eastern edge. Reed Park and Mayfield Park with its peacocks sit inside Tarrytown. Deep Eddy, the oldest swimming pool in Texas, is at the southern corner. And Lions Municipal Golf Course, Muny, takes up 141 acres in the middle of it on Enfield Road.

Muny is the open question. The City has leased it from the University of Texas since 1937 as part of the larger Brackenridge Tract, and the university, not the City, owns the land. The course is on the National Register, listed in 2016 as the first municipal course in the South to voluntarily desegregate, and its long-term future has been the subject of negotiation between the two institutions for years without a settled answer. A buyer on the streets around it is buying next to 141 acres whose eventual use is not decided. That may never change, and it may. It is worth knowing which streets those are.

Schools

One feeder pattern, and a line worth checking

The ZIP is served by one of the district’s most sought-after patterns. Casis Elementary in Tarrytown and Mathews Elementary near Clarksville both feed O. Henry Middle School and then Austin High, and that pattern is a material part of what the ZIP costs. Bryker Woods Elementary served the northern edge.

Two cautions. Austin ISD is consolidating campuses for the 2026 academic year and redrawing attendance boundaries with it, and the published plan has moved Bryker Woods students to Casis or Brentwood and ended sixth grade at Mathews, so a zone that was true when a listing was written may not be true at closing. And an attendance zone is a district decision attached to an address, not a permanent feature of a house. Confirm the current boundary with the district for the specific address before it is a reason to pay for it.

Honestly

Who 78703 is wrong for

A buyer who wants to change the house: Two National Register districts, a City tree ordinance that protects the canopy, and deed restrictions on many of the older plats. A facade change in Clarksville or Old Enfield goes through review. A large tree on a Pemberton lot is not yours to remove. Buy what is there, or buy where it is not protected.
Anyone pricing off the ZIP average: This is the widest price range in central Austin inside one set of five digits. A Clarksville frame house and a Tarrytown lakefront estate are in the same average and share nothing. The number that matters is the lot, the street and the district line, and none of those are in the average.
A buyer who has not stood on the lot at rush hour: MoPac runs the length of the ZIP. Some of the most expensive streets in Austin are within earshot of it, and a listing photographed on a Sunday morning will not tell you. Stand on the lot at five o'clock on a weekday before the option period ends.
A waterfront buyer on a deadline: A dock on Lake Austin is permitted by the LCRA, not the City, and the process runs months rather than weeks. If the plan depends on a dock that does not exist yet, the plan has a timeline the closing does not control.

Counted

The rebuild, and the streets beside the expressway

Two claims made above can be checked, so here they are checked. First the rebuild. Of the 58 houses for sale in 78703 as of October 17, 2026 at 8:59 AM CDT, 58 carry a build year, and of those 34 were built before 1970 and 15 in 2015 or later. The median build year of what is listed is 1954. That is the market saying, in its own inventory, that the ZIP is being bought as lots and rebuilt one at a time, with the original stock still the larger share of what trades.

Second, the freeway. The streets below are every residential street in the ZIP whose right of way comes within 250 feet of MoPac, measured from the Census Bureau’s road geometry on 22 September 2026, nearest first, with the crossings left out. Distance is not loudness: grade, walls and trees decide what a given lot hears, and some of these streets are quiet. It is the list of streets to stand on at five o’clock before deciding.

85 ft: Newfield Ln
89 ft: Northwood Rd
98 ft: Niles Rd
108 ft: Forest Cir
118 ft: Oakmont Blvd
121 ft: Jefferson St
125 ft: Winsted Ln
141 ft: Woodmont Ave
144 ft: Townes Ln
151 ft: Watchhill Rd
161 ft: Bowman Ave
167 ft: Ethridge Ave
167 ft: Funston St
177 ft: W 32nd St
177 ft: Gaston Ave
197 ft: Mohle Dr
200 ft: Margranita Cres
203 ft: Indian Trl
210 ft: Polo Rd
213 ft: Tower Dr
213 ft: W 30th St
217 ft: W 33rd St
220 ft: W 34th St
233 ft: W 11th St
240 ft: Hartford Rd
243 ft: Waterston Ave
246 ft: Palma Plz

On the market

78703 right now

Residential listings for sale in the ZIP, from Unlock MLS through MLS Grid, as of October 17, 2026 at 8:59 AM CDT. Closed sale prices are not shown and never will be: Texas is a non-disclosure state and the MLS does not permit publishing them, so every figure here is derived from list prices and days since listing.

Active listings: 113
Median list price: $1,340,000
Median per sq ft: $678
Median days listed: 58; of the active listings, since each was listed

The 12 most recently listed of 121, newest first. All of them, with filters, are on the 78703 market page.

Listed by Compass RE Texas, LLC; Gottesman Residential R.E.; LPT Realty LLC - Ascend Group; ListingSpark; Mission Real Estate Group; Moreland Properties; Serhant Texas, LLC; TOWERS.net; United Real Estate; Watters International Realty; eXp Realty, LLC.

Drag to pan, pinch or use the buttons to zoom. Hover a price for a preview and click it for the listing, or tap it on a touchscreen. Every one of these is also in the grid above.

The one figure

The effective property tax rate is 2.0464 percent of appraised value for tax year 2025, across Austin ISD, the City of Austin, Travis County, Central Health and Austin Community College. It is the same rate in every central ZIP, because they share those five entities. What is not the same is the appraised value it is applied to, and in this ZIP that is the number that decides the monthly figure more than the rate does.

The market figures above come straight from the MLS with their own timestamp, and they change daily; this is the one figure on the page that does not. What is published about 78703 is a price, and it is published everywhere. What is not published is which side of the district line a lot sits on, whether the dock has a permit, and which streets hear the freeway. The affordability figures, with this ZIP’s tax rate already in them, are on the buying page.

Inside it

The neighborhoods of 78703

Each written up on its own, with its listings selected by the City’s own planning boundary rather than by a line drawn to suit the page.

Nearby

The other four central ZIPs

MLS GRID logo slot

Listings courtesy of Unlock MLS as distributed by MLS GRID

Based on information submitted to the MLS GRID as of October 17, 2026 at 8:59 AM CDT. All data obtained from various sources and may not have been verified by broker or MLS GRID.

Any use or search of data on the website, other than by a consumer looking to purchase real estate, is prohibited.