The downtown Austin skyline seen across Lady Bird Lake, the water still and the towers lit by low sun.

Travis Heights, sold on a promise in 1913

A streetcar to the Capitol, a Ford touring car for the trouble, and a deed restriction to guarantee the street would stay houses. A century later the restriction is the part that still matters.

56 homes for sale in Travis Heightsas of October 17, 2026 at 8:00 AM CDT

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On the market

Travis Heights right now

Every residential listing whose location falls inside the South River City planning area, in 78704. That is the boundary the City of Austin publishes, and the one this page uses. From Unlock MLS through MLS Grid as of October 17, 2026 at 8:00 AM CDT. Closed sale prices are not shown: Texas is a non-disclosure state, so every figure here comes from asking prices and days since listing.

For sale: 52
Median asking: $862,500
Median per sq ft: $649
Median days listed: 37

All 56 of them, newest first. Sort by price either way below. Everything across 78704, filters and all, is on its market page.

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Listed by All Hands Real Estate; Austin Marketing + Development; Austin Silent Market; AustinRealEstate.com; Brodsky Properties; Christies Intl Real Estate Lone Star; Compass RE Texas, LLC; Creekview Realty; DEN Property Group; Douglas Elliman Real Estate; Epique Realty LLC; Gabriel Properties; Gottesman Residential R.E.; Harrison-Pearson Assoc. Inc; JBGoodwin REALTORS NW; KW-Austin Portfolio Real Estate; Keller Williams Realty; Kuper Sotheby's Int'l Realty; Kuper Sotheby's Itl Rlty; Lenore Avant, REALTOR; Moreland Properties; NB Regal Real Estate, LLC; Pure Realty; RE/MAX Fine Properties; Texas Hill Country Realty; The Damron Group REALTORS; Vince Realty; eXp Realty, LLC; van Heuven Properties.

How it was made

Three subdivisions and a creek

What people call Travis Heights is really a century of platting laid over a bluff, and the order it happened in is still legible in the streets.

1877: Swisher's Addition is platted on the bluff above the river, the first subdivision south of it, and the oldest surviving fabric in what people now call Travis Heights sits on those blocks.
1886: Fairview Park follows, laid out with curving streets that follow the contours rather than a grid, which is unusual for Austin at that date and is why the streets here bend.
1913: General William Harwood Stacy and his sons begin Travis Heights. He runs a streetcar from Travis Heights Boulevard to the Capitol so buyers can see the commute, gives away Ford touring cars to promote the lots, and writes deed restrictions against multifamily and commercial use into the sales.
The 1920s onward: Stacy donates the land along Blunn Creek that became Stacy Park, with the spring-fed Big Stacy pool at one end and Little Stacy at the other. The creek is the reason the neighborhood has a green spine instead of a through street.
2021: The Travis Heights-Fairview Park Historic District is added to the National Register on the thirtieth of July, recognizing the whole of that century as one place.

A deed restrictionoutlives thezoning codethat ignored it.

The instrument

What Stacy wrote down, and why it still binds

To sell lots on a bluff a mile from a city that had not yet crossed the river, Stacy had to answer one question: what stops a factory, or a row of flats, going up beside the house I am buying? His answer was not zoning, which Austin did not have in any modern sense, but a private covenant written into the deeds against multifamily and commercial use.

That instrument has outlasted every planning regime since. A deed restriction is a private contract that runs with the land, and the City’s own guidance is plain about the consequence: a restriction that is enforceable today remains enforceable regardless of what the zoning code is changed to say. So when the City allowed three homes on a single-family lot citywide, it did not touch a Travis Heights covenant, and the neighborhood that looks least changed in 78704 looks that way for a reason that predates the code by eighty years.

Three cautions, because this is where buyers get it wrong. Not every lot inside the historic district carries a restriction; the platting happened in stages and the language varies. A restriction only binds while someone is in a position to enforce it. And your title commitment is the document that says what encumbers the specific lot, which is why an investment thesis that depends on adding a unit here belongs in the option period rather than in the offer.

A rooftop terrace under a slatted pergola, looking out over tree canopy to the horizon.

Blunn Creek

The green spine, and the grade it cut

Blunn Creek runs north through the middle of the neighborhood to the lake, and Stacy gave the land along it to the city. That gift is why Travis Heights has a park down its center instead of an arterial, why Big Stacy pool is fed by a spring rather than a pipe, and why the streets bend: they follow contours the creek cut long before anyone platted them.

The same topography is the thing to inspect. Lots fall away toward the creek, driveways are steep enough to matter in ice, and the houses nearest the channel have a drainage and floodplain question that the ones on the ridge do not. The 2018 Atlas 14 rainfall study redrew a great deal of Austin’s floodplain, and the answer for a specific address is on the City’s FloodPro map rather than in the listing.

Counted

Older stock, and a market that moves

Inside the boundary as of October 17, 2026 at 8:00 AM CDT there are 56 listings, of which 26 are houses. The median build year is 1981 across 56 that carry one, which is decades older than Bouldin Creek half a mile west, and the covenant above is most of why.

The number that should change how a buyer behaves is the speed. Active listings here have been on the market a median of 37 days against 87 days for the rest of 78704outside this boundary, on the same day’s data. Those are asking-side figures and they move weekly, but a gap that size is not noise. It means the preparation, the pre-approval and the decision about what you will pay all have to be finished before the listing you want appears.

Schools

One feeder, unchanged this year

Travis Heights Elementary, then Lively Middle School, then Travis Early College High School. Unusually for central Austin this pattern came through the 2026-27 consolidation intact, while the neighborhood across South Congress lost its elementary. That is worth knowing and not worth relying on: an attendance zone is a district decision attached to an address, and this district has shown it will redraw them. Confirm the current boundary before it is a reason to pay for anything.

Honestly

Who Travis Heights is wrong for

A buyer who wants to add units: This is the neighborhood where the citywide rules allowing three homes on a lot are most likely to run into something older and more specific. Many of these lots carry deed restrictions written in 1913 against multifamily use, and a private deed restriction is not repealed by a change in the zoning code. Whether yours carries one, and whether anyone would enforce it, is a title question for that lot. Ask it before you underwrite a second unit.
Anyone who reads National Register as protection: The 2021 listing is a recognition, not a rule. It does not by itself stop an owner from altering or removing a house, and it is a different instrument from a City local historic district with design review. On these blocks the thing that has actually constrained change is the deed restrictions and the topography, not the register.
A buyer who needs a flat lot and a straight street: The neighborhood is on a bluff cut by a creek, and the streets curve because the ground does. Driveways are steep, lots slope, and a house at the bottom of a grade near Blunn Creek has a drainage question that a house on the ridge does not. Walk the lot in the rain if you can, and read the survey either way.
Someone who expects to wait for the right one: This is the fastest-moving market in the ZIP and it is not close. Inventory here sits about a third as long as it does in the neighborhoods either side, which means the decision window is days rather than weeks and the preparation has to happen before the listing appears, not after.

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.

Nearby

The rest of 78704

The ZIP as a whole is on the 78704 page.

Working here

Deed restrictions that still bite

The 1913 restrictions on parts of Travis Heights are not a historical curiosity. A private deed restriction that is still enforceable is enforceable by the neighbors, independently of what the zoning allows, and the city’s own code does not override it. Buyers find this out when a plan that cleared permitting runs into a document recorded over a century ago.

Which makes the title commitment the document that matters most on a purchase here, and reading it properly means reading the recorded exceptions rather than the summary. I go through those with you during the option period and tell you plainly which of them would touch what you intend to do with the house. On a sale it works the other way: knowing which restrictions apply to your lot is how you answer a buyer’s question without guessing and without killing the deal.

If that is the kind of help you want on a purchase or a sale here, start a conversation.

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Listings courtesy of Unlock MLS as distributed by MLS GRID

Based on information submitted to the MLS GRID as of October 17, 2026 at 8:00 AM CDT. All data obtained from various sources and may not have been verified by broker or MLS GRID.

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