My wife and I finished staying in Roland's place for about 4 weeks and are happy with our stay. The home is in a quiet neighborhood and has easy access to the highway. It takes about 15mins to get to all the main parts of the city (i.e. downtown, South Congress, West Austin, North Austin, etc). We loved the backyard and during sunny days (which is most!) the light that comes in is absolutely beautiful.
A few small notes that we noticed since we stayed for longer than most:
- The laundry (and sauna) is located in a separate unit and not in the main home. It's not a big deal since we did laundry 1/week but didn't realize this looking at the pictures
- The queen bed in the smaller room is incredibly comfortable -- comes with a mattress topper -- but unfortunately the king size was at all. It's missing a mattress topper and there is a plastic mattress protector (which is great) but is also very loud and "crunchy" so not great for light sleepers.
- We're not from Austin but the neighborhood seemed to be in a gentrifying section of the city. We're from New York so this didn't both us but for others, especially with the Citizen app, there are lots of notifications of crimes around the neighborhood (average is about a mile or so away from the home). I want to stress that I never felt unsafe and the neighbors seemed very nice, but for those coming from smaller cities, it may be a tad unnerving.
- For those working from home and need an "office" of sorts, it's a little difficult. Although you can easily, and comfortably, use the beautiful kitchen counter, if more than one person is working, there aren't any additional desks/chairs (definitely room to add one though, so that's good!)
- There are three great TVs (in the living room + one in each bedroom) but strangely there is not streaming device (i.e. Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Roku, etc.). There's an incredibly comfortable couch in the living room so this was a missed opportunity. Again, we stayed here for a month so there's only so much outdoorsy things we can do :)
Overall, we were very happy with our stay and ecstatic with the level of hospitality that Scott, the property manager, provided. He went above and beyond and was incredibly kind and quick with getting us things (like a plug for our electric car!). For runners/walkers, this neighborhood has great walkability -- a mere 35mins walk to Mueller and great residential loops.
Thanks for everything Scott and Roland!