Spicewood, Texas 78669 · Travis Settlement Section 5
Comparative Market Analysis & Listing Strategy
Prepared for Kristine Ehrlich · August 2026
Daniel & Jacquelyn Foreman | Foreman Property Group | eXp Realty Luxury
The Position
Six acres behind a private gate, a creek, a barn, a sport court, and a house that cannot be seen from the road. There is nothing else like this parcel in Travis Settlement.
There is also a market record. Between October 2022 and April 2025 this home carried 271 cumulative days of exposure across four price points — $2,400,000, $2,289,000, $2,099,000, and $2,000,000 — and produced no retail buyer. The one contract it did produce was a lease-purchase that expired against a falling market, and the tenants elected to forfeit $100,000 in earnest money rather than close.
That is not a failure of the property. It is the market delivering the same answer four times.
Our work here is to establish what a buyer will actually pay in August 2026, to name the specific work that moves this home into the bracket buyers are transacting in, and to enter at a price that makes the prior history irrelevant rather than reactivating it.
Property Snapshot
What Genuinely Sets This Home Apart
Land & Privacy at Scale
At 6.094 acres this is the largest parcel among every closed comparable in the set. The flag-lot configuration and gated entrance mean the residence is invisible from Ridge Pole — a level of seclusion that reads as a defect on a map and as a luxury on foot.
Two Platted Lots, Not One
The legal description conveys Lots 322 and 323. The roughly three acres northwest of the entrance drive may support a second building site. This is a price-affecting unknown and we need it resolved before launch — if Lot 323 is separately conveyable and buildable, it is worth $100,000 to $200,000 and becomes a headline. If it is not, it comes out of the narrative entirely.
Equestrian Improvements Are Rare Here
A two-stall barn with corral — and new pipe rail fencing now going in — does not exist elsewhere in this comparable set.
Amenity Depth
Full-size sport court, heated pool with waterfall, covered patio with separate outdoor kitchen, creek and Hill Country views. No competing listing carries this combination.
The Primary Suite Is Already Done
New flooring, new shower tile, and a freestanding tub. The highest-return room in the house is finished.
What We Must Price For
We will lead with the strengths. We will not pretend the rest away — buyers will find all of it in the first thirty minutes, and a seller who has already priced for it negotiates from a stronger position.
Roof is lifting across the field
Composition shingle, original vintage. Inspection is the first call we make; this is a launch-gating item.
Kitchen counters and fixtures are unchanged
Brown granite with painted grey cabinetry is the most-cited objection in this buyer set.
Windows are original
White aluminum with divided lights. Dated, and not economically replaceable at this price point.
Travertine flooring in multiple patterns
Original to construction.
Circulation challenges
Two-story plan with a sunken entry and repeated grade changes — down to the fountain, up to the door, down to the main floor. Acreage buyers in this band prefer single-level.
Great room impresses; family room does not
The curved two-story glass wall is the photograph. Daily-living space is the question.
Sport court needs resurfacing
Pool layout is unconventional.
Grounds are not cleared
Underbrush and scrub cedar throughout, where the strongest comps presented manicured acreage. All stone flatwork, retaining walls, and the entry fountain carry organic growth.
Micro-Market Context
Spicewood & Lake Travis acreage · trailing twelve months
Nine and a half months of inventory is a buyer's market by any standard definition. Sellers are not setting price in this segment right now — the eight buyers who transacted this year did.
Closed Comparable Sales
Segmented by story count — one-story closings median $390/SF; two-story closings median $341/SF. The single-level premium in this market is real and it runs roughly 14%.
By vintage and condition, the spread is wider still. Dated 1990s Travis Settlement product transacted at $239 to $318 per foot. Updated or newer product transacted at $341 to $476. That gap — not the acreage — is the variable that will set this price.
Active & Pending Competition
Price is benchmarked against what a buyer can walk into today, not against what closed last winter.
Value Analysis
Line-item adjustment from the anchor comparable
4503 Whirlwind Cove is the single best comparable: same section, Travis Settlement 5, closed December 2025 at $2,173,000 in 37 days with no price reduction. It is also a superior property, and we adjust down from it.
Two supporting indications. Adjusting up from 3507 Bee Creek Road — the closest condition-and-vintage analog in Travis Settlement — indicates $1,389,000. Adjusting up from 19215 White Horse Cove, a 1999 two-story of nearly identical size, indicates $1,558,000.
Reconciled As-Is Market Value
$1,510,000
Post Make-Ready Supportable Value
$1,565,000
The Launch-Price Pattern
The most useful question is not what this home is worth. It is what happened to every home in this market that launched above what it was worth.
Never Reduced
89.1% of launch
Average 37 days on market
Reduced at Least Once
85.0% of launch
Average 108 days on market
A reduction costs roughly four points of price and seventy-one days. And the reduction itself is the signal — once a buyer sees one, the offer that follows is written against the next one.
Every Home That Launched at $1,695,000 or Above
Ten properties in this micro-market launched at or above the stretch price. Here is the complete record.
Two of the twelve sold at or near launch. Both were newer construction, and neither carried deferred maintenance. Six remain unsold — three of them after reducing an average of 15%. Two closed, but only after 164 and 218 days and at 13% to 24% below launch.
And two of them are this house.
Three Pricing Scenarios
Read the modeled close line before the list price line. The list price is what we ask. The modeled close is what the comparable cohort says we get.
Our Recommendation
$1,595,000
At $1,595,000 this home becomes the lowest-priced acreage listing in its competitive set while offering more land, more amenity, and more privacy than anything near it. It trades finish level for scale — which is a story a buyer can be sold, where "dated and overpriced" is not.
Condition One: Presentation Must Reach the Top Quartile
The pricing discipline only holds if the product does. A buyer touring uncleared acreage, organic growth on the stone, a lifting roofline, and an unresurfaced sport court will not pay for potential — they will bid the repair list. The make-ready is not cosmetic; it is what earns the price.
Condition Two: The Launch Must Be Clean
New photography, new narrative, and a price far enough from $2,000,000 that the prior history reads as an old chapter instead of an ongoing negotiation.
If you prefer to test $1,695,000, we will do it with a written reduction schedule: $1,595,000 on day 21, $1,495,000 on day 60. That captures the upside if a buyer surprises us, and it takes the reduction off the table as buyer leverage — because it was ours to begin with.
The Equity Picture
The 2023 contract price is gone, and the appraisal district has already written down the value by 14% to confirm it. What has not changed is the basis. Against a $985,000 purchase, this remains a substantial equity outcome — and the forfeited earnest money stayed with you.
Preempting the AVM and the Tax Question
Why the AVM Is Wrong
The automated valuations will say more than $1,800,000. CoreLogic returned $1,846,000 as of August 10, 2026. Buyers will see something similar on the public portals, and it will be quoted back to us.
Here is why it is wrong. Automated models on first-generation custom acreage over-weight land area and prior list history — this property has 6.094 acres and four public list prices between $2.0M and $2.4M feeding the model. The model cannot see a lifting roof, original aluminum windows, original travertine, or brown granite. Its own confidence band is ±9%, which puts the floor at $1,675,600 on an $1,846,000 midpoint. The appraisal district, working from the same market with the benefit of local judgment, assessed it at $1,571,371.
The Tax Advantage
Pre-List Make-Ready
Sequence matters as much as scope: clean-out → repairs and lighting → grounds and stone → staging → photography.
On the kitchen: replacing the brown granite and fixtures is the cheapest single move from "dated" to "transitional," and it is the room buyers photograph in their heads. But it does not solve the travertine underfoot. Our recommendation is to proceed only if the full scope lands under $25,000 — otherwise leave it and let the price carry it.
On the windows and flooring: do not touch either. Replacement runs well past $100,000 and will not return. Disclose, and price accordingly.
Marketing & Concierge Plan
Solve the Flag Lot First
A buyer cannot see this house from the road, and neither can a photograph taken from it. Aerial and cinematic drone work is not a nice-to-have here — it is the only way the six acres, the creek, the barn, and the seclusion read at all. We pair it with a mapped site plan showing Lots 322 and 323, and proper signage at the Ridge Pole entrance.
Remove the Acreage Buyer's Fear Before They Ask
Well, septic, and roof inspections completed proactively, with survey and reports loaded to the document box at launch. On well-and-septic properties this shortens option periods and takes the largest renegotiation lever out of the buyer's hands.
Visual Package
Architectural stills, twilight exteriors, drone, 3D tour, dimensioned floor plan, and a cinematic video built around the driveway approach — turning the arrival sequence from a liability into a reveal.
Distribution
eXp Luxury network and global syndication, luxury portals, broker preview, and direct outreach within Travis Settlement and the Bee Creek Road corridor. Geo-targeted digital to Westlake, Barton Creek, Bee Cave, and Lakeway, layered with equestrian and acreage buyer segments and Lake Travis ISD relocation traffic.
Reporting
A weekly written report: showings, feedback themes, digital activity, and every movement in the competitive set. You will never have to ask us where we stand.
The First Thirty Days
The first thirty days are the most important window in any listing. Buyer attention is highest at launch, and the feedback from early showings is the most actionable data we will receive. We will not wait for day sixty to tell you what day fourteen already showed us.
Next Steps
Roof Inspection This Week
The report determines replace-versus-credit and sets the launch date. Nothing else moves until we have it.
Plat and Deed Research on Lot 323
Separate conveyance and buildability. This is a $100,000 to $200,000 swing and we need the answer before we set price.
Confirm the Pricing Tier
Our recommendation is $1,595,000.
Review the Net Sheet
At your confirmed price — delivered separately.
Authorize the Make-Ready
Lock the sequence: clean-out, repairs and lighting, grounds and stone, staging, photography.
Confirm Capital-Gains Treatment with Your CPA
Given the tenant-occupancy period.
Execute the Listing Agreement
Set the launch date.
Thank You, Kristine
This property has been asked the same question four times and given the same answer. We would like to ask it a different one.
Daniel & Jacquelyn Foreman
Foreman Property Group | eXp Realty Luxury
4306 Ridge Pole Lane