Most of what kills a Central Texas deal is knowable before the option period ends. Not all of it. But more of it than most people check, and the checking is cheap compared to the entitlement spend that follows.
The order below is the order we actually work through a parcel. It is weighted toward the things that have changed recently, because those are the ones where the received wisdom is stale and the mispricing lives. Every item is a question to answer with a document, not a feeling to have about a site.
One note before the list. Every date and figure here carries an expiration stamp. Infrastructure schedules in this region slip on a quarterly cadence, and several of the policies below are still being finalised. Treat this as the list of things to verify, not as verified facts about your parcel. Confirm each one against the agency's own current page before you rely on it.
1. Check the by-right yield before you assume a rezoning
This is first because it is the item most likely to be wrong in an underwriting model built on 2023 assumptions.
The 2025 Texas legislative session changed the default posture on a lot of Austin land. SB 840, effective September 1, 2025, lets commercial-zoned parcels and commercial buildings go multifamily or mixed-use by right, at the greater of 45 feet or the existing commercial height limit, at 54 units per acre, with reduced setbacks. Austin has published its own implementation guidelines. Separately, the city's elimination of parking minimums and the HOME amendments stack on top of that.
The practical consequence: a commercial parcel that needed a rezoning, a neighborhood campaign and a Council vote in 2023 may now be a by-right housing site. A rezoning you do not have to run is time you do not have to carry, and political risk premium you do not have to price.
The question to answer: what is the maximum yield on this parcel under current statute with no discretionary approval at all? Run that number before you run anything else. If it is close to your program, the deal is a different deal than it looks.
2. Find the wastewater capacity, not the water supply
Inside Austin Water's service area, treatment capacity is the binding constraint more often than raw supply is. Austin Water has a $1.5 billion program to add 25 MGD at the Walnut Creek plant, which serves much of North and Northeast Austin and was built in 1977. As of this writing that program has no published completion date, which makes it one of the more important unknowns for anything in that basin.
In the suburban rings the question is different and usually harder: which utility or district actually serves the parcel, what is its remaining committed capacity, and is that capacity already spoken for by an agreement nobody has recorded anywhere you would look.
The question to answer: name the specific provider, get their current committed-versus-available capacity in writing, and find out what is already allocated. "There is water out there" is not an answer.
3. If the use is water-intensive, read the new large-volume policy
Austin adopted a large-volume water customer resolution on July 23, 2026, with final policy expected before the end of 2026. If you are underwriting a data center, a semiconductor facility, food processing or any large industrial user inside Austin Water's territory, the development review conversation now includes a water conservation plan, a reclaimed water connection analysis, and a projection of use and line extension. Miss the standard and the project goes to Council, which converts an administrative path into a political one.
A side effect worth pricing: proximity to the reclaimed water network moved from a nice-to-have to a compliance path. That makes it a real land attribute for the uses it applies to.
4. For large loads, ask which interconnection batch the site is in
Power has become the long pole for industrial land in Texas, and unlike most constraints it now has a published queue with a schedule.
ERCOT's Batch Zero notifications went out in August 2026, and the statewide transmission plan for that batch is expected in fall 2027. The scale of the request pipeline is the part that reframes everything: ERCOT's own figures show on the order of 438,000 MW of large-load interconnection requests, the large majority of them data centers, against an all-time system peak of roughly 85,508 MW. Most of that will never be built. What it means in practice is that every large-load request is competing in a queue.
The question to answer: is this site's large-load request in a batch, and which one? That question now sits alongside "is it in the floodplain" as basic diligence. A site with gas access, or the physical ability to host onsite generation, is worth more than a site without it, independent of what the grid can deliver.
5. Diligence the process, not just the agreement
Suburban entitlement increasingly runs through development agreements, tax abatements and special districts negotiated between a developer, a city or county, and a utility. The agreement is the document everyone reads. The process that produced it is the part that gets litigated.
An agreement approved through a defective process is a title-adjacent risk, and it does not show up in a survey. Ask how the thing was noticed, when it was posted, what was decided in closed session and what was decided in open, and whether anyone has challenged it.
6. Know what was postponed, not just what passed
This is the cheapest mistake to avoid and one of the most common. Several Austin upzoning pathways are currently postponed rather than adopted, including the South Central Waterfront density bonus program, the University Neighborhood Overlay update, and density bonuses for Commercial Highway and Industrial zones.
If a pro forma depends on a density bonus that has not been adopted, that pro forma is describing a building that cannot currently be permitted. Check the status of the specific program you are relying on, by case number, before it becomes a line in a model.
7. Demand the permit timeline, then demand the measurement
As of July 2026 Austin publishes review targets: on the order of 10 business days for residential new construction, 7 for commercial under 10,000 square feet, 20 for commercial over 25,000 square feet, plus a same-day zoning pre-check. Those are targets.
Whether the department is hitting them is the number that actually belongs in your schedule, and it is the one to ask for. The direction of travel is real and it is worth saying out loud, because "you cannot build in Austin" is a narrative that is now several years out of date. But a published target is not a measured outcome, and a carry cost model should be built on the second one.
The short version
- Run the by-right yield under current statute first.
- Name the wastewater provider and get committed-versus-available in writing.
- For water-intensive uses, read the large-volume customer policy.
- For large loads, find out which interconnection batch you are in.
- Diligence how the agreement was approved, not only what it says.
- Confirm the density bonus you are underwriting actually exists today.
- Ask for measured review times, not published targets.
None of this replaces a civil engineer, a land use attorney or a title commitment. It is the screen that tells you which parcels are worth paying those people to look at, and in this market that screen is most of the work.
If you are looking at a site in Central Texas and want a second read on any of the seven, that is the conversation we have most often. Get in touch.
Micky Dawn, REAL Broker, LLC. Texas licensed real estate agent, license #814255. This post is general information about the development process in Central Texas. It is not legal, engineering or investment advice, and it is not a representation about any specific parcel. Verify every date, figure and policy status against the issuing agency before relying on it.