Home sale prices in Cedar Park and far Northwest Austin dropped slightly year over year for October, but homes in general spent less time on the market than in the previous year.

The median home sale price in the region fell from $510,000 in 2024 to $504,000 in 2025. The region also saw increases across the board in the number of new listings, closed listings and homes under contract, while the overall number of active listings rose from 966 to 1,238.

Williamson and Travis counties offer a plethora of chances to get out into the community and lend a hand. Here is Community Impact's guide to local volunteer opportunities.

Note: This list is not comprehensive 

Animal services
The Dog Alliance
The nonprofit provides service dogs to disabled Texas veterans and has a therapy dog team that provides stress relief at hospitals, nursing homes, local schools and libraries. The organization also has dog training classes. 

• Sample activities: helping with distraction seminars for therapy and or service dogs, landscaping, puppy raising, fostering service dogs for vacations and holidays
• Donations accepted: monetary gifts, professional services such as painting, plumbing,
• landscaping, window cleaning
• 1321 W. New Hope Drive, Cedar Park

• Sample activities: donor outreach, running the in-library bookstore
• Donations accepted: books, monetary gifts
• 425 South Parkwest Drive, Cedar Park

Texas’ power grid will likely remain stable in December and January, recent reports from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas show. However, grid conditions could become tight if a winter storm hits large swaths of Texas, driving up demand for electricity.

The overview: ERCOT, which operates the electric grid for 90% of Texas, found in a Nov. 7 report that there should be “sufficient generating capacity available” to serve customers throughout January.

ERCOT forecasts that the tightest period this winter will be from 7-8 a.m. daily, when little to no solar power is being produced. During that time, ERCOT found the chances of a grid emergency are 1.81% in December and 1.4% in January.

More details: If a severe winter storm causes demand on the Texas grid to near record levels, there is a roughly 35% chance of a grid emergency in December and a less than 10% chance in January, ERCOT reported. Texans last experienced a grid emergency in September 2023, and the grid withstood three cold snaps in early 2025.