12/21/12 11:58am

We now come to the final category in the 2012 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. We need your help to determine the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of the past year. The official nominees, culled from reader suggestions, are posted below. Which one would you pick to win the award?

Remember, there are 4 ways to vote! And you can vote once using each approved method — that’s 4 votes in all for each award category. Declare your vote in a comment to this post, in an email to Swamplot HQ, in a Tweet, or on the wall of Swamplot’s Facebook page. The complete voting rules are available here.

All votes must be in by 5 pm on Wednesday, December 26th. When you vote, please tell us why you made your choice. We’ll include some of the best explanations for the winners when we announce them next week.

The official nominees for the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of 2012 are . . .

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

12/19/12 11:44pm

Please vote for one of these official nominees in this, the second-to-last category of the 2012 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. It’s for one of the biggies: Neighborhood of the Year. Where’d all the nominations come from? From you!

You can vote for your favorite nominee any or all of 4 ways: in a comment beneath this post, in an email to Swamplot, from Twitter, or in a post on the wall of Swamplot’s Facebook page. Here are the official voting rules. If you want to start a campaign on Facebook or some online forum in support of your choice, go right ahead. Just make sure all the votes get in by 5 pm on Wednesday, December 26th.

Which Houston-area neighborhood deserves to be called this year’s Neighborhood of the Year? Here are the official nominees:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

12/19/12 10:06am

Did you know that you can vote up to 4 times in each category of the 2012 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate? But you’ve got to follow the rules for them to be counted. You’re allowed to vote once in a comment to the official ballot post for the category, once in an email to Swamplot, once from your Twitter account, and once on the wall of Swamplot’s Facebook page. You’ll find more details on how to do each (and how not to have your votes disqualified) here.

Nominations in all 7 categories of this year’s Swampies are now closed; balloting has begun in 5 of them so far: Most Overlooked Neighborhood, the “It’s Alive!” Award, the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic, Best Demolition, and Favorite Houston Design Cliché. Did any of your favorites make it to the ballot? Recruit your friends to vote for them. We’ve got 2 more categories coming up this week, and then a short voting season: All votes for all categories must be in by 5 pm on Wednesday, December 26th.

12/18/12 11:52pm

Onward, to the “neighborhood” categories in the 2012 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate! First: Which little slice of Houston deserves to win the award for Most Overlooked Neighborhood?

The official nominees, culled from your choices and descriptions, are listed below. Now’s your chance to choose the winner! Add your vote to a comment below, send it in an email to Swamplot, announce it on Twitter, write it on the wall of Swamplot’s Facebook page — or all 4! (That’s right, if you follow these rules, each of you can vote 4 times.) If you think you can drum up more support for your favorite candidate, go right ahead! Just make sure all votes are in by 5 pm on Wednesday, December 26th.

The nominees for Most Overlooked Neighborhood are . . .

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

12/17/12 11:34pm

And now we come to the zombie category of the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. Or, to be more precise, the “It’s Alive!” Award. What place, person, or effort deserves such an honor? One of the official nominees listed below. You tell us which, with your votes!

You’ve got 4 of them to spend in this category: You can cast one vote in a comment at the bottom of this post, another in an email to Swamplot, another from Twitter, and another by posting on the wall of Swamplot’s Facebook fan page. (All the rules for voting are spelled out here.) If you want to help your favorite candidate win, start a campaign! The voting ends for this and all categories of the 2012 Swampies at 5 pm on Wednesday, December 26th.

The official nominees for the 2012 “It’s Alive!” Award are . . .

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

12/14/12 11:41pm

And now, a very special category in the 2012 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate is open for voting! What makes it so special? Well, the word “special” is in the name of the award, for one thing. It’s our Award for Special Achievement in Traffic. And we need your judgment, your comments, and your votes to determine the winner.

The official nominees in this category — as advanced and presented by Swamplot readers — are listed below. Now’s your chance to vote — which you can do up to 4 times if you follow our rules: once in a comment below, once in an email to Swamplot, once using Twitter, and once by scribbling on the wall of Swamplot’s page on Facebook. That not enough for you? Then recruit your friends to vote, too! But make sure you get all the votes in by the deadline: 5 pm on Wednesday, December 26th.

And now, the official nominees for the Award for Special Achievement in Traffic:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

12/12/12 10:42pm

What was this year’s Best Demolition? That’s what we aim to find out in this, the second category in the 2012 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. The official nominees are now in the (soon-to-be-demolished) house!

The voting rules for this year’s Swampies are posted here, but they’re not that complicated: You can vote in this category through each of 4 methods: in a comment below, in an email to Swamplot, on Twitter, or on Swamplot’s Facebook page. If you’ve got a favorite candidate, start a campaign! The polls close for all categories at 5 pm on December 26th.

The nominees for Best Demolition of 2012 are . . .

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

12/10/12 10:21pm

Here they are, culled from your contributions: The official nominees for the very first category of the fifth annual Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. And that would be: Favorite Houston Design Cliché. Thanks to everyone who submitted tried-and-true suggestions!

You can cast your vote for this award category simply by adding a comment below indicating your choice. But why not make it more fun? Don’t just tell us which choice you’re voting for, tell us why!

And pay attention to the Swampies’ quirky voting rules: You can also vote up to 3 more times — by email, on Twitter, or from Facebook — as long as you follow the listed guidelines.

The nominees are . . .

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

12/10/12 1:03pm

Nominations closed at midnight last night for the first 2 of the 7 categories in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: Favorite Houston Design Cliché and Best Demolition. Later today, we’ll announce the official nominees — and begin the voting — for the first of those categories. Throughout this week and into the next, we’ll be introducing the official nominees and opening voting in each category, one by one.

This means there are now only hours left to make your nominations for the second 2 categories, which are new this year: the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic and the “It’s Alive!” Award. Nominations for these 2 categories will close at midnight tonight.

Some terrific nominations have already come in for all our remaining categories, but we still need your help to make sure that all the candidates are the right ones, and that each is presented in the best possible light.

So if you find anything missing from any of the 5 remaining award categories, please add your nominations now! Or if you think you can improve on any of the explanations submitted, feel free to write in with your own better presentation. If you see a nomination without an explanation, please add a good one! Got photos of any of the nominees? Please send them!

(Special note to neighborhoods hoping to make it to the final ballot for 2012 Neighborhood of the Year: A simple mention of your subdivision’s name, combined with descriptions that could be applied to many other parts of the city, won’t necessarily be enough to get it onto the official ballot. Instead, tell us what makes the neighborhood you’re nominating special or unique, and worthy of this award this year.)

There’s still plenty of time to contribute. Add your nominations to the comments section below the post that announces each category (you’ll find all the award categories listed together here). Or send them to us in an email. Who are the contenders in Houston real estate this year? What deserves recognition?

12/07/12 4:53pm

All 7 categories in the 2012 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate have now been announced. Voting begins next week. Terrific nominations have already come in for many of the categories, but we still need your help to make sure that all the candidates are the right ones, and that each is presented in the best possible light.

So if you find anything missing from any award category, please add your nomination now! Or if you think you can improve on any of the explanations submitted with a nomination you like, feel free to write in with your own better presentation. If you see a nomination without an explanation, please add a good one! Got photos of any of the nominees? Please send them!

This Sunday at midnight, nominations will close for the first 2 award categories: Favorite Houston Design Cliché and Best Demolition. For the next 2 categories we’ll close nominations Monday night, then continue through the week with the rest of the categories. On Monday, we’ll announce the official slate of nominees for the first award category and open it for voting. We’ll do the same for another category each day — until we’ve made our way through them all.

There’s still plenty of time to contribute. Add your nominations to the comments section below the post that announces each category. Or send them to us in an email. Who are the contenders in Houston real estate this year? What deserves recognition?

12/06/12 1:32pm

We’ve announced 6 categories so far in the 2012 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic, the “It’s Alive!” Award, Most Overlooked Neighborhood, and Neighborhood of the Year. That’s a lot of ground to cover. What’s left?

Here it is, the 7th and final category. And probably the biggest of them all: What was the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of 2012?

Covering great moments in Houston real estate is the whole point of Swamplot; it’s why we’re here. Browse through the site if it’ll help you to draw up a list of contenders; or raid your own memory banks. (Did we miss a few big happenings this year?) Tell us what moment deserves this recognition — and why.

A great moment is lost if there’s no one there to chronicle it or cherish it. Which is why we need your help. Add your comments or send us an email describing the moments you’d like to nominate. (If you’ve got questions about how to make a nomination, you’ll likely find the answers here.)

12/05/12 3:00pm

We’ve almost reached the end of the 7 categories in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. So far, we’ve opened nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic, the “It’s Alive!” Award, and Most Overlooked Neighborhood. If you haven’t added your own suggestions for each of these, please do.

The next (and next-to-last) category is Neighborhood of the Year. What qualifications does a neighborhood need to meet in order to be declared Houston Neighborhood of the Year? You tell us — as you make your nomination! Of course, a neighborhood might be considered as a contender for Swamplot’s Neighborhood of the Year award for vastly different reasons than another one might be considered for an award of the same name from, say, a professional association of homebuilders.

Please note that entrants in this category — as well as all the others — need not be located strictly inside Houston’s municipal boundaries. Swamplot tries to track the idea of Houston as it regularly travels outside the city limits. (In fact, the 2009 winner of the Houston Neighborhood of the Year award was . . . yes, Galveston.)

We’re ready to receive your nominations — and convincing explanations — in the comments below, or in an email. If you’re new to this Swamplot-Award-nominating thing, please consult the official rules. This year, who are the contenders for this award?

12/05/12 12:08pm

Yesterday we added a couple more categories to this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. That means 4 of them have now been opened for your nominations: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic, and the “It’s Alive!” Award. We’ve received a number of terrific nominations for each category so far. Keep those great entries coming for all of them!

Today we introduce the fifth and sixth categories in the 2012 Swampies. And we’ll call this Neighborhood Day. Up first, then, is the award for Most Overlooked Neighborhood.

Some prominent sections of the Houston-area real estate market are now attracting flurries of activity — while in some other areas of the country there’s not much doing. So certain neighborhoods in our region are being looked over carefully by potential residents and investors. What neighborhood in the greater Houston area (yes, we’ll include The Woodlands, other parts far and wide, and even throw in Galveston) rightfully deserves the title of “most overlooked” — and why?

You know the drill by now. We need your smart nominations to make the award in this category valuable. Tell us, in a comment below or in a private message, what neighborhood deserves to win this award. What are you seeing?

12/04/12 3:15pm

So far, 3 categories in the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate have been been opened up for your nominations: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, and the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic. Up next: another brand-new category, specially selected for this year’s competition: the “It’s Alive!” Award.

In a dynamic, ever-changing city, 2 opposing themes dominate: extinction and renewal. What better way to celebrate this little circle of life in Houston than with an award for things that you thought were dead and gone — but that have somehow come back. Here, we hope to recognize Houston’s living dead, its undead, and its back-from-the-dead. What, in this lively city this past year, deserves the “It’s Alive!” Award?

Send us your nominations! As usual, your spin will make the difference between a plain ol’ suggestion and a compelling choice for the award. You’ll find all the rules for the nominating process here.

You have until midnight next Monday, December 10, to suggest nominees for both categories announced today. Dig into the comments section below (or the Swamplot inbox) to submit your choices.

12/04/12 1:20pm

Yesterday we introduced the first 2 nominating categories in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. Nominations will remain open until midnight Sunday, December 9, for both awards: Favorite Houston Design Cliché and Best Demolition.

Today, there are 2 more award categories to introduce. And they’re both new to the Swampies. The first of these we’re calling the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Traffic.

Traffic means popularity. Sure, we all like to complain about it when it gets in our way, but is traffic always such a bad thing? Is there anyone or anything that might stand to gain from it? And if a neighborhood, or a new development, or some sort of construction project were to deserve this sort of award, would it be for causing traffic, for lessening it, or for something else entirely? You tell us: What, in the Houston of 2012, deserves to be recognized for its unique relationship with traffic?

As usual, the Swampies are open to the sharp and clever formulations of readers. If you use your nomination to give this category a twist, sell your vision!

More complete instructions covering the nominating process can be found on this page. In the meantime, drive right on ahead to the comments section below to add your nomination. One at a time, please. If it gets too crowded down there, there’s an alternate route: Send your suggestions directly to Swamplot HQ, via our email inbox.