Buying and Selling

08/19/09 12:39pm

Flushing Foreclosures Through the System: What’s Lurking in the Line?

Forecasts, Foreclosures, Home Prices, Houston Data, Price Trends

3 Comments

HAR’s real estate sales report for July is out! And Swamplot’s housing-market reader-analyst uses the data to piece together a better picture of Houston’s still-somewhat-mysterious foreclosure scene:

The press releases in 2009 have included a running commentary on the % of foreclosure sales in the month. This monthâ€™s release featured an interesting nugget — foreclosure sales from the prior yearâ€™s month! It is new information, and a few future monthly releases of it will allow us to fill in the data gap in the graph [above].

The foreclosure graph can be looked at in two ways. The glass half full crowd can cite the fact that a wave of foreclosures has been passed through the system — like a painful kidney stone — and it hasnâ€™t led to piles and piles of unsold homes on top of each other in a negative feedback loop. Inventory is down to 6.5 months, backing this view.

And what if you aren’t sure there’s enough water in that glass to, uh . . . pass those stones?

Buying and Selling, Forecasts, Foreclosures, Home Prices, Houston Data, Price Trends

Buildings for Sale

07/31/09 1:05pm

Weingarten Warehouse Sale

Buying and Selling, Industrial Properties, Quicklink

No Comments

WEINGARTEN WAREHOUSE SALE Weingarten Realty is continuing its multi-year property selling spree. The REIT is trying to unload a big chunk of its industrial properties, which make up a quarter of its holdings, but are typically easier to sell than retail centers: “Weingarten owns or has a stake in 18.6 million square feet of industrial properties in six states, with approximately 7 million square feet in the Houston area. Of the local holdings, nearly 890,000 square feet is up for grabs. In Houston, two properties with a total of 211,000 square feet are under contract for sale and another two facilities with 349,000 total square feet were expected to go under contract this week, according to Landwermeyer. Specâ€™s became the first local buyer when it acquired a 201,000-square-foot building last week. But as a core asset, that property would not have been sold had it not been for Specâ€™s existing retail ties to Weingarten.” [Houston Business Journal; more on the sale to Spec’s]

Buildings for Sale, Buying and Selling, Industrial Properties, Weingarten Realty

07/24/09 7:48pm

Smashing Modern in Glen Cove

Glen Cove, Houston Architects, Land Sales, Memorial, Real Estate Marketing

23 Comments

Judging from its debut in this morning’s demolition report, it’s looking like the end of the line for the classic 1960 steel-and-glass home at 6040 Glencove St., near Bayou Bend and Memorial Park.

What’s going away?

The house had the kind of wide-open spaces that modernists love, and its floors were marble – cool, [original owner AndrÃ©] Crispin says, under bare feet in the summer.

At 4,600 square feet, the house was large for its era, plenty big enough for the Crispins’ four children and their grand-scale entertaining. When Crispin and his wife hosted musical events, 200 to 300 guests thronged their dramatic living room. There, those guests could admire the wall of glass 14 feet tall. It offered a view of the untamed back yard, a rolling ravine filled with sassafras trees, rabbits and armadillos.

The home was designed by Houston architect Talbott Wilson, 2 years before his firm created the Astrodome. Its current owner, David Mincberg, was appointed by Mayor White earlier this week to serve on the board of commissioners of the Houston Housing Authority. Mincberg bought the property last spring from an owner-broker who employed an innovative marketing plan: the Midcentury Modern came free with purchase of the dramatic 1.35-acre homesite.

What did Mincberg end up paying?

77007, Buying and Selling, Houston Architects, Land Sales, Memorial, Modern Design, Real Estate Marketing, Talbott Wilson

07/22/09 10:38am

Houston Real Estate in June: Top of the Summer to You!

Forecasts, Foreclosures, Home Prices, Houston Data, Price Trends

11 Comments

“The increase in local unemployment reported this week is sickening,” reports Swamplot’s local financial correspondent. But don’t the latest HAR numbers show Houston home prices at some sort of record high?

Historically, the peak for home prices comes in July or August every year. The increase in the median and average over the past several months has been due to two factors. First, seasonality –summer prices are always the highest. Second, a change in the â€œproduct mixâ€ of Houston homes –the % of foreclosed homes has fallen every month for several months straight . . . So the change in the product mix means that the value of any given house probably has not risen, only a change in the product moving through the system is reflected in the numbers.

Is it okay to get excited about the foreclosures, then?

Buying and Selling, Forecasts, Foreclosures, Home Prices, Houston Data, Price Trends

Apartments

06/26/09 5:15pm

Solar-Powered Shipping Containers Flee; It’s Apartments for the Mirabeau B.

Buying and Selling, Condos, Development Strategies, Green Design and Development, Houston Architects, Hyde Park, Montrose, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing

1 Comment

Hey, what’s happening to those fancy solar-powered recycled shipping containers on the corner of Hyde Park and Waugh, meant to attract eco-minded buyers to the $400K+ condo units in the Mirabeau B.?

Up and away they go! Did the Mirabeau B. meet its sales target? Nope . . . but it’s time for construction anyway, developer Joey Romano tells Swamplot:

Our financing is in place and we have signed our contract with Mission Constructors who have commenced work on the site. If all goes to plan at the City, the building work will begin in the next few weeks.

How’d that happen? With a little switch: to rental. But Romano says none of the project’s “green” features will be changed:

Weâ€™ll still plant our green roof; our 15 KW solar PV system will still power all common areas; and our rainwater retention system will still irrigate our native Gulf Coast plants. Our units will be large, open, and spacious, offering unique, high-grade finishes, high-end energy efficient appliances, and natural light in every bedroom.

So where are the shipping containers headed?

77006, Apartments, Buying and Selling, Condos, Development Strategies, Green Design and Development, Houston Architects, Hyde Park, Montrose, Portable Buildings, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing, Shipping-Containers, Solar Power

06/26/09 3:45pm

Comment of the Day: Idylwood Appraisal Case Closed

Comments, Home Prices, Idylwood, Quicklink

4 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: IDYLWOOD APPRAISAL CASE CLOSED “All of you people are batsh!t crazy if you think you can get a house like that in Idylwood for the low $200â€™s. If houses LESS than 1300 sq ft have been selling for just under $200,000 or $145 to $150+ a foot. Do the math. 500 more sq ft, a second bath that not all of the other sales had and more upgrades for only $10,000 or so more? . . . This house has closed. It sold for $242,000 as well it should.” [Robert, commenting on Idling in Idylwood: Whereâ€™s a Friendly Appraiser When You Need One?]

77023, Appraisals, Appraisers, Bungalows, Buying and Selling, Comments, Home Prices, Idylwood

Apartments

06/26/09 1:25pm

Cleaning Up After the Westheimer Park Apartments

Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Demolitions, Land for Sale, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, Tanglewilde

5 Comments

CLEANING UP AFTER THE WESTHEIMER PARK APARTMENTS “Austin-based Falcon Southwest expects the demolition to be complete by July on the 185-unit complex at 9235 Westheimer, between Fondren and Gessner. Phil Capron, president of Falcon Southwest, says the property was under contract late last year to an apartment developer who wanted to build a five-story complex on the 4.8-acre site. The developer, whom he wonâ€™t name, could not get financing because of market conditions. Falcon Southwest will plant grass on the site before relisting it because â€œit will show better totally clean,â€ Capron says. He hopes to sell the tract for $30 to $35 per square foot, which would put the price between $6.3 million and $7.4 million. Falcon Southwest also owns the next door Westheimer Terrace Apartments, which are not for sale now, but Capron says will be at some time in the future.” [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]

77063, Apartments, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Demolitions, Land for Sale, Real Estate Marketing

06/24/09 11:15am

Fighting the New Appraisal Rules

Financing, Home Prices, Quicklink

3 Comments

FIGHTING THE NEW APPRAISAL RULES A Swamplot reader draws attention to a “rumored email” purporting to show that the National Association of Realtors is gearing up for a campaign against the Housing Valuation Code of Conduct that went into effect at the beginning of May. The HVCC was meant to safeguard the independence of appraisals — in part by prohibiting loan officers, mortgage brokers, and real estate agents from selecting the appraiser for a particular property. The email, posted on a San Fernando Valley real-estate blog, indicates that the NAR is pushing Congress to impose an 18-month moratorium on the new code. Our reader wonders if recent stories of “unfair appraisals” — such as this one — are the result of a larger “orchestrated campaign” against the new rules. [Effective Demand; Swamplot inbox]

Appraisals, Appraisers, Buying and Selling, Financing, Home Prices

06/18/09 4:14pm

Idling in Idylwood: Where’s a Friendly Appraiser When You Need One?

Home Prices, Idylwood

15 Comments

The Chronicle’s Nancy Sarnoff says low appraisals are becoming the “newest threat” to Houston’s housing market. Her example? The story of the redone bungalow at 6707 Fairfield St. in Idylwood, where the sellers accepted a full-price offer less than a week after the property was listed.

But the appraisal on the 1,780-square-foot home came in at just $206,000. The buyer couldnâ€™t come up with enough cash to make up the difference and [co-owner Derrick] DeCristofaro wasnâ€™t willing to drop the price, so the deal fell through.

Why can’t the appraiser buy that $242,900 asking price?

77023, Appraisals, Appraisers, Bungalows, Buying and Selling, Home Prices, Idylwood

Bankruptcies

06/17/09 4:42pm

No Deal for Bridgeland

Bridgeland, Buying and Selling, Land Development, Master-Planned Communities, Quicklink, Sprawl

7 Comments

NO DEAL FOR BRIDGELAND Bankrupt General Growth Properties won’t be selling its Grand Parkway-lining sprawlchild to the Caldwell Cos. after all. The $95 million deal to sell Bridgeland’s 11,400 acres is off: “Jim Graham, General Growthâ€™s director of public affairs, released a statement on Wednesday saying all discussions have been terminated with parties interested in purchasing or investing in Bridgeland, but would not disclose any further details concerning the negotiations. Graham says the decision was made ‘very recently.’â€ [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]

77433, Bankruptcies, Bridgeland, Buying and Selling, Grand Parkway, Land Development, Master-Planned Communities, Sprawl

05/26/09 12:09pm

Survival of the Fittest

Buying and Selling, Homebuilders, Houston Data

Homebuilders, Houston Data, Quicklink

2 Comments

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST “The days are long gone when sales were so brisk that everyone from accountants to lawyers snapped up empty lots to build homes in Houston, where loose laws meant at the height of the property boom anyone could be a builder. . . . Mike Salomon, president of Sandcastle Homes, however, says those unprepared for an inherently risky business have been chased out of the industry. ‘Weâ€™ve gone from a market that was very forgiving, and you could make mistakes and still be profitable,’ he says. ‘Weâ€™re close to what it should be like, where people who donâ€™t know what they are doing are going out of business.â€™ His profits were down by 30 to 40 per cent in 2008, but volume was up 37 per cent. ‘We have to do more stuff to make the sales, but we have a profitable business that weâ€™re still running.’” [Financial Times, via Swamplot inbox]

Bankruptcies

05/22/09 11:46am

Buying a Bridgeland

Bridgeland, Buying and Selling, Freeways and Toll Roads, Master-Planned Communities, Quicklink, Sprawl

5 Comments

BUYING A BRIDGELAND The Caldwell Cos., possibly financed by Japan’s Sumitomo Corp., is in the process of buying all 11,400 acres of Bridgeland from bankrupt General Growth Properties for $90 to $95 million. “Caldwell notes the master-planned community will have the fourth-largest lake in Houston upon completion. The firm has spent three years moving more than 2 million [cubic] yards of dirt to create the body of water thatâ€™s large enough for boating and skiing, he says. The first part of the lake opened two weeks ago. . . . The master-planned community stretches between Katy-Hockley Road and Fry Road, south of U.S. Highway 290. The Grand Parkway will run right through the property. Construction on the roadway will begin in March 2010 with $180 million of federal stimulus money, according to The Grand Parkway Association.” [Houston Business Journal; previously in Swamplot]

77433, Bankruptcies, Bridgeland, Buying and Selling, Grand Parkway, Land Development, Master-Planned Communities, Sprawl

05/20/09 2:23pm

The Lone Star College System of Real Estate Deals: 70 Percent Off Hewlett-Packard Surplus!

Commercial Real Estate, Northwest Houston

2 Comments

The Lone Star College System’s $42.2 million purchase price for that chunk of the former Compaq campus it closed on last month turns out to be $100 million less than the amount it had offered to Hewlett-Packard for the property a year earlier, reports Wall Street Journal reporter Maura Webber Sadovi. A few more tidbits from her report on the second-largest office purchase in the U.S. so far this year (The auction of Boston’s 1.8 million-sq.-ft. Hancock Tower for $660 million in March was the biggest):

The $35-a-square-foot price Lone Star paid was below the $57 average paid for the few suburban Houston office properties sold in the first quarter of 2009 and a deep discount to the $145 per-square-foot suburban average in the year-earlier first quarter, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based real-estate-research firm.

Expect to see administrators of the Lone Star College System (known until recently as the North Harris Montgomery Community College System) lounging around in some of the executive furniture HP threw into the deal at the last minute as well. How did they strike this bargain?

77070, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Leasing, Northwest Houston, Price Reductions

05/14/09 11:48am

Another Take on Greenwood King: Feeling for the Edge