05/22/07 9:44am

2232 Riverside Dr.

What happens when townhomes don’t crack half a million? Sellers get mighty cranky:

This unit has a great view of downtown. It features a large balcony, spacious rooms, high ceilings, both wood & carpeted floors, an elevator, fireplace, beautiful kitchen and much more! It is being sold ‘AS IS’. The seller will do NO REPAIRS.

Don’t want to deal with this kind of unwillingness to negotiate? For a mere $200K+ more, you can buy the townhouse next door. And that seller isn’t saying what will or won’t be repaired—at least not in the listing.

A nice view of 288 from the balcony, plus an interior photo, which you can scan for evidence of a need for repairs the seller won’t make, after the jump.

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05/18/07 10:26am

2618 Metcalf from the StreetAre you one of those people who needs a house with a little extra storage space? You might be interested in this modernish two-story home in Gloverdale, near Gulfgate, built in 1950. It’s listed at $225K, has five bedrooms and two full baths, sits on a very large lot, and comes with its very own storage warehouse next door:

COMBO SALE!!!! This house is being sold as a combo with also a 2250 sq.ft. warehouse. Warehouse is located next to house. Warehouse has extra parking along warehouse as well. Warehouse has kitchen,restroom,conference room and office with large roll up door to move large equipment or just for your own personal storage. MUST SEE!!!

Or just move into the warehouse and use the main house to store . . . your furniture.

After the jump, views of your storage bonus.

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05/16/07 10:48am

2078 Augusta Dr 6/49 Living Room

Home buyers want a masterpiece! So why should your home listing suffer from bad, poorly lit, unimaginative photographs? Why, with a little bit of camera-phone artistry, you can make your home look like a Van Gogh!

Here’s a great example. Yes, this beautiful, Galleria-area impressionist interior can be yours, for a mere $165,000:

2 Bedroom, 2 1/2 bath Townhome with living room, kitchen and half-bath downstairs and bedrooms up. Master bedroom has cathedral ceiling and there is a large round skylight in the staircase. Light and bright throughout. Great location . . .

No, we didn’t alter the photo above (okay, we did enlarge it). But we do recognize artistic genius. Great photos like this hide carpet stains, too!

How can you make your home look like it’s worth a lot of Monet? Learn from the masters! After the jump, more of ERA broker Al Rafat’s unadulterated images of this notable home.

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05/09/07 8:46am

Calais at Courtland Square Interior CourtyardLooking for apartments? Can’t decide between, say, the Calais in Midtown, the Meyer Park or Meyer Park Lakeside, the Beverly Wilshire, or the Seasons on Hollister Road?

Why not buy them all? How about if we throw in a couple of complexes in Richmond, four more near Dallas, one in New Braunfels and another in San Antonio? That’ll make it easy for you, right?

Oh, and if you’ve got around $400 mil in cash that’ll make it a whole lot easier.

04/23/07 10:02am

If you’re trying to sell your home without an agent, how do you get your listing onto MLS? Sure, there’s Craigslist and an assortment of FSBO online catalogs you can get on easily, but most Houston homebuyers do their searching exclusively in the difficult-to-navigate MLS listings at HAR.com. If you’re not with an agent, how do you get buyers to find you online?

As of today, a whopping five Houston homesellers have discovered a secret way to sneak into MLS—by using a new free service out of Florida called Iggys House. The five listings show up when you search the Iggys House site for Houston properties. More important, though, they also show up in HAR searches. Pay no attention to the weird Florida broker listing above the property. They’re in.

What’s in it for Iggy? In Texas, nothing yet—but just wait. In five other states, a sister company called BuySide Realty serves as an agent that passes onto the buyer 75 percent of the commissions it receives. Presumably, if a buyer buys a $400,000 house using BuySide, and the seller is paying a six-percent commission (with $12K to each agent), the buyer will end up with a new house and an extra $9,000. It appears to work for 1031 exchanges, too.

The free listings, then, are just a way of trolling for potential BuySide buyers. And it means that BuySide may be operating in Texas soon.

04/17/07 7:53am

The Bridges of Eldridge Apartment ComplexA good brand name is important when you’re looking for an apartment complex. So the new buyers of the Bridges of Eldridge off Westheimer have decided to rename it the Marquis at Eldridge Parkway. So much more elegant, don’t you think? Who wanted to live in a Bridge, anyway?

Austin’s CWS Apartment Homes already had a community-service matching-grant program called B.R.I.D.G.E. And it owns another complex about 12 miles away: the Marquis at Bellaire. There’s even a sister company called Marquis Residential Development. See how this all works? Judging from the history of the word, we say Houston should welcome its new border rulers.

Maybe the new name (and maybe new management) will do something to counteract some reviews of the 270-unit West Houston complex posted online. Here’s a favorite from late last year, colorfully entitled “Cardboard cutouts would work better in the managers office”:

Animal smell and feces smell in apartment upon move-in. Said they would replace, but never did. After one month, they finally dyed the carpet and gave a cleaning. Still smells like animal feces and they still refuse to correct issue. Just got a working key faub on month 5 of my 6 month lease. Told them I would resign lease if they would fix original issues and give me covered parking for 6 months- nogo. The don’t want good residents. All of the respectable residents are moving due to managements lack of interest.