Homebuilders

Buying and Selling
08/04/08 12:14pm

Southgate Demo: Save the Tree!

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Demolitions, Development Regulations, Homebuilders, New Construction: Residential, Southgate, Trees
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2202 Addison Rd., Southgate, Houston

Calling it “perhaps the most elegant and beloved in the entire neighborhood,” some saddened neighbors send in a deathbed photo shoot featuring the former Southgate home of retired Rice University architecture professor Elinor Evans. Evans sold the home at 2202 Addison in January.

Lovett Homes plans to build a new house on the property. (HCAD lists the new owner as “5177 Builders Ltd.”) In June, the Planning Commission granted a variance allowing the new garage to maintain the existing 10-ft. setback along Montclair Dr. — in order to preserve a large live oak tree in the back yard. In applying for the variance, Lovett promised to maintain the existing home’s footprint.

After the jump: highlights from the photo shoot, plus a link to the riveting, tree-saving Planning Commission hearing video!

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Homebuilders
07/31/08 2:30pm

Obra Homes: Gone Missing

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Master-Planned Communities, Openings and Closings, Rosenberg
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5010 Cottage Creek Ln., the Trails at Seabourne Park, Rosenberg, Texas

A few months after abruptly shutting down operations in the Rio Grande Valley, McAllen-based homebuilder Obra Homes appears to have quietly abandoned its Houston-area business as well, leaving one Rosenberg subdivision littered with empty slabs.

So where the heck is Obra Homes anyway? A model home here at this subdivision is empty and closed, and the company’s attorney tells us no more Obra homes will be built here at the Trails at Seabourne Park subdivision. . . .

The company’s huge showroom on 290 looks like a ghost town. And according to a sign on the window, Obra Homes was locked out for failing to pay rent.

This office building on 290 says “Obra Homes” in big letters. but go inside and there’s no mention of the company.

The homebuilder’s attorney tells Fox 26 reporter Randy Wallace that there is no Obra Homes office. But there is a phone number!

Photo of 5010 Cottage Creek Ln., The Trails at Seabourne Park, Rosenberg: HAR

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Alternative Energy
07/18/08 3:34pm

And Just Imagine How Well They’d Do If There Were Jobs or Shopping Nearby!

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Development Strategy, Discovery at Spring Trails, Green Design and Development, Homebuilders, Homebuying, Land Development, Master-Planned Communities, Montgomery County, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, Sprawl, Utilities
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AND JUST IMAGINE HOW WELL THEY’D DO IF THERE WERE JOBS OR SHOPPING NEARBY! Discovery at Spring Trails, Land Tejas’s gated and solar-panel-badged community north of Spring, is selling well, says Lisa Gray: “. . . only a few weeks after Discovery put itself on the market, and without even a finished house that would-be buyers can tour, most of the lots ready for building have been optioned, and the developer is scrambling to make more available fast. In fact, Discovery is off to the fastest start of any development in the company’s 11-year history, and Land Tejas expects demand to pick up even more this fall. Already, propelled mostly by Google searches, 200 to 300 people a week are touring the neighborhood’s ‘Discovery Center.'” [Houston Chronicle]

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Homebuilders
07/10/08 10:36am

Just Another Houston Homebuilder

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Institutional Buildings, Quicklink, Temporary Housing
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JUST ANOTHER HOUSTON HOMEBUILDER “But there are plenty of challenges to overcome first. To camp on the moon, astronauts need to be shielded from solar radiation. In a waterless environment every drop of H2O, including sweat and urine, must be recycled and purified. NASA engineers are sorting through dozens of possible models for the lunar outpost—from horizontal, aluminum cylinders to inflatable structures that are essentially giant, Kevlar-reinforced balloons.” [Smithsonian]

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Homebuilders
05/02/08 2:15pm

Tattooed in Willowbrook: Pulte Makes a Lasting Impression

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Homes for Sale, New Construction: Residential, Real Estate Marketing, Willowbrook
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Tattoo Ad for Pulte Homes in Willowbrook in Houston Press

Media-specific marketing helps bring everybody together! Just wait until the buyers of new Pulte homes in Willowbrook lured by this uh, interesting ad in this week’s Houston Press move in next door to folks attracted to the neighborhood by some very different marketing.

Tattoo fans: Watch the video below and meet your new neighbors!

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Buying and Selling
02/13/08 10:11am

Tricon Garage Bungalows: Not Budging

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Home Design, Homebuilders, Homes for Sale, Houston Heights, New Construction: Residential
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2016 and 2020 Singleton St., Houston Heights

Why aren’t these $399,900 Heights bungalows-on-sticks selling? Tricon Homes has been trying to get rid of them since November . . . of 2006!

In the first part of 2007, Tricon dropped the asking prices for 2016 and 2020 Singleton twice from the original $449,900. But since June there’s been no movement.

They look like they’ve got everything: Cute front porches, plus garages with 13-ft. ceilings! Just completed! So what’s the problem?

Below the fold: How to slide a $400K house onto a 2900-sq.-ft. Heights lot!

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Bear Creek Meadows
01/15/08 9:55pm

Bear Creek Meadows Fourclosure Sale!

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Buying and Selling, Foreclosures, Home Design, Homebuilders, Homebuying, Homes for Sale, Katy
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Four Homes by Legend Homes for Sale in Bear Creek Meadows

The wave of foreclosures sweeping over neighborhoods at the outer edges of town has . . . an upside!

Remember back when these neighborhoods were new — like, four years ago? Well, for buyers it’s just like those good old days all over again . . . only cheaper! That’s right: if you’ve settled on one builder model, you can be pretty picky about which upgrades and finishing touches you really want — even though the builder has moved on.

If you’re shopping for a home in Bear Creek Meadows in Katy, for example, you’ll find the four distinct residences pictured above listed on MLS. That’s right, those are four different houses. But they’re all the same model — The Cairns, Plan 509, by Legend Homes — and they’re all resales!

Which one is right for you? Clockwise from top left, the contenders are: 19411 Billineys Park Dr., 19606 Ballina Meadows Dr., 19906 Brisbane Meadows Dr., and 19510 Buckland Park Dr.

After the jump, a look at the differences between these four newish but back-on-the-market homes!

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Brookesmith
01/10/08 2:42pm

The Brookesmith Shipping-Container House

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Construction Materials, Green Design and Development, Home Design, Homebuilders, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Transportation
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House Made of Shipping Containers at 206 Cordell St., Houston, Under Construction

That house built out of shipping containers on Cordell St. in Brookesmith looks like it’ll be ready for delivery soon. Yes, this was a spec house — and yes, there already is a buyer.

Last year, Numen Development owners Katie Nichols and John Walker used shipping containers to construct the Apama Mackey Gallery on 11th St. in the Heights — because the gallery owner wanted a structure she can move when the property owner kicks her off the land. But the house Numen is building on Cordell looks like it’s going to be around for a while. It comes with its own, uh . . . doublewide lot, and it’s right across the street from a meat-processing plant.

After the jump: drawings, models, and an earlier construction photo of this neat little three-bedroom, three-bath, 1,851-square-foot package!

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Buying and Selling
11/14/07 4:04pm

From Mod Pad to Mold Pit in Four Years: The Sorry Saga of the Carousel House

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Demolitions, Fraud, Historic Preservation, Home Design, Homebuilders, Meyerland, Mold, New Construction: Residential, Toxic Sites
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9602 Moonlight Dr., Meyerland, Houston

One detail glossed over delicately in Lisa Gray’s colorful tale of the decline of Meyerland’s Carousel House, featured in today’s Chronicle: The abandoned home’s apparent awful stench. From a few would-be visitors, posting on HAIF:

The owner told me that everyone he’s taken in there has gotten sick soon after coming out. Apparently it is REALLY nasty in there. I may swing by and get some new filters for my mask.

and

i could smell “the smell” just standing in the driveway

But hey, the interior shots from just a few short years ago make the house look super fab! Built in 1964 by owner Robert Cohen, the Modern gem merited a Texas magazine feature story in 2003. Just four years, one ultra-rich attorney, one shady personal assistant, countless hookers, umpteen heroin hazes, and a couple of dozen missing exotic cars later, the house on the corner of Moonlight Dr. and Braesheather appears headed for an almost-certain but certainly difficult demolition. (15,000 pounds of steel, anyone?)

After the jump, highlights of the home from its heyday, excerpts from the sordid and fetid tale of its fall from Modern grace, and a photo of the far more up-to-date carousel that just might be built in its place!

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Condos
11/09/07 1:27pm

Forty-Two New Condos in the Old First Ward

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Development Strategy, First Ward, Homebuilders, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Parking, Proposed Developments
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Site Plan for Sawyer Brownstones by Terramark Homes at 2110 Shearn St., Houston

How do you pack so many condos into an old warehouse building in Houston’s First Ward? Easy! You knock the warehouse down, build a gate around the block, and pack ’em in!

Permit in hand, Terramark Homes begins construction on the Sawyer Brownstones at 2110 Shearn St. The forty-two units will take up the block surrounded by Shearn, Hemphill, Spring, and Henderson Streets, just south of I-10.

No images of the outside yet, so it’s hard to say if these brownstones will indeed have brown stone or just be brownstone-like. But continue after the jump and we’ll show you the secret to shoehorning so many townhome-style condos into a single block!

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Financing
07/23/07 7:38pm

The Dirty Little Secret Behind the Montrose Foreclosure Hump

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Fraud, Highrises, Homebuilders, Montrose, Mortgages
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Tremont Tower in Montrose

Twenty-five Montrose homes were foreclosed on this month, reports the Houston Business Journal. That’s a huge increase from last July.

[Mike] Weaster, a Realtor with Century 21 Excel Realty, currently has about 45 foreclosed homes in the Montrose area listed for sale.

“There’s been a big time increase — I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says. “It’s something that is so unique to Houston that I can’t even tell my buyers what’s happening.”

What could be the problem? In Houston overall, there was no increase in mortgage foreclosures: 2,090 last July; 2,085 this month. So what is it with Montrose?

Well, here’s a clue:

Many of the foreclosed homes in Montrose have never even been occupied by the homeowner and were instead purchased by investors who apparently weren’t able to sell them, according to Weaster, who says he comes across first-payment defaults in Montrose at least once a week.

Weaster believes speculation investors and bad loans have taken a toll on the trendy neighborhood.

Still stumped? What if you learned that twelve of this month’s foreclosures alone were at the same address? And what if you discovered that the building at that address was the Tremont Tower?

Yeah, that Tremont Tower, at Yupon and Westheimer. The one featured in an article called “Contractors from Hell” in People magazine in 2005. And in the Houston Press. The one the Lemon Lady used to picket.

Does that help explain?

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Homebuilders
06/13/07 11:28am

The Lemon Lady Goes to Washington

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Mold, Montrose
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Lemon Lady Jordan Fogal Protesting Outside Tremont Tower, January 2005

The “Lemon Lady,” Houston grandmother Jordan Fogal, testifies colorfully against Texas homebuilder mandatory binding arbitration provisions to a congressional subcommittee this morning in Washington:

The first night in our new home, my husband decided to try out his new Jacuzzi tub on the third floor. When he pulled the plug, one hundred gallons of water crashed through our dining room ceiling. . . .

Well, this was not one overlooked plumbing connection, as my husband so desperately wanted to believe. It was a preview of coming attractions. Rainwater, from outside, sprayed us at the kitchen table. – The windows were installed upside down (our builder finally admitted this after three years). Our floors buckled and black spider-webs of mold crawled up our walls; the smell grew worse; then shower wall fell out and little puffballs grew out of the carpet. All the while, we had begged our builder to please fix our house.

We had the mold tested by an accredited laboratory, and they said they had never seen toxic readings that high in an inhabited dwelling.

The story of Fogal’s Hyde Park Crescent home was detailed in Mother Jones magazine two years ago; she also plays a part in this Houston Press report about the lucky owner of another Tremont Homes/Jorge Casimiro opus.

  • Written Testimony Submitted by Jordan Fogal To The Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law: “Mandatory Binding Arbitration Agreements: Are They Fair For Consumers?” [U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, via Bay Area Houston]
  • Home Sour Home [Mother Jones]
  • Ownership Wrongs [Houston Press]

Photo: Brewster McCloud, Houston Independent Media Center

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