Notices

If you’ve been keeping track, you’ll have counted 6 categories announced so far in the 2014 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, Best Body of Water, Best Mobile Food Vendor Location, Best Sign of the New Houston, and 2014 Neighborhood of the Year.

Here’s the seventh and final category: the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of 2014. Covering great moments in real estate is the whole point of Swamplot. So tell us: What big real estate happening from the past year stands out above all others? Was it something Swamplot covered? Or something we missed? Your answer need not have taken place within city limits, but it should include sufficient Houston-ish qualities to be deserving of the award.

For this award to work, we need your help. Add your comments to this post or send us an email describing the moments you’d like to nominate and — more important — explaining why. If you need to jog your memory,  browse through our posts from the last year. And if you have any questions about how to make a nomination, you’ll likely find the answers here. Nominations are due by midnight on December 16, so don’t delay!

• Nominations Are Now Open for Swamplot’s 2014 Neighborhood of the Year Award, What’s the Best Sign of the New Houston? We’re Looking for Your Nominations, Another New Category for This Year’s Swampies: Best Mobile Food Vendor Location, Introducing the Award for Best Body of Water, The Second Category in the Swampies Is Now Open for Your Nominations: Best Demolition of 2014, First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
• The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2014: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2014 [Swamplot]

We’re almost done introducing 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, Best Body of Water, Best Mobile Food Vendor Location, and Best Sign of the New Houston. If you haven’t done so already, please add your own suggestions for each of these.

Every year, this next category gets pretty competitive: Neighborhood of the Year. Past winners have come from all over the greater Houston area, from Eastwood to Meadowcreek Village to — way back in 2009 — Galveston. (Oak Forest was last year’s runner-up.)

What qualifies any one of these neighborhoods to be declared neighborhood of the year? That’s for you to decide. When you make a nomination, be sure to say why your pick is especially award-worthy. You can submit your nominations — along with convincing explanations as to why your nominee should win — in the comments below, or in an email, by midnight on Monday, December 15. (If you’re just joining us, please consult the official rules for nominations.) Now tell us, who are this year’s contenders for Neighborhood of the Year?

• What’s the Best Sign of the New Houston? We’re Looking for Your Nominations [Swamplot]
• Another New Category for This Year’s Swampies: Best Mobile Food Vendor Location [Swamplot]
• Introducing the Award for Best Body of Water [Swamplot]
• The Second Category in the Swampies Is Now Open for Your Nominations: Best Demolition of 2014 [Swamplot]
• First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
• The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2014: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2014 [Swamplot]

So far, 4 categories have been opened up for reader nominations in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, Best Body of Water, and Best Mobile Food Vendor Location. Today, we get to welcome another new category: Best Sign of the New Houston.

What do you see as the most defining characteristics of where Houston is heading? And then: What’s the clearest sign of that direction? With this award, we’re hoping readers come up with a single specific event, development, place, or plain ol’ thing in the city that best encapsulates the new circumstances we find ourselves in here in this low-lying, smooth-talking metropolis. Help us pick the best sign of the Bayou City’s new era.

Submit your nominations for the best sign of the new Houston in the comments section below — or hit us up via email. For this category to work, we’re relying on our readers’ ability to come up with clever interpretations of this category. Have at it!

You have until midnight this Sunday, December 14 to send in your nominations. You should know the drill by now, but feel free to look over all the rules for the nominating process here.

• Another New Category for This Year’s Swampies: Best Mobile Food Vendor Location [Swamplot]
• Introducing the Award for Best Body of Water [Swamplot]
• The Second Category in the Swampies Is Now Open for Your Nominations: Best Demolition of 2014 [Swamplot]
• First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
• The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2014: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2014 [Swamplot]

Earlier today we introduced a new category for this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. There are a total of 3 so far: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition and the newbie: Best Body of Water. And now there’s another new category to chew on: Best Mobile Food Vendor Location.

Food trucks have a place in the city’s landscape, but the spot each one inhabits is ever-changing. (Well, some more than others.) Where’s the best spot in the city to grab some grub-on-the-go? Feel free to nominate your favorite parking lot, roadside stop, or other destination, be it tweeted or untweeted, enshrined or merely rolled over. If you’re trying to sneak in a nomination for your favorite mobile food vendor, you’ll need to be clever about it: This award is meant to honor the locations, not the meal-delivery vehicles themselves.

To get your pick on the official ballot, submit your suggestion — along with a smart explanation for why it’s a good choice — in the comments section below. Or email your nomination to us. Just make sure to do so no later than midnight this Thursday, December 11. More thorough instructions can be found here.

• Introducing the Award for Best Body of Water [Swamplot]
• The Second Category in the Swampies Is Now Open for Your Nominations: Best Demolition of 2014 [Swamplot]
• First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
• The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2014: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2014 [Swamplot]

Last week we opened for your nominations the first 2 categories in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate, both of which have been included in some form every year we’ve run the Swampies: Favorite Houston Design Cliché and Best Demolition. Today, we introduce a brand-new category for specially chosen for 2014: Best Body of Water.

Natural or manmade, streaming or stagnant: the Houston area retains its fair share of water. But which lake, river, bayou, channel, aquifer, fountain, pool, retaining pond, tank, cistern, water treatment facility, or other such repository of liquids is worthy of the highest bestowable honor by Swamplot readers? As with all the categories, this award is open to your interpretation, so get creative!

Put your choice in the comments section below — or in an email before midnight on Thursday, December 11. More complete instructions covering the nominating process can be found on this page. Don’t forget to tell us why you’re nominating what you’re nominating. (Otherwise, what’s the point?) And if you use your nomination to give this category a twist, use your introduction to sell your vision.

• The Second Category in the Swampies Is Now Open for Your Nominations: Best Demolition of 2014 [Swamplot]
• First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
• The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2014: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2014 [Swamplot]

Earlier today we got this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate off and running with the first category, celebrating the Houston area’s best design clichés. Now nominations are open for the second category: Best Demolition.

This is a knockout of a category — especially in Houston, where demolitions are hip enough to command their own daily report on Swamplot. Here, though, we’re looking for that special, award-worthy demo that’s really special. Last year’s winner was a big one: the downtown Foley’s. What property should be honored this time around, and why?

Send us your clever and well-argued nominations to the comments section below — or send them in a private message to our tips line. For more on the nomination process, head here.

Nominations for both award categories announced today will remain open until midnight this Wednesday, December 10. We’ll be introducing more fun award categories next week. So submit your nominations for the first 2 categories now!

• First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
• Houston Real Estate 2014: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2014 [Swamplot]

Again this year, the 2014 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate kick off with a category that’s been going strong ever since the awards first started back in 2008: Favorite Houston Design Cliché.

This one never gets old. And year after year, this award inspires some truly great nominations — and, of course, winners.

Last year’s winner was The Typical Inner Loop Townhouse Plan (a close runner up: Polystone-al architecture). In previous years, we’ve had the memorable Humping Bungalows, aka Humper Houses, “Lick ’n’ stick” fake-rock siding, Lone Stars, “Lakes of” subdivisions, and “Tuscanization” take the top honor. Whose turn will it be this year?

Well, that’s up to you. What Houston building, shopping center, streetscape, home, interior, neighborhood, or yard cliché deserves recognition in 2014? Your suggestions for this award may be inspired from stories you’ve read on Swamplot or from your own keen eye for overused detail.

Enter your choice in a comment to this post — or in an email to the Swamplot tip line, with the subject line “Nomination: Favorite Houston Design Cliche.” Nominations will be accepted until midnight next Wednesday, December 10, after which the best-presented choices will be put on the official ballot and opened for voting.

You can submit as many nominations as you like, but remember, your suggestions have a better chance of making it to the ballot if you make your point in a clever and convincing way. Photos help, too! Send images to the Swamplot tip line, but be sure to identify them and indicate what they’re for. If you need some guidance, here’s more information on how to make a nomination. And if you like a particular nomination someone else has submitted, feel free to second, expand, or improve upon it in the comments to help it find a place on the actual ballot.

Get it? Good. Send us your favorite clichés now!

• The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2014: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2014 [Swamplot]