Notices

If you’ve been keeping track, you’ll have counted 7 categories announced so far in the 2013 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. And they are: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, the Best Houston Transplant, the Ground-Floor Retail Award, Houston’s Least Recognizable Neighborhood, Houston’s Most Recognizable Neighborhood and Neighborhood of the Year.

We promised you 8. So here’s the final, and probably broadest, category: What was the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of 2013?

For this same award in 2012, Swamplot readers selected voter approval of funding for the Bayou Greenways Initiative. But we want to know what this year’s big moment was. That’s pretty much the whole point of Swamplot — to find the moments that define, change, and make Houston, day in and day out.

To help find that one big moment from this year, we need your help. Add your comments to this post or send us an email describing the moments you’d like to nominate. And don’t forget to tell us why. If you need to jog your memory, browse through the site. And if you have any questions about how to make a nomination, you’ll likely find the answers here.

Now nominate away! Just make sure you get your entries in by midnight on December 11, when the window for all nominations closes for good.

• Nominations Are Now Open for the 2013 Neighborhood of the Year, Calling for Nominations for Houston’s Most Recognizable Neighborhood, Now Seeking Nominations for Houston’s Least Recognizable Neighborhood, Another New Category in This Year’s Swampies: The Ground-Floor Retail Award, Introducing the Award for Best Houston Transplant, Second Category in the Swampies: Best Demolition of 2013, First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
• The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2013: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2013 [Swamplot]

We’re almost done introducing the 8 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 Houston Transplant, the Ground-Floor Retail Award, Houston’s Least Recognizable Neighborhood and Houston’s Most Recognizable Neighborhood. If you haven’t done so already, please add your own suggestions for each of these.

The next-to-last category is Neighborhood of the Year. What exactly makes a neighborhood a neighborhood of the year? That’s what we’d like to know: As you make your nomination, explain what makes your selection uniquely worthy of this distinction.

As with all “neighborhood” categories, entrants 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. (Back in 2009, the winner of this award was . . . yes, Galveston.)

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 December 11. If you’re just joining us, please consult the official rules. So tell us, who are this year’s contenders for Neighborhood of the Year?

• Calling for Nominations for Houston’s Most Recognizable Neighborhood [Swamplot]
• Now Seeking Nominations for Houston’s Least Recognizable Neighborhood [Swamplot]
• Another New Category in This Year’s Swampies: The Ground-Floor Retail Award [Swamplot]
• Introducing the Award for Best Houston Transplant [Swamplot]
• Second Category in the Swampies: Best Demolition of 2013 [Swamplot]
• First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
• The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2013: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2013 [Swamplot]

So far, 4 categories have been opened up for your nominations in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, Best Houston Transplant, and the Ground-Floor Retail Award. Today, we get to welcome 2 more categories. First up: the Houston area’s Least Recognizable Neighborhood.

“Y’know that neighborhood . . . ? Well, you wouldn’t even recognize it today.” What happens to a neighborhood that renders it unrecognizable — or, more precisely, less recognizable than it used to be? Now tell us where in the greater Houston area you’ve seen something like that take place — and what you’ve seen, specifically. Or what you’ve missed.

Or maybe you’ve got a different take on what recognizability represents? If so, give us an example, and tell us what corner of Houston should take home this award. 

Submit your nominations for the region’s Least Recognizable Neighborhood in the comments section below — or hit us up via email. Your clever interpretation of the criteria for this category will help turn it from a mundane list of places that have seen some changes to an engaging chronicle of the city’s local quirks. Again, nominees need not be located strictly inside Houston’s municipal boundaries: We’ll give you The Woodlands and beyond all the way down to Galveston.

You have until midnight next Tuesday, December 10 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 in This Year’s Swampies: The Ground-Floor Retail Award [Swamplot]
• Introducing the Award for Best Houston Transplant [Swamplot]
• Second Category in the Swampies: Best Demolition of 2013 [Swamplot]
• First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
• The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2013: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2013 [Swamplot]

Earlier today we introduced the first category in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate, celebrating the Houston area’s finest design clichés. Now, nominations are open for the second category: Best Demolition.

Demolitions are such a regular occurrence in Houston that they warrant their own daily report on Swamplot. But we’re looking for that special teardown that stands out from all the rest. Last year, it was the Park Memorial Condominiums. What property would you honor this time around, and why?

Send us your thoughtful 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, refer to these instructions.

Nominations for both award categories announced today will remain open until midnight this Sunday, December 8. We’ll introduce more categories tomorrow, so why not submit your nominations for the first 2 categories today?

• First Category: Seeking Your Nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché [Swamplot]
• Houston Real Estate 2013: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2013 [Swamplot]

And yet again? The 2013 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate begin with a category that’s made an appearance every year since the awards first started back in 2008: Favorite Houston Design Cliché.

Aren’t we tired of it? And yet: Each year this particular award has seen a different winner. Last year it was those Humping Bungalows (runner up: the ubiquitous Sago Palm). In previous years we’ve had “Lick ’n’ stick” fake-rock siding, Lone Stars, “Lakes of” subdivisions, and “Tuscanization” grab the award. Whose turn will it be this year?

That’s up to you. What Houston building, shopping center, streetscape, home, interior, neighborhood, or yard cliché deserves recognition in 2013? 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 only or — more privately — in an email to the Swamplot tip line, with the subject line “Nomination: Favorite Houston Design Cliche.” Nominations will be accepted for one full week, until midnight this Sunday, December 8, after which the best-presented choices will be put on the official ballot and opened for voting. If you need some guidance, here’s more information on how to make a nomination.

You can submit as many nominations as you like in this category, but your choices will have a better chance of succeeding if you use the opportunity to make your point in a clever and convincing way. When the actual awards are open for voting, each selected nomination will be introduced with some edited bastardization of the arguments made by the readers who submitted them. So be eloquent and persuasive! If you can send your own photos in support of a nomination, that will help a lot — and help you make your case to voters. Send images to the Swamplot tip line, but be sure to identify them and indicate what they’re for.

Comments to this post will be counted as nominations only. Nominations may be seconded, expanded, or improved. Even simple “me too” posts could help an entry find a place on the actual ballot, but they won’t be counted as votes for the winner. The actual voting in this category will begin next week. Are you ready? Send us your favorite clichés!

• The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2013: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
• Swamplot Award Nominations 2013 [Swamplot]