COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE SMALL, STYLIN’ INNER-LOOP HOMES? “Gotta wonder how many of these homes will be standing a year from now. The danger in many in-loop neighborhoods is that one day you must face the fact that your home is a tear-down. I have a friend near Pershing Middle School in that situation. Plans on selling when the kids are grown, which is soon, but it makes every dollar for repairs and upkeep especially painful.” [finness, commenting on Small, Stylish, and Already Sold: Design-y Inner Loop Home Bargains You Missed]
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If you live in a neighborhood where the lot value eventually exceeds the value of your home, that typically means you will do very well on the resale so I wouldn’t feel too sorry for your friend :)
What makes me sad is all the lovely original architecture that will almost certainly be torn down. In other cities you could find affordable fixer-uppers in historic neighborhoods akin to our Inner Loop, ready and waiting for those who are willing to put in a little elbow grease to get a great well-built house with true character and uniqueness. But in Houston, anything even close to being considered a “fix-up” will never get the love and attention it deserves. It will simply be bull-dozed and replaced with a poorly built McMansion with no architectural integrity or character whatsoever, slowly eroding and erasing the neigborhood’s personality and authenticity.
It will simply be bull-dozed and replaced with a poorly built McMansion with no architectural integrity or character whatsoever, slowly eroding and erasing the neigborhood’s personality and authenticity.
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But the new “McMansion” conveys that the owner has “arrived” and of course the bigger the better. “I have, therefore I am.”
In most cases what it really conveys is pretentiousness and I’ve found through the years that most pretentious people have little to be pretentious about except for their checkbook.
People without personal integrity have no need for architecural integrity.
InnerLooper- I’d love to see any examples you can provide of lovery arcitechture being replaced by a poorly built McMansion. For every one you might find, I can show you a thousand where a tiny, usless, worn out, obsolete, shack was town down and replaced with one or more new, modern, luxurious, atractive homes.
Are they all perfect? Certainly not. But I think the transformation that has occurred in the Inner Loop over the past 25 years is nothing short of amazing. I only hope in can continue for another 25 years. Better homes inside the Loop. Better apartments inside the Loop. More people inside the Loop. More money inside the Loop. More shopping inside the Loop. More restaurants inside the Loop. More jobs inside the Loop. More density. More energy. More everything.
But in Houston, anything even close to being considered a “fix-up†will never get the love and attention it deserves. It will simply be bull-dozed and replaced with a poorly built McMansion with no architectural integrity or character whatsoever, slowly eroding and erasing the neigborhood’s personality and authenticity.
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This may be true in neighborhoods where property values have shot up way past the value of the homes in the area but there are still many neighborhoods where it’s worth your time and effort to fix up an older house.
Look at places like Oak Forest, Garden Oaks and Meyerland. Sure there is some new construction going on in these areas but the nicely kept up homes are still selling well and not for lot value. More often than not, it’s the homes that were not taken care of that are getting bulldozed in favor of new construction.
My house, a duplex, is worth fixing up, however, we are planning on moving. If someone would offer us enough money, we would be more than glad to sell to someone who wants to fix our home. But, it isn’t likely so we must sell to anyone that wants to build a McMansion. It’s a big corner lot.
More people inside the Loop. More money inside the Loop. More shopping inside the Loop. More restaurants inside the Loop. More jobs inside the Loop. More density. More energy. More everything.
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You forgot more money for the realtors selling the overpriced but pretty and pretentious homes and townhomes.
And of course more traffic. Which was the major reason why so many moved to Inner Loop to begin with. To escape the traffic.
Is “better” the same thing as “best”? Certainly, a livable house is better than a falling-down shack. But is it the best thing?
It seems to me that the question that underlies all of these debates is how one puts a value on the impact that a house has on those around it in terms of neighborhood character. No, that’s not something that is easy to put a dollar value on, but it is something that people pay money for; there are plenty of us who selected our homes based on these things, and often paid more per square foot because of them. (And even those who love suburban subdivisions recognize this: why do you think there are rules about what you can do with those houses, if what you do doesn’t impact those around you?)
Another way to put it: why is a small bungalow on a block of similar bungalows generally more valuable that the same house wedged between a bunch of large townhouses that may in fact be worth more than the bungalows they replaced?
It is possible for there to be a balance between old and new. (My old neighborhood in another city had old Victorians and some of the most interesting new, ultra-modern condo construction in the city. Both types of housing were in high demand. The new stuff went through a design review that made sure it didn’t wreck the character of the neighborhood; in fact it enhanced the neighborhood by providing new housing options that created a broader base of residents.)
But what was interesting was that just outside the neighborhood boundaries – where builders were free of restrictions – what you tended to get was ugly, cheaply built condo buildings that looked like they had been transported in from the Soviet Union circa 1969. Had there been no restrictions, the whole neighborhood would have ended up like that. And those of us who had old houses wouldn’t have seen our property values increase as much as they did.
It’s not an either/or. It does require actually thinking about what the core characteristics of a neighborhood are, and putting reasonable restrictions on what’s built.