- Houston Home Sales Slow Slightly in September While Home Prices Set Records, Finds HAR [HBJ]
- Houston Real Estate Market Uneven Amid Energy Slump [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Greater Houston Partnership Unveils New Downtown Digs [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Future Construction in League City To Feature More Brick and Stone Buildings [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Where Have the Repeat Home Buyers Gone? [The Urban Edge]
- Blink Fitness Expanding into Houston Next Year with 25 to 30 Locations in Downtown, Sugar Land, Baytown, Spring [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston School Board Agrees To Accept $7.5M Gift, Rename HSPVA’s New Downtown Campus After Kinder Family [Houston Chronicle]
- City Breaks Ground on Segment of 1.8-Mile Sims Bayou Greenway, Part of The Bayou Greenways 2020 Project [Houston Public Media]
- Tech Startup HomeMe Raises $3.2M To Expand Apartment App Across Texas [HBJ]
- Houston’s Secret Area Code Class Warfare [Houston Chronicle]
- Traffic Worsens as Kirby Street Work Halts in Upper Kirby District [abc13]
- How To Stage a Home To Sell, According to Frankel Building Group [Culturemap]
Photo of CityCentre Five: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
RE: Repeat Buyers – I think this is a sign of people realizing that we don’t necessarily need large McMansions to be happy. The tiny house trend hasn’t gone away (shows still dominate tv) and people realize that their small starter home is probably more energy efficient, easier to maintain, and cheaper to own than trading up to something larger.
Re: Street Work Halts
One HAS to wonder how inept the contractors are who work on Houston streets (or it it the city department who oversees the construction)? Take South Main St for instance …. a nice new layer of asphalt has been laid BUT the project remains unfinished in the turning lanes and crossovers in the Medical Center area and Hermann Park area plus one long stretch of a single lane along the park. Why?
I just hope the contractor hasn’t been paid in full yet …..
Upper Kirby should have had its ducks all in a row before it started this business killing street initiative. Total incompetence.
“Houston School Board Holds Nose While Cashing Check, Renames School”
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There, I fixed it for you.
Re: Repeat Homebuyers. 1) Mortgages are a lot more difficult to obtain than they had been previously. A lot of people that already have them probably wouldn’t qualify again, so they’re kind of locked-in. 2) Baby-boomers began hitting 60 in 2005 and the bust occurred just a few heady years later. Contrary to expectations that they’d flock to cities or popular retirement destinations, most are aging-in-place. 3) A lot of Boomers had plans to retire (and move) that were deferred; that has had the effect of crowding the labor markets in many skilled and professional occupations, having indirect consequences for younger workers that certainly exist, although which may be difficult to tease from data. 4) The fertility rate has been declining among all demographic segments for a long time, but especially among middle- and upper-class persons whom are the most likely to ‘trade up’ as their family circumstances change. The divorce rate has also stopped increasing and may have something to do with it. 5) Buying houses as investment property has fallen out of favor in most markets; it’s not that it doesn’t happen, but there’s not the same herd mentality about it that existed in the 2000’s. And that’s a good thing.
So is everyone going to have to get new extremely long bumperstickers??