COMMENT OF THE DAY: A REAL ESTATE CHILDHOOD 
“When I was a kid in the 80s, I used to write letters to builders requesting floor plans & brochures. Every holiday and birthday, my favorite gifts were house plan books. I would pick out my favorite houses and design communities on giant posterboards, with lots drawn out and all. I was a weird kid . . . who grew into a weird adult who works in GIS and tinkers with home design software in my spare time. One of my favorite games is Try-To-Figure-Out-The-Builder. . . .” [Bridgeland Dude, commenting on Fulshear Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Zamboni Finish] Illustration: Lulu
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE CITY’S HOT SPOTS AND COOL SPOTS 
“The Houston housing market is really crazy right now. There may be 2.5 months of inventory on the market when you look at the numbers as a whole, but the real issue is some pockets are in demand and some aren’t. I have a buyer who has been looking in one area for months, being outbid when something does come up and after a dozen+ offers is under contract in 24 hours or less. In contrast I have a house across the street from mine that’s been on the market for months. Location is the key and those overall statistics of months inventory don’t paint the whole picture. I am REALLY hoping the spring season sees a flood of people putting their homes on the market but I have a feeling it won’t be as many as needed.” [Tawnya, commenting on What To Do with the Gus Wortham Golf Course; Record Houston Home Inventory Lows] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: MAKING THE WHEELS SQUEAK 
“. . . It sounds like a total douche move, and I guess it is, but if the property really is blighted, you can use the City to coerce them to sell. Keep reporting the property to 311. Code violations are largely complaint based in Houston. so if people make a stink, the inspectors will be out there issuing red tags. Are there crimes occurring on the property? Report them to HPD and the Harris County DA. Graffiti? Report it. Get neighbors in on the complaints, too — the more the better. Keep at it. Eventually it’ll be such a pain in the ass for the owners to keep the property that they’ll be eager to sell.
Just be forewarned, it can be a long process. We were at it for over half a decade with a slum lord who owned most of a crimeridden, gang-infested, horrifically blighted condo complex. It wasn’t until someone found evidence of possible fraud on the condo HOA’s books — and he was looking at possible jail time — that he gave it up.
I know people will react angrily to what I’m saying here. It’s a really horrible thing to do — I admit that. But Texas Law doesn’t give us many other alternatives. And when it’s real blight — dragging down whole neighborhoods, costing the City tons of money and ruining our quality of life — most neighbors would argue that it’s worth it.” [ZAW, commenting on Comment of the Day: Prying Dilapidated Properties from Shy Owners] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: PRYING DILAPIDATED PROPERTIES FROM SHY OWNERS 
“I’ve spent some time in my career tracking down the sort of person that doesn’t like paying bills, receiving official notices or summonses, or anything at all like that. And yeah, it’s usually some individual or a tight family, often living out-of-state. A big corporation could never pull it off so easily.
Even if the City levies fines against the owner and eventually forecloses the property and sells it at a constables’ auction, the title is still marred because the previous owner might come back to challenge the sale over issues of notice. That doesn’t happen terribly often, but it does happen and it’s in the back of any would-be bidder’s mind at the auction. Of course, that means that the risk and the back taxes are already priced into a bid, that bids are often abysmally low, and that there’s not terribly much incentive for the City to throw good money after bad. It doesn’t mean that they won’t or shouldn’t. But I’ll bet that if they could recover more of what they put into it, that you’d see the City getting a lot more aggressive, right quick.” [TheNiche, commenting on A Tax Break for Replacing ‘Blight’; The Secret Bar Above Clutch City Squire] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: NEED MORE BARS HIGH IN THE SKY 
“It’s amazing to me how many people appreciate what Cody’s Skybar offered Houston, while it never seemed to inspire imitators. It’s remarkable how a little elevation can lend so much atmosphere to a place in a flat city like Houston. Even when the weather was hot & humid. It was a delight to hang out on the outdoor patio and enjoy the view. . . .” [Guido, commenting on How the Montrose ‘Skybar’ Building Demo Is Going Down] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GAPING HOLE IN THE GARDENING DEMOGRAPHIC 
“. . . before you try to do something different and figure out a way to provide space for small garden plots, you should look at the demographics of your renters first. I work in the ornamental horticulture industry, and trust me, this has been a subject of deep interest in my business the last 5 years. To summarize dozens of surveys, fruit and vegetable gardening appeals to people in 2 age groups, the first is the 20-30 demo, and the other is 60+. There is a great big hole in the younger boomers and the Gen X folks who are middle aged, who basically don’t garden at all. If your apartments primarily have tenants in the under 30 crowd, they would probably pay extra for that amenity.
One last point is that edible gardening picked up substantially in the 2008 recession, and has not slowed down at all. Most other categories of ornamental horticulture sales are flat or down.” [ShadyHeightster, commenting on Comment of the Day: Gardens or Parking Spots?] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: GARDENS OR PARKING SPOTS? 
“I wonder if the city would consider a change in the parking ordinance where you need x spots per unit (or SF of commercial space) or the equivalent in green space.
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but we’re about to build a new set of apartments and I wanted to have a big garden where all tenants get their own ‘spot.’ Nothing huge. Maybe 10 feet by 5 feet. We were going to do this by not putting in much parking. But I found out we need a TON more parking than I thought. We were told we had to pave paradise, and put in a parking lot (oooh, bop bop bop bop . . .).” [Cody, commenting on Midtown Community Garden Sold; Fruits and Vegetables Ordered Out, Immediately] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: INNER LOOP HOME PRICES CAN’T KEEP RISING LIKE THEY HAVE 
“. . . Our current population boom was due to an unexpected resurgence in the gulf of mexico oil market and hit our housing supply by complete surprise. However, the housing market will be going full steam for the next few years to catch up on supply and entire new subdivisions are going to be created that are well outside of the property value inflation we’re seeing in town. The vast majority of new residents are already buying well outside of the 610 Loop. Even the snottiest of inner loopers such as myself would eventually consider buying a mansion in the ‘burbs for the same price as a cluttered townhome in the Loop.
. . . Not to say we’re in a bubble right now, but beyond doubt there will be a lot of downward pressure on home prices in the Houston area moving forward unless we see employment start accelerating again. That definitely is not going to be likely no matter how well the gulf market holds up. So I think people claiming there is or isn’t a bubble are being a bit premature, we all have to wait and see. I believe the general expectation is that although values have shot up, there should be enough demand to hold the prices up moving forward. So yes, odds are probably against a bubble, but I would expect that this burst of demand has pulled property valuations forward quite a bit and that folks shouldn’t expect to see gains on home prices for the next 5 years or so as a glut of new apartments and homes come onto the market. There’s still plenty of land to be redeveloped and no shortage of opportunities for increased density in the inner Loop and that’s even before we start really gentrifying the 3rd and 5th wards. For me, i’ll hold off on Inner Loop property until the boomers start dwindling down.” [joel, commenting on Mirroring the Features of a Simple $310K Studewood St. Duplex] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON, THE CITY OF LITTLE DOWNTOWN SUBURBIAS 
“Why not have a ‘little suburbia’ in the area? I mean, let’s stop fighting it and sail [with] the wind.
Now I know I’m being a little tongue and cheek, but is there nothing more ‘Houston’ than to have a completely market driven transplant of the suburbs right next to downtown? We can even market it w/ such features as ‘the sidewalk to nowhere’ and the ‘stripmall, strip.’ Maybe even use it to advertise Houston to the rest of the country: “Close to work with suburban sprawl; yes, you CAN have it all!†Heck, we’ll just reboot the Virginia Slims campaign w/ big box stores and the skyline in the background!” [DNAguy, commenting on Texas City Buc-ee’s Opening Sooner Than Expected; The Rush To Destroy Rice’s Menil Legacy] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT SHOULD A NEW BUILDING IN A HISTORIC DISTRICT LOOK LIKE? 
“There’s good and bad in historic preservation. The best historic preservation differentiates between neighborhoods and buildings. At the neighborhood level, there are strict strict controls on lot subdivision, building heights, setbacks, tree preservation, and sidewalks – so that new construction fits in the urban fabric. In Paris, France, you can design a totally new and modern building on a boulevard, as long as it continues the street wall and meets the mansard roof setbacks of its neighbors. (At least, it’s how it was 20 years ago when I was studying architecture in Paris.)
For certain historic buildings, there are strict requirements for style and color and all of that. But it doesn’t extend through the whole historical neighborhood. Unfortunately, the differentiation seems lost here in the States. In other cities (New York in particular) they strictly control the details of any building that gets built in a historical district. It’s a real pain in the ass for the architects, and expensive for the owners.” [ZAW, commenting on Tiny Starkweather Becomes Houston’s Second Outside-the-Loop Historic District] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RENT VS. RE-BUY DECISION 
“I once rented a self storage unit. My wife (then girlfriend) and I were condensing from two apartments to one. After a year and a half of paying the rental fee, I did the math. For what I had paid on the storage unit, I could have bought, brand new, everything I was storing in it. So we ended up emptying the unit and tossing whatever we didn’t immediately have use for. Bottom line, the storage unit was some of the worst money I’ve spent in my entire life. I suspect that’s often the case.” [Walt, commenting on Old Prince’s Hamburger Sign Is Leaving North Shepherd for Points Even Further North] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO BUILD A NEIGHBORHOOD MOAT WITH DEED RESTRICTIONS 
“Instead of throwing lawsuits around, the people in River Oaks should start a Buy Protect Sell program. Buy pieces of land around their subdivision as they come up for sale. Protect those pieces of land by putting restrictive covenants on them (height regulations in particular, since their concern has been the proliferation of high rises in their area). Then sell the properties with the restrictions in place.
B/P/S has been used for about a decade by environmentalists elsewhere in the country. It could be used to preserve the low-rise character around a neighborhood. The drawback is that it can be costly for poorer neighborhoods, but River Oaks could well afford it.” [ZAW, commenting on Neighbors File Suit To Stop Hines San Felipe Tower; Silo Sightseeing] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO BUILD A SUBWAY IN HOUSTON 
“A subway WILL work in Houston, albeit at a significantly higher cost. I’m a civil engineer who builds tunnels, nationwide. They’re not even significantly more expensive in Houston than elsewhere. Tunnels in LA, NY, Chicago, Montreal, London etc all have to deal with bedrock — which is very expensive to tunnel through. Instead, Houston uses open-cut excavation and massive soil amendments + ground water pumping to tunnel. For example — the depressed portions of US-59 from Shepherd to Montrose (or the depressed portion of Beltway 8 from Boheme to I-10) are essentially a tunnel with no roof because they’re lower than the bayou and the ground water table; it took expensive soil amendments and pumps to build that, the same as a subway. Our commuter rail tunnel projects in LA are bidding for between $18M-$20M per mile of track, while the at-grade portions are only about $4M per mile. We consistently find that tunnels cost about 4x-5x as much as at-grade track. Meanwhile, elevated track costs roughly $25M a mile (6x at-grade costs). . . .” [Ornlu, commenting on Comment of the Day: How About a Rail Line Along the Bayou?] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW ABOUT A RAIL LINE ALONG THE BAYOU? 
“I always thought a line down Memorial Drive along Buffalo Bayou would be awesome. It seems like it would be pretty easy to adapt the stretch of Memorial from downtown to Shepherd in to a rail friendly street — there are pedestrian crosswalks already, abundant lanes, and no stop-light intersections to contend with. They could take a lane or 2 from Memorial Drive, make a new right of way down the park, or even make an elevated line (which all of them should have been). The stops could tie in with cross streets or some the existing pedestrian bridges. This could be a real ‘showcase’ line for the city being right next to what seems to becoming Houston’s prime inner city park location. The line could continue all the way into Memorial Park and maybe even somehow get to the Galleria.
And of course Swamplot is the best forum for me to lobby my vision.” [actualarch, commenting on What’s the Point of Metro’s New Buffalo Bayou Bridge Under I-45?] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHO IS KILLING THE GREAT GLAZED PASTRY SHOPS OF HOUSTON? 
“First someone runs into a Shipley’s; now a Mary Lee’s gets torched. What do people have against donuts?” [Sihaya, commenting on Here Comes the Grand Parkway Sprawl; Mary Lee Donuts Burn] Illustration: Lulu
