- Houston Home Sales Fell 2.2% as Inventory Increased to 3.6 Months Last Month, Finds HAR [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston-Area Home Market Shows Resiliency Amid Oil Downturn [Houston Chronicle]
- Tunnels to Close as Houston Chronicle Building Becomes Parking Lot [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- New Hope Housing To Break Ground on First Mixed-Use Development This Week [HBJ]
- Sneak Peek Inside Martin Fein’s Olympia at Willowick Park Luxury Apartments [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Downtown Galveston Frost Bank Office Building Eyed for Apartments [Galveston County Daily News]
- City Approves $5M in Loans for Acquisition of Abandoned Crestmont West Apartment Complex [Houston Public Media]
- Booker T. Washington HS Breaks Ground on New $51.7M Campus [The Leader; previously on Swamplot]
- Astro Craig Biggio To Open 2-Story Sports Bar Biggio’s Inside the Marriot Marquis This November [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- More Details on Tout Suite’s Planned Second Houston Location Inside the Memorial City Mall [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Residents of TIRZ 17 Call for Self-Selected Representation on TIRZ Board Amid Flooding Concerns [Houston Press]
- Houston Homebuilder Casa Villarreal Builders Files for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy [HBJ]
- A Computer-Generated Video Ride of the World’s Tallest Watercoaster Coming to Schlitterbahn Galveston [Houston Press]
Photo of former Houston Chronicle building: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Wow, I don’t blame the TIRZ 17 lawsuit. The city (and county) have turned a blind eye to paving West Houston with development (and concrete). It’s a concern for us along Braes Bayou… but Spring Branch is literally becoming the new retention pond for the west.
Uff da. 3.6. Was expecting it to keep climbing, but that’s by a bit more than i expected.
Wow, I don’t even need to fix apartments up to make money. I can buy a pile of crap, thumb my nose at the neighbors, and make the city spend money on legal and administrative costs and still get the tax payer to reward me. Spending other people’s money kicks ass!
That Booker T W ground breaking photo…………
A Homeless shelter / mixed use building…. What was that russian ground floor retail that Swamplot was all about 2 to 3 years ago? It will be interesting to see what businesses sign up for this space to lease.
Casa Villareal builder filed for bankruptcy over $50k? If you’re gonna file bankruptcy make sure it’s many millions of dollars, make it count, drop the mike and walk out like a boss.
Council Member Brenda Stardig and Mayor Turner both get money from the owner of memorial city mall. Surprising (was it, though?) that they were willing to ignore the ordinance and ram through their choice approved by memorial city mall. This is a culture of secrecy and lawlessness in city hall.
Re: Crestmont. Un-F’ING-believable. I actually tried several times to buy that place to fix it up. Put in several offers.
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I guess I can’t complete against the city and their ability to spend taxpayers money.
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Wow… Just wow…
Good news in the March data with rising inventory, but it’s definitely taking longer than I had expected for the full slack to appear in housing. You can see the ‘for rent’ signs stacking up in the inner loop right now though and I don’t think there’s been this much available for rent at one time since 2010. Will have to wait it out longer than had hoped to get back to sustainable pricing but at least we’re back to being able to safely rent in town and hopefully come fall a lot of these rentals will start being pushed to the resale market and raise those inventory levels a lot more.
@Cody: when did you try to buy it? Timing is everything on that property. The owners – Abraham and Denise Vaknin out of Englewood Cliffs NJ are classic slum lords who’ve driven properties into the ground in not just Houston but Miami and Indianapolis as well. (I’d love to see that New York City landlord hall of shame list to see if they’re on that, too – but I digress).
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They’re the kind of people that won’t sell property until the shit’s about to hit the fan: either they’re being sued for a lot of money over it, or it’s been condemned and therefore isn’t making money, or they’re threatened with possible jail time themselves.