The Swamplot Price Adjuster needs your nominations! Found a property you think is poorly priced? Send an email to Swamplot, and be sure to include a link to the listing or photos. Tell us about the property, and explain why you think it deserves a price adjustment. Then tell us what you think a better price would be. Unless requested otherwise, all submissions to the Swamplot Price Adjuster will be kept anonymous.
Location: 3105 Blue Bonnet Blvd., Southern Oaks
Details: 3 bedrooms, 4 baths; 4,109 sq. ft. on a 16,992-sq.-ft. lot
Price: $3,400,000
History: On the market since last Thanksgiving. Price reduced $100K mid-June.
Our nominator, struggling with the price tag:
Typical newer construction home in Southern Oaks. The chandelier in the foyer is way too ostentatious for my taste…but to each their own. The rest of the house shows like any other new construction mcmansion in Southern Oaks and Braes Heights that list between $1,000,000 – $1,300,000. Also, it’s sits four houses off of Buffalo Speedway in one direction and two houses down from a huge apartment complex in the other direction. The only advantage I see this house has is that it’s on a 16,000 sf lot, whereas most of the others average 9,000 sf. The house is only 4,100 sf, making it smaller than most of the new construction in the area. So, the question is, why the $3.4 million price tag?
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Our nominator continues:
I’ve seen this listing for forever and for the life of me I can’t figure out how they came up with a price over $3 million. Tax records value it at a little over $1 million. Based on other listings of properties in Southern Oaks, I’d price it at $1.5 max, given the large lot.
What do you say?
What the hell is “A River Oaks style Tuscan beauty”?
Can you just add a couple million to the sales price of a house by adding the words “River Oaks” to the description? The listing agent is a marketing genius.
I like it. The curb-appeal is like channeling Old Hollywood, advent of ‘The Talkies’ sort of time-period!
But inside: awful trimwork, gag me with your site-stained maple veneers… (weird there’s hickory in the master bath)
However, perhaps the LOT warrants the inflated price – both its size and backyard amenities?
That has got to be the cheesiest staging job in history. Those chairs, all of them, look like they came out of the leasing office of some complex near Holly Hall or OST
The ostentatious chandelier is to give you the impression that at the very least you’re in West U which might justify the price for this house but it should be pointed out that it is at least on the border of what went “under water” during Allison and at best is on the border of the flood plain.
Southern Oaks, Emerald Forest, Ayrshire, Braeswood Place. It used to be called Braes Heights. I grew up there. I remember when the first of these “mansions” went up on Glen Arbor. And with it went the neighborhood. The interesting thing was the house on Glen Arbor was elevate on pier and beam. It was like a warning of what was to follow. The bayou went out of its banks several times prior to Allison. And that house of course was high and dry.
Eventually it appears the entire area will be these monstrosities. About the only real amenity about them is you can pretend you are living in the middle of a lake whenever it rains too much.
As for $3.4 million, what a price reduction by the way, forget it. Not on your life. Or your lifeboat. Which perhaps they should add as an bonus to the buyer.
They may get $2.5 million. If there is a pretentious attorney or doctor who doesn’t know any better. Other than that they should take $1.5 million and deny having ever owned it. It is, well, another Ikea house. For people with lots of money and no taste.
I’ll put my Ikea kitchen up against your inexpensive but tasteful one any day. First I’ve heard Ikea is for the monied, must be based on where you grew up and all, thanks for the education.
I am by no means a real estate professional but as someone who will have a family one day, it is my opinion that any house greater than 3000 sq ft. MUST have at least 4 bedrooms. This house is over 4000 sq ft with only 3. Any one who plans to have 2 or more kids will need at least 4 bedrooms (master, one for each kid, guest room)
“Guest apt w/balcony overlooks prof landscp gardens w/over 11 fruit trees”
So there are 12 fruit trees then.
The asking price is $827 per sq ft. At $1,500,000 it would still be $365, which is much more reasonable. And, while HCAD values are artificial, there’s no way I would ever pay $3.4 million for a house with an HCAD market value of $1.2 million. I’ll go with $1.5 million, just to be generous to the seller. The neighbors are rooting for the lower price too, so HCAD doesn’t crank their values up more quickly than usual.
Best I can tell, there’s only been one sale ever in Southern Oaks over $1,000,000 and even that one was barely over $1,000,000. Asking $3,400,000 is a joke. Forget any comparison to River Oaks. This isn’t even a real neighborhood at all. It’s just a tiny little dead end street off of Buffalo Speedway.
A 3 bedroom/4 bath spec home on a 17,000 square foot lot priced at $3.4 million would be too high in West U, River Oaks, Southampton, Tanglewood, Old Braeswood, Hunter’s Creek, etc…
Maybe the “Custom Home Builder” lost $2.5 million in cash somewhere in the house… That’s the only thing that would make sense of that price! My guess is it’s in one of the Big Lots style cabinets. Good luck finding it.
Maybe the tacky chandelier is worth $2 million?
Also, where are the pictures of this fabulous lot? The agent couldn’t squeeze one pic in of the over 11 fruit bearing trees and garage apartment w/balcony? Surely he could have cut out a couple of those interior pictures (like all of them).
“So, the question is, why the $3.4 million price tag?”
Maybe this house is worth more to the seller as a loss leader on his tax return….perhaps there’s an ugly divorce in the works and keeping this deadweight property priced out of the market satisfies some financial revenge fantasy….
It is a bizarre price for this house!
What you can’t see from the pics above is the nice (but not lush) backyard garden, covered patio and outdoor kitchen, as well as a separate guest apartment with unfinished floors. There are also 4 fountains on the property. NONE of this makes it worth $3.4 million, however. Doing a little more research I discovered that there was once a smaller mid-century but nicely updated 2400 sq.ft. home on this site with an 8500 sq ft. lot, with “new wood floors after Allison” sold for $290K (and presumably demolished) in 2004.
Four fountains? Sounds more like something you’d find in Miami Beach. That chandelier in fact looks like something you’d see in a home with four fountains in Miami Beach.
Are any of the fountains indoors?
Why the $3.4 million price tag?
Probably no intent on selling. Just a scheme to launder money and collect insurance money when it goes up in smoke. Glad to see that the real estate agent only used “River Oaks style Tuscan” rather than a French Colonial Tuscan …. no kidding you do see that mentioned in ads.
Houston is such a diverse place. Except in housing. We’ve gone from red-brick “Georgian” monotony to brick/stone and stucco and wood “Tuscan” monotony.
Shouldn’t an architect been at least tangentally involved with this structure at some -at any- point?
Surely there wasn’t?!?
It’s just been knocked down to $2.9 million. Still about twice what it should be, though. What weirds me out is, the furniture in that place is just awful. They couldn’t even put the appropriate size comforter on the bed in the master bedroom? Those barstools are terrible, too. The whole place just gives me the yucks, at least on the inside. The outside is actually rather nice.
Wow. What a price reduction. The seller must read the Chronicle. And believes the market is rebounding. Depending on which day of the week it is. Or the latest HAR press release.
At this point, $1 million is probably what it’s worth. Sorry. I’m obviously very optimistic about the real estate market.