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: 1 Waterway Ct., Unit 4-E, The Woodlands Town Center
Details: 3 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths; 4,314 sq. ft. in One Waterway Lofts
Price: $1,990,000
History: Just listed over the weekend.
The nominator of this property writes:
Who says the real-estate bubble is long gone? Right on the Woodlands Waterway, here’s a faux Venetian condo in the Waterway Lofts. Can’t you just feel the theme-home synergy? Anyway, it looks like there are some great views of a lot of new office buildings from the windows, and if you look down you can see the Waterway and pool.
Is all that wine included? That might help explain the price tag. That and the fact that the county tax assessment for the loft just about doubled between 2007 and 2008. Montgomery CAD has it at about $1.56 million, which still seems too high.
To be fair though, there are several other overpriced lofts currently for sale in the same building.
In a just world, this condo would rent for maybe just twice its $2,062 monthly maintenance fee, all those Disneytalian finishes would peel off, and you could return all the fixtures to Expo for a refund.
So . . . what would be a better price?
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Our nominator continues:
Well, I’d want at least a $100K credit just for all the necessary repainting and retiling. (None for the drapes, though; could just turn some of them inside out and maybe use the material for a couple prom dresses.) It would be hard to go much below the tax assessment, even though I think even that’s way high. If someone loves fantasy nineties Tuscan — oops, I mean Venetian — maybe you could sell this for $1.5 million?
Readers, what do you say?
I’ve sat in one of the waterside pubs drinking a beer and wondering, “Who would own an overpriced condo overlooking slobs drinking beer staring up into their aerie?”
I’ve no idea what these future rentals are worth, but location only goes so far in my book.
Even if it was “just” $1.5M, no way would I want to cough up that much to live waaaay the hell up there, much less in a feakin condom. Maybe some day, when and if The Woodlands waterway really comes into it’s own and everything is built out, there might be a market for something like this. Until then… fuggetaboutit.
One dollar! (Works on the price is right.)
One and a half to two million to live in a shopping center in the Woodlands? Clearly people do it, but I can’t for the life of me imagine why. Especially since a million will get you a very nice house if you really want to live that far north.
$400k, plus they would have to pay for the IV I needed to rehydrate after the epic nausea caused by all that faux finish.
*urp*
You know, for $1,990,000 you can buy TEN single family houses within biking distance of the Waterway and Town Center. And for the cost of the maintenance fee you could afford debt service on 1-2 more on top of that. This is friggin Montgomery County, Texas, for Pete’s sake!
I like The Woodlands Waterway, but with that maintanance fee they’d have to pay me to take this property off their hands.
This looks like the home of widowed Mafia Moll.
I don’t know anything about Woodlands real estate and don’t particularly want to but I wouldn’t pay that much money for what is a curious view. A faux lake on one side and a faux skyline on the other. I guess you could pretend you were in Connecticutt on one side of the room and pretend you were in Manhattan on the other side of the room?
In reality you are in Woodlands. Out in the middle of nowhere. With nothing to do, really, which is really sort of boring when you think about it. Especially at $1.99 million. As for the interiors being faux, well the exterior views are faux so why the hell not?
Carmela Soprano called. She wants her ‘Spec’ back.
Mike Nomad nailed it! Very FUNNY! The Woodlands is a little late for the Tuscanization party.
That’s one f*ckin’ classy crib!
Are we getting ready to stage a “Real Housewives of The Woodlands?”
This is Michael Pollack’s Woodlands pied-a-terre. How much would he pay for it? Maybe the price of a FREE VCR?
http://swamplot.com/beautiful-southwest-houston-the-golden-age-of-apartment-living/2007-12-10/
$1.1 mm – $1.3 mm
What’s next, high rise condos in Lufkin?
I just threw up in my mouth! All of those listed in HAR are god awfully fugly! I guess money can’t buy taste.
The initial listing is probably really worth only $600k with a $500 per month maintenance fee-but should be stripped to the bare walls and all the atrocious furnishings incinerated.
@ Doofus: You rock!
$789k. Not a nickel more. Has anyone actually BEEN to the Woodlands? I was up there the other night to see Willie and Dylan. And John Mellenkamp. And yes the choice of music might have had something to do with it, but I have never SEEN so many white people in one place. Man, they wuz W.I.T.E. All of ’em. Even the people selling the $32 beers or whatever the hell they were; even the aggressively friendly seat watchers whose job it was to make sure you didn’t sit in anyone else’s seat; even the people directing parking. Where did they all come from?
Hey Pat–if you went to see Willie and Dylan and John Mellenkamp, you can’t be truly surprised at the overwhelming whiteness you experienced. (Sounds like a good show, though.)
This is definitely not my kind of place and the pricetag seems very high but I don’t know anything about the building. In 20 years though, The Woodlands will probably seem like the Galleria and plenty of people live in island fortress high rises there and seem to have no problem with it.
Faux urban town centers have popped up all over the country. Look at Reston, VA. I know people that live there and they swear it is better than being in the real city!
@ Charlie: “Faux urban town centers have popped up all over the country. Look at Reston, VA. I know people that live there and they swear it is better than being in the real city!”
Ugh. The Creeple from Reston you mentioned are just bitter that they can’t afford to move to grave yard at Vint Hill.