05/23/08 11:49pm

Briargrove and Briargrove Park are 5 miles and (to judge from this weekend’s open houses), about $700,000 apart. But both feature homes so eager to be sold that they’re giving up a good portion of their Memorial Day weekend just so you can visit.

10335 Lynbrook Hollow St., Briargrove Park, Houston

Location: 10335 Lynbrook Hollow St.
Details: 4 bedrooms, 3 baths; 2,958 sq. ft.
Price: $410,000
The Scoop: 1976 brick home on cul-de-sac in Briargrove Park, built around brick courtyard. Two bedrooms, including Master, downstairs. Partial second story. Partially covered deck in back. On the market since mid-January. Price cut $25K last week.
Open House: Sunday, 3-5 pm

More Briargrovian homes below:

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02/26/08 11:49am

6323 Deerwood Rd., Woodway Glen, Houston

Here’s the plan: Buy a fourplex on a cul-de-sac near the intersection of Woodway and Voss. Do some painting, replace the roof and repair the exterior, put in granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances in one of the units and new appliances and carpet in the rest. Then . . . convert the place to condos, and flip them one at a time!

Except . . . there are a heck of a lot of condos out there in the $150K-$230K range, and selling is tough.

Bummer. But there’s still a moneymaking way out: If you can’t make the condo flip yourself, that doesn’t mean you can’t sell someone else on the idea of doing it. And you’ve already done the conversion work!

Just listed on MLS: 6323 Deerwood. Four units built in 1975, totaling 7,564 square feet, on a 10,171-sq.-ft. lot. Apartments lease for $1200 and $1400. Asking $645,000:

Units have already been condo converted! Investor can sell units separately or keep as a fourplex.

Will consider seller financing!

After the jump: the renovated innards.

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02/14/08 2:19pm

Rendering of The Fairmont on San Felipe, Houston

It looks like our earlier report about the Fairmont at San Felipe — the strip-center-apartment combo planned for the southeast corner of San Felipe and Winrock — was wrong. Judging from this new rendering of the complex, it sure looks like those apartments will actually be stacked directly on top of the retail spaces, forming a lovely parking-lot-courtyard tableau!

Permits for construction of the apartments were just approved by the city. After the jump: closeups, plus the plan that led us astray.

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12/05/07 12:23pm

Site Plan of The Fairmont on San Felipe, Houston

Sure, there’s Post Properties, the Sonoma in the Rice Village and all those tired old buildings downtown, but most Houston developers won’t put apartments on top of retail unless they’re dragged kicking and screaming. And really, the idea of living next to a strip center evokes a much warmer, more folksy feeling. Isn’t that what Houston is all about?

The latest: The Fairmont on San Felipe, on the southeast corner of San Felipe and Winrock. A couple of apartment courtyards, connected by a central garage, behind two strips ready for 41,500 square feet of retail. It’s now under construction, on the site of the old Regency Arms apartments, which burned last year after it had already been vacated for demolition.

Update, 2/14/08: Looks like they have been dragged!