Tag: Memorial

Forecasts, Foreclosures, Houston Data, Price Trends

11 Comments

Swamplot’s chart-wielding analyst is back with a few comments on the Houston Association of Realtors’ latest report and media push:

Median and average home sales prices fell $7,200 from the prior month. This was including increased activity to get the $8,000 home buyer tax credit in under the wire! Now it is not fair to compare month to month numbers as seasonal factors are working against the housing market this month.

So we get some good spin from the realtors: â€œHome prices up 5%â€ â€œSales up 13.8%â€ …this maps directly over to the mainstream press with no research: â€œHome sales rise for second month,â€ â€œHome prices up 5%,â€ â€œSales up 13.8%â€ Homeowners in this town should be proud that such a hardworking PR machine still gins out great product!

Why would you call those year-over-year increases spin?

The realtors get to make a press release every month and every month something is a â€œrecordâ€ and the press is under deadlines and it gets copied in verbatim. This is home prices up 5% and sales up 13.8% from HURRICANE IKE with no caveat in the headline going out to 200,000 print readers and as many web readers!Â Not bad for a days work.

Oh, yeah. Forgot about that whole Ike thing. So what’s the market looking like really?

Disaster Aftermath, Forecasts, Foreclosures, Houston Data, Hurricane Ike, Memorial, Price Trends

Homes for Sale

11/19/09 11:03pm

Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: Hudson News

Hudson on the Bayou, Interiors, Memorial, Neighborhood Guessing Game

We have a winner for this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game! Who won that membership in the Rice Design Alliance?

First, here’s where you guessed this home might be: Southampton (2 guesses), Bellaire (3 of you), Tanglewood, Champions (2), “off Memorial near the Tollway,” Baytown (2), “Gessner and Wilcrest area,” Pearland, Sugar Land, The Woodlands (2), Katy, Southampton, the Heights, Briar Forest, Downtown, Memorial, West University, Deer Park, League City, Clear Lake, Greatwood, Willowbrook, Spring, Champions, Kingwood, Midtown, Montrose, Rice Military, Camp Logan, Garden Oaks, Oak Forest, Timbergrove Manor (2), Upper Kirby, the Galleria, Afton Oaks, Gulfton, Spring Branch, Sharpstown, Alief, Braeburn, Tanglewilde, Westchase, Barker Cypress, Greenspoint, Cinco Ranch, EaDo, River Oaks (2), “Wards 1-6,” Riverside Terrace, Avondale, “just inside the Beltway, just off Memorial Dr.,” West Lane Place, “somewhere south of Richmond and west of Hillcroft,” “the Stoney Brook or Westbriar/Tanglewilde area,” Tealwood, and “the Memorial/Gessner area.”

The winner of a one-year individual membership in the RDA is mojo jojo, for pinpointing the home with this entry:

The decorations in this home point to outside the loop, around the beltway or beyond! The photos give very little indication to era, except for the kitchen. From the knob placement on the cabinets (I betcha that these cabinets original had yellow or green ceramics knobs), to the custom built vent apron over the island, this kitchen screams 70â€™s!!! . . .

What leads me to the location is the fact that the home has almost no yard, as seen in the many photos which show the ivy covered wall outside of every window. This leads me to the many townhome communities built in the 70â€™s and 80â€™s, around the Beltway.

My scientific calculations, lead me to believe that this home is just inside the Beltway, and just off Memorial Dr.

Congratulations, mojo jojo!

We’re also handing out an honorable mention to movocelot, for being kinda close too. Now just where is this place?

77024, Homes for Sale, Hudson on the Bayou, Interiors, Memorial, Neighborhood Guessing Game

CityCentre

09/04/09 11:24am

Openings and Closings: Restaurant Revamp Edition

Galleria, Houston Heights, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, The Woodlands, Upper Kirby

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What’s new to eat?

Opening Soon: Lola, a diner-ish spot serving “American comfort foods” — in the restored and refashioned former Eckerd Drug across from the Heights Post Office on Yale and 11th. This’ll be the third Heights restaurant venture from Ken Bridge, who also runs Dragon Bowl and Pink’s Pizza.
Opened This Week: From famed New York, Las Vegas, and Dallas chef John Tesar, Tesar’s Modern Steak and Seafood, directly across from the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands. You’ll certainly want to eat everything on your plate when you visit: “Tesar’s entire menu will be one hundred percent sustainable created with a zero-waste food ethics in mind,” declares the restaurant website. Whole fish will be a specialty. Outside: a burger bar.
Closed: The Texadelphia in the fast-food-friendly strip center on Memorial Dr. and Asbury, across from Otto’s — reportedly on account of the parking lot being too darn clogged. No worries: You can still get your cheesesteak fix at 3 other Houston locations, and it’s now a bit easier to find a spot in front of the Kolache Factory.

More food fun:

77007, 77008, 77024, 77027, 77056, 77098, 77380, CityCentre, Galleria, Houston Heights, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, The Woodlands, Upper Kirby

Buying and Selling

07/24/09 7:48pm

Smashing Modern in Glen Cove

Glen Cove, Houston Architects, Land Sales, Memorial, Real Estate Marketing

23 Comments

Judging from its debut in this morning’s demolition report, it’s looking like the end of the line for the classic 1960 steel-and-glass home at 6040 Glencove St., near Bayou Bend and Memorial Park.

What’s going away?

The house had the kind of wide-open spaces that modernists love, and its floors were marble – cool, [original owner AndrÃ©] Crispin says, under bare feet in the summer.

At 4,600 square feet, the house was large for its era, plenty big enough for the Crispins’ four children and their grand-scale entertaining. When Crispin and his wife hosted musical events, 200 to 300 guests thronged their dramatic living room. There, those guests could admire the wall of glass 14 feet tall. It offered a view of the untamed back yard, a rolling ravine filled with sassafras trees, rabbits and armadillos.

The home was designed by Houston architect Talbott Wilson, 2 years before his firm created the Astrodome. Its current owner, David Mincberg, was appointed by Mayor White earlier this week to serve on the board of commissioners of the Houston Housing Authority. Mincberg bought the property last spring from an owner-broker who employed an innovative marketing plan: the Midcentury Modern came free with purchase of the dramatic 1.35-acre homesite.

What did Mincberg end up paying?

77007, Buying and Selling, Houston Architects, Land Sales, Memorial, Modern Design, Real Estate Marketing, Talbott Wilson

Commercial Real Estate

07/08/09 5:55pm

Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye: Otto’s, Back from the Edge of the Market

Land for Sale, Land Prices, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

10 Comments

That plan by the owners of Otto’s Bar B Q and Hamburgers on Memorial Dr. to shut down the restaurant, sell the land, and retire on the proceeds didn’t end up going so well after all, the Houston Business Journal‘s Allison Wollam notices. The 58-year-old restaurant

was slated to be demolished to make way for the sale of the high-profile Memorial Drive land, but the restaurant has now fully reopened after the owners were unable to find a buyer for the property. The hamburger side of the two-sided restaurant has remained in business, but the portion selling barbecue closed for a time. A sign on the door says the barbecue side of the restaurant celebrated a grand reopening on April 15.

But word of the reopening seems to be spreading slowly. The once-bustling parking lot of the restaurant, for example, was only sparsely populated during lunchtime on a day earlier [last] week.

The owners, June and Marcus Sofka, were told they might be able to get as much as $150 a square foot for their property when they listed it with Cushman & Wakefield at the end of 2007. But a real estate broker tells Wollam the 1.3-acre Otto’s property at 5502 Memorial Dr. and the 17,000-sq.-ft. shopping center the couple owns next door might be worth a little less than half of that today.

Ottoâ€™s rekindles BBQ grills, takes land off market [Houston Business Journal]
Theyâ€™re Otto Here [Swamplot]

Photo: Flickr users Bob & Lorraine Kelly

77007, Commercial Real Estate, Land for Sale, Land Prices, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers

Boulevard Oaks

05/14/09 10:31am

Greenwood King April Report: Getting a Little Crowded at the Top of the Market

Buying and Selling, Houston Data, Memorial, Price Trends, River Oaks, Tanglewood

Swamplot readers have a few things to say about Greenwood King’s latest fancy-neighborhood market report, which came out yesterday! Our regular GK watcher notes that the separate breakdowns for new construction and existing home sales introduced in last month’s edition have been abandoned. Still:

The news is relatively bad. Sales volumes are down sharply all over town. 17% more high end listings than last year . . . River Oaks, Tanglewood, Boulevard Oaks, and Memorial Close In are all over 12 months of inventory. . . .

The 17% higher inventory is reflective of a market of motivated sellers. By definition, a high end homeowner should not â€œhave toâ€ sell unless there has been a life change (divorce, death, job interruption). Everyone knows the housing market is weak in 2009, soâ€¦. the only class of sellers on the market are those having cash flow problems or those who have to sell due to a life change. There are almost no trade up sellers right now.

Memorial has 19.1 months of inventory

. . . as big $3-5 million white elephants sit there waiting for the landscapers to come and cut the lawn for the week. It takes a good $20,000 a month to live in one of those monsters. I guess the supply of willing millionaires just isnâ€™t going to match the number of mega mansions. It will take some time, but they will soon move onto bank balance sheets and then to the auction block.

Boulevard-Oaks, Buying and Selling, Houston Data, Memorial, Price Trends, River Oaks, Tanglewood

Commercial Real Estate

03/06/09 10:17am

Where the Freeway Met the Bayou: The Last Days of Las Alamedas

Leasing, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

16 Comments

Over at Eating Our Words, Katharine Shilcutt has posted photos of the now-vacant longtime home of Las Alamedas Restaurant. As noted in this featured comment from a Swamplot reader, the restaurant packed up and rolled away late last month, after long-extended lease negotiations failed. Restaurant owner Jorge Sneider told the Houston Business Journal the building’s new landlords were demanding a significant rent increase.

77024, Commercial Real Estate, Leasing, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

Comments

02/24/09 4:11pm

Comments of the Day: Las Alamedas Packs Up

Commercial Real Estate, Leasing, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Restaurants

No Comments

COMMENTS OF THE DAY: LAS ALAMEDAS PACKS UP “I drove by yesterday and there were two large U-Haul trucks backed up to the back door. I think Las Alamedas is toast. What a shame; Iâ€™ve had many good times there.” And later: “Well, I drove by a couple of hours ago and the sign out front says something like ‘Thank you for 28 great years. We will relocate.’â€ [Clive, commenting on Las Alamedas: Landlord Wants More]

77024, Comments, Commercial Real Estate, Leasing, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

Commercial Real Estate

02/13/09 10:30am

Las Alamedas: Landlord Wants More

Leasing, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

8 Comments

Last week the Houston Business Journal reported that the owner of Las Alamedas had reached agreement on a new lease with its landlord and would reopen on February 6th. But the upscale Mexican restaurant on the Katy Freeway at Voss is still closed.

What happened to that agreement?

â€œThe landlord came back and wanted at least 50 percent more rent and other things that we didnâ€™t originally agree on,â€ says [restaurant owner Jorge] Sneider.

Sneider had previously told reporter Allison Wollam that the original landlord died in a plane crash, and various surviving family members had been fighting over ownership of the property for the last year and a half. “He now hopes he can work out another lease in a couple of weeks,” Wollam reports today.

News from the food and drink front [Houston Business Journal]
Las Alamedas Lease Lapsed? [Swamplot]

Photo: Rachel Dvoretzky

77024, Commercial Real Estate, Leasing, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

Buying and Selling

02/04/09 8:50am

Hall Says No Go to Vo Pad

Homes for Sale, Memorial, New Construction: Residential, Rivercrest

Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

abc13 reporter Miya Shay says likely Houston mayoral candidate Ben Hall has decided not to buy State Rep. Hubert Vo’s enormous Rivercrest mansion after all.

Hall maintains he’s got a condo in the city, and more than meets the residency requirements. I guess Rep. Vo will have to find another buyer with $3.9 million to spare.

Hall currently lives in Piney Point Village.

Annise Rolls out, Attorneys roll on, and Morales thinks it over [Houston Political Blog]
31 W. Rivercrest Dr. [HAR]
From Voâ€™s Folly to Hallâ€™s Hall: The Outsize Rivercrest Mansion for a Man Who Would Be Mayor? [Swamplot]
More Vo Real Estate for Sale: Memorial Mansion with Multiples [Swamplot]

77042, Buying and Selling, Homes for Sale, Memorial, New Construction: Residential, Rivercrest

Leasing

01/30/09 1:01pm

Las Alamedas Lease Lapsed?

by Rachel Dvoretzky

18 Comments

Note: Updated below.

Las Alamedas Restaurant — the hacienda on the Katy Freeway — is on hiatus pending renegotiation of its 28-year-old lease.

According to a message on the restaurant’s voice mail, the storied location of countless wedding, birthday and anniversary fiestas is “temporarily closed” while negotiations continue.

When Las Alamedas opened in 1980 it was the first grand, high-end Mexican restaurant in town. The Memorial location — 8615 Katy Freeway at Voss — attracted diners who sought genuine Mexican cuisine in a large elegant setting. Colonial-style architecture, bayou views, banquet facilities and highly professional service pleased customers for whom Ninfa’s on Navigation was terra incognita.

77024, Leasing, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

Buying and Selling

01/23/09 4:05pm

From Vo’s Folly to Hall’s Hall: The Outsize Rivercrest Mansion for a Man Who Would Be Mayor?

Home Design, Homes for Sale, Memorial, New Construction: Residential, Rivercrest

13 Comments

Remember that crowd-friendly but vacant and unfinished mansion on Rivercrest that State Rep. Hubert Vo has been trying to unload since mid-2006? It may soon have a buyer! Abc13 reporter Miya Shay says former city attorney Ben Hall — who would need to move inside Houston city limits from his current home in Piney Point Village if he decides to run for mayor — is interested in buying it!

The house is nice, very nice. It’s currently listed for $3.9 million on HAR. There are 8 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and 2 half baths, and an 8 car garage. So, if Hall buys the house, you can bet that his mayoral ambitions are pretty real. Imagine the fundraisers he can hold there!

The $800K price cut apparently went through last May. And though the revised listing still lists the home as “under construction,” the rooms now look . . . finished!

77042, Buying and Selling, Home Design, Homes for Sale, Memorial, New Construction: Residential, Rivercrest

Homes for Sale

01/22/09 9:12pm

Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: Coffered Up

Interiors, Memorial Villages, Neighborhood Guessing Game, Spring Valley

Here’s where you thought the home pictured in this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game might be: 4 of you guessed the western portion of Bellaire, and 3 of you guessed Meyerland. There were also votes for Tanglewood, the Museum District, West University, Southside Place, Clear Lake, Willowbend, South Post Oak, Braeswood, Old Braeswood, Briargrove, Lakeside, Memorial, “along the edges of Memorial Dr. between Chimney Rock and Briar Forest,” “older Memorial, anywhere between Silber and Chimney Rock,” Champions, Spring, The Woodlands, Piney Point Village, and Hedwig Village.

Darn good guesses, most — on a very, very tough house to figure. No one named the exact neighborhood this week, but the winners came close!

With a guess of “generic Memorial,” tcpIV was the only player to describe an area specifically circumscribing the house. And we’ll give first prize also to Scott, who followed tcpIV’s footsteps and named one of the house’s neighboring neighborhoods, Hedwig Village. Congratulations to you both!

Three other players deserve honorable mentions. Brad wins one, for identifying the home’s origins as an “older Ranch.” Darby Mom also tallied quite a few clues:

The older front door and expanded floor plan say maybe a big ranch on one of those big lots in the area just west of Bellaire, Braeburn Country club . . . Meyerland is a possibility, but I think this entryway is too wide. The owners really put some bucks into the kitchen cabinets, granite,floors, and the coffered ceilings . . . The amount of investment could be typical for that area, too. The trees outside are mature I think, so it would have to be an older established area.

And Miz Brooke Smith attacked the geometry:

Given the tiled floor, requisite granite counters and open concept in the kitchen and adjacent family room, and *all that space* â€” is that a butlerâ€™s pantry? â€” this place appears to have had the entire back wall knocked out and the house greatly expanded ca. 2002, probably into the backyard. So where is this big house? The yard space required to accommodate that buildout, and those deep windows in the downstairs bedroom, belie Meyerland. Yet the notion of even keeping the original part of the house instead of demolishing the whole business says this isnâ€™t, for example, Sandalwood.

So where is this place, really?

77055, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Memorial, Neighborhood Guessing Game, Spring Valley

Hazards

07/21/08 2:31pm

Sherwood Forest Mystery Sludge