Tag: Buying and Selling

Buying and Selling
02/04/08 11:49am

South Side Special: One Sorry Fuqua

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Foreclosures, Homes for Sale, South Houston
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3015 Fuqua, Houston

Vandalism, 3015 Fuqua, HoustonForeclosure, vandalism . . . what more could possibly go wrong at this mansion-on-the-prairie near Brunswick Meadows, off 288 in South Houston?

How about a lack of serious buyers since the home was put on the market back in August — even after two major price cuts?

The place was built in 1950, but the listing agent’s mysterious comment that the “Home was at one time almost completed” probably refers to the recent doomed redo attempt. The asking price was cut to $345,900 in November, from an original $451,900. And it’s listed on another site for $325,900. Not bad for a 11,640-sq.-ft. home on 5 acres inside the Beltway.

Or . . . maybe not. After the jump: when vandals strike!

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Buying and Selling
01/22/08 2:50pm

Preservation Alert: Save the Historic Salvage Yard!

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Demolitions, First Ward, Historic Preservation, Houston History, Industrial Properties, New Construction: Residential, Openings and Closings
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Johnny Franks Auto Parts AdIt’s not just the rice silos that’ll be leaving the First Ward. Next thing you know, they’ll be demolishing . . . the used-auto-parts yard across the street. A source very close to Charles Kuffner reveals that the owner of Johnny Franks Auto Parts at 1225 Sawyer St., across the street from the Mahatma Rice silos, has already sold the land to residential developers.

But wait. Johnny Franks Auto Parts bills itself as “The Nation’s Oldest Salvage Yard.” Is this true? If so, how could Houston let such an important historical site be destroyed? Founded in 1910, the salvage yard for years advertised itself as “the house of a million parts.” Sadly — like so many other historic structures in Houston — that may be its ultimate fate.

After the jump, Kuffner counts the reasons why there’s probably no stopping residential development from taking place on this historic site:

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Buying and Selling
01/22/08 8:36am

Third Ward Demo Duplex: Dressed Up To Get Messed Up

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Demolitions, Development Strategy, Homes for Sale, Real Estate Marketing, Renovations, Third Ward, Townhomes
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Interior of 2103 Berry St., Third Ward, Houston, Under Construction

Renovate or demolish? It’s a false choice, really. Now you can do both!

If ever one listing encapsulated the essential paradox at the heart of the Third Ward’s uh . . . “resurgence,” it’s the one just posted for 2103 Berry St.

Contractors are hard at work completely renovating this Third Ward duplex . . . so that you can buy it and tear it down. Then you can start over and build brand-new townhouses! The brand-new listing features the construction-site photo above and the following description:

GREAT DUPLEX UNDER RENOVATIONS LOCATED MINUTES AWAY FROM DOWNTOWN,MIDTOWN, TOYOTA CENTER AND MINUTE MAID PARK. CORNER LOT SURROUNDED BY NEW CONSTRUCTION. PHENOMENAL OPPORTUNITY FOR A DEVELOPER’S OR INVESTOR’S TO BUILD TOWNHOMES.

Who says you can’t have it all?

After the jump: Can’t we just slather the stucco over the exterior brickwork and call it even?

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Buying and Selling
01/16/08 11:25am

1342 Rutland: How To Invest in a Collapsing Market

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Condos, Houston Heights
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Check out the discussion going on now in the “Real Estate Professionals” section of the City-Data online forum. A reader is excited about an amazing investment opportunity at the 1342 Rutland St. condos in the Heights!

The unit I’m interested in is as of now at $34K. This if from a high of $77.5. Yes wow the suspiciousness of the place even more intriguing.

I’m thinking I could pay cash for the place maybe borrow a little but (family borrow not bank borrow)… finish the interior (it’s not finished) and rent it out for a good monthly rate (good for me that is). It’s in one of the best/trendy/expensive neighborhoods in Houston . So from the steady fall of the price I’m thinking an offer of $25K would be good. That way I could pay it completely and take my time fixing it up for rent… or sale.

Wow, a $77,500 condo for only $25,000! Sounds like a great investment. But then there’s that nagging feeling inside that makes the would-be investor end with this question:

Just how scared should one be entering this building[?]

After the jump: Reader advice!

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Bear Creek Meadows
01/15/08 9:55pm

Bear Creek Meadows Fourclosure Sale!

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Buying and Selling, Foreclosures, Home Design, Homebuilders, Homebuying, Homes for Sale, Katy
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Four Homes by Legend Homes for Sale in Bear Creek Meadows

The wave of foreclosures sweeping over neighborhoods at the outer edges of town has . . . an upside!

Remember back when these neighborhoods were new — like, four years ago? Well, for buyers it’s just like those good old days all over again . . . only cheaper! That’s right: if you’ve settled on one builder model, you can be pretty picky about which upgrades and finishing touches you really want — even though the builder has moved on.

If you’re shopping for a home in Bear Creek Meadows in Katy, for example, you’ll find the four distinct residences pictured above listed on MLS. That’s right, those are four different houses. But they’re all the same model — The Cairns, Plan 509, by Legend Homes — and they’re all resales!

Which one is right for you? Clockwise from top left, the contenders are: 19411 Billineys Park Dr., 19606 Ballina Meadows Dr., 19906 Brisbane Meadows Dr., and 19510 Buckland Park Dr.

After the jump, a look at the differences between these four newish but back-on-the-market homes!

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Buying and Selling
01/14/08 11:41am

Big House on Buffalo Speedway: Not Selling for Too Many Quoins

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Home Design, Homes for Sale, Interiors, West University
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6118 Buffalo Speedway, West University Place, Texas

Just what is it about this West U house that’s scaring off the buyers? Is it the location on busy Buffalo Speedway? The outbreak of quoins on the front facade? The curious “custom paint” job in one of the home’s seven bathrooms that demonstrates to pooping gameroom guests how the house’s stucco surface might flake off?

Whatever it is, it sure looks like there’s a reverse auction going on: The five-bedroom, 5,119-square-foot house went on the market early last May and listed for $1,614,050. After three price cuts, it ended the year at $1,339,000. And now it’s only $1,239,000!

After the jump: a detailed look inside.

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Buying and Selling
01/11/08 8:33am

In River Oaks, This Sort of Thing Is Called Tall Timber

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Demolitions, Home Design, Land Sales, River Oaks
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Entrance Patio, 3840 Willowick Rd., River Oaks, Houston

A reader writes in to report that a house discussed recently on Swamplot had also been featured in Architectural Digest last October. And so it had! But really, they called it “Trapezoidal Transcendence”?? Whatever. Swamplot had the guts to call it what it really was: A River Oaks teardown.

Oh, well — there’s no accounting for taste. Unless, of course, you consider demolition a form of judgment:

By the way, that amazing modern house in the Tall Timbers section of River Oaks is definitely toast.

In this case, apparently, the decision of that judge was final.

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Buying and Selling
01/08/08 4:01pm

Joel Osteen Townhome Sales Technique: Give and Ye Shall Receive Full Asking Price

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Real Estate Investing, Real Estate Marketing, Townhomes
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Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, by Joel OsteenThere’s more to the story of the Lakewood Church pastor’s amazing house flip: How were Joel and Victoria Osteen able to unload their townhouse in order to buy that house they made so much money on?

Readers of Joel Osteen’s previous book — Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential — already know the answer. From page 265:

Victoria and I had been married a few years when we decided that we wanted to sell our townhome and buy a house. We put the townhome on the market for six or eight months, but we never had a serious offer. Hardly anybody looked at it, even though we were praying regularly, asking God to help us sell it.

We really wanted the other house, but we couldn’t afford it until we sold our townhome. Finally, we decided to do more than pray. We needed to sow a special seed in faith, believing for that townhome to sell.

There’s more!

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Buying and Selling
01/07/08 10:56am

Katy, Texas: At $210K, Still Cheaper than East L.A.

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Homebuying, Homes for Sale, Katy, Price Trends, Real Estate Marketing
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Pool and Lake at 24315 Lanning Dr., Katy, Texas

Honey, stop the car! 2300 square feet, new construction, in-ground pool, spa, game room, on a man-made fake lake. $209k. Bonus: The Relitter actually typed in “HONEY STOP THE CAR!!” as a description.

That’s blogger Lou Minatti’s punchline, after a brief tour of tiny, chain-linked-fenced, or apparently leaning homes available at similar prices in Los Angeles.

Also in the description of the Katy home is this paradox:

POPULAR LENNAR FLOORPLAN! . . . A ONE OF A KIND GEM!

After the jump: more pics, plus the sad news about this some-of-a-kind Katy home.

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Buying and Selling
01/03/08 12:58pm

Joel Osteen, Deed Restrictions, and the House Flip from Heaven

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Development Restrictions, Real Estate Investing
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Joel Osteen’s Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every DayLakewood Church’s Joel Osteen, in Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Everyday, p. 289:

I remember as a young couple, Victoria and I found a home that we really liked. It was a run-down house but on a nice piece of property. And we knew it was for us. In the natural, it didn’t make a lot of sense. We were leaving a beautiful townhome. Yet we knew that’s what God wanted us to do. So we took a step of faith and we bought the run-down house. The day we closed on it, we were standing in the front yard and a Realtor stopped by and offered us much more than we had paid. We thought, “What’s going on?” We didn’t understand it. Come to find out, they were in the process of changing the deed restrictions in the neighborhood. And several years later, we sold that property for twice as much as we paid for it. That was God causing us to be at the right place at the right time.

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Buying and Selling
01/03/08 11:40am

Welch St. Townhouse: The Holiday Premium Is Over

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Homes for Sale, Montrose, Real Estate Marketing, Townhomes
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705 Welch St., Montrose, HoustonSome curious price fluctuations on this 2006 turreted Montrose townhouse: Last week the asking price was reduced from $525,000 to $350,000. Which is pretty dramatic, though only slightly more dramatic than the $140K increase recorded on MLS the day after the property was listed, in early December.

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Buying and Selling
01/02/08 12:02pm

How To Give Your Home a Greener Lawn Virtually Overnight

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Homes for Sale, Landscape, Lawn Care, Memorial, Real Estate Marketing
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Front Lawn of 10926 Leaning Ash Ln. in Ashwood, Houston

This three-bedroom, three-bath, 3,504-square-foot home on a half-acre lot in Memorial is notable for three reasons: The asking price was dropped to just below $650,000 only a few days after it went on the market, shortly before Christmas; it sits on a street whose name Susan Vreeland-Wendt probably wouldn’t approve of (foundation problems and fires generally aren’t the kinds of connotations you look for these days); and its main MLS listing photo features a remarkably bad Photoshop hack job.

What is it that’s been covered over on that front lawn with a hundred rubber-stamp-tool grass plugs? Is it just that the real sod isn’t taking underneath all those pine trees? Or is this a photo from heavy trash day? After the jump: more (presumably undoctored) photos of the house on Leaning Ash Lane.

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Buying and Selling
12/20/07 11:25pm

Younan Building Empire: Buy Low, Stack High?

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Highrises, Office Buildings, Real Estate Investing
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Younan Tower, the former Northbelt Corporate Center, Houston

He boasted back in July that he would build the world’s tallest building — a 200- to 300-story tower in either Houston or Chicago. Meanwhile, Zaya Younan has been continuing his Houston-area office-building buying spree. Back in May, Younan told the Houston Business Journal‘s Jennifer Dawson that he’d own 5 million square feet of office space in this city by the end of this year.

So how much has he been able to buy?

Just 2.2 million square feet, according to a company press release dated December 18th — which ain’t bad. Even better: by confusing his Houston and statewide numbers, he’s been able to convince Globe St. that he’s bought much more — and actually exceeded his goals for the year. Plus, Younan tells that publication’s Amy Wolff Sorter, he plans to buy an additional 5 million square feet in Houston next year, which will help his company achieve the goal of being the largest office landlord in both the city and the state:

“Since the subprime and credit crunch happened in August, building contracts fell through,” he says. “We were suddenly inundated with calls from owners and brokers, so we bought a significant amount of assets.”

After the jump, some of the properties Younan’s snapped up lately, plus Younan Tower, revealed!

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Buying and Selling
12/19/07 3:31pm

The Best Day of the Week To Post New Real Estate Listings

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Real Estate Marketing
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Internet real-estate upstart Redfin has it all figured out: If you’re trying to sell your home, add your listing early on Friday morning:

“It’s an article of faith to debut a listing on a Thursday,” Kelman said.

But Thursday’s actually the worst day, while listings debuting on the best day, Friday, get an average of 7.7 percent more Web visitors in the first week, according to Redfin’s analysis of 119,000 listings.

“People apparently come to work on Friday morning looking for brand-new properties to tour over the weekend,” Kelman said.

Ah, but it depends what market you’re targeting, adds a Seattle real-estate agent:

A teardown or fixer house, for instance, should not debut on a Friday because that would bring less attention from builders, she said, adding that her Web site gets the most hits in general on Mondays.

After the jump, more recommendations based on Redfin’s continuing research!

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Buying and Selling
12/19/07 1:57pm

Who’ll Take Manhattan?

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Condos, Galleria, Highrises, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Lofts
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Living Room of Manhattan Lofts Unit 808, Houston

This delightful unit has lingered on the market for a mere 22 months. That’s a long wait for a condo bubble that never happened. And hey, it ‘s a fun ride down the price ladder!

The grossly oversized two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath corner unit on the top floor of the misplaced Manhattan building in the Galleria was originally priced at $2.1 million, back in the swelled-heady days of February 2006. Five methodical price drops later, we’ve reached $1,695,000. That’s a lot of cuts, but we’re still not even down 20 percent: how low will the program-trading-style reductions go?

After the jump, more pics of the . . . uh, eclectic interior.

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