Tag: New Construction: Residential

Construction Problems
05/07/09 10:25am

Withering Townhouses of the First Ward

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First Ward, New Construction: Residential, Redevelopment, Townhomes
19 Comments

A First Ward resident wants the scoop on a nearby development that’s “really going to pasture” on the 1500 block of Bingham, just west of Houston Ave. and across from Brock Elementary.

It is a townhouse project that got started 1-2 years ago, was never finished, and is now becoming a huge eyesore (broken doors, windows, garage doors…they got as far as putting mesh siding but stopped short of actually getting the stucko on there).

I have lived in the first ward for about 2 years in a renovated bungalow. it makes me sick to see all these properties built on spec to make a quick buck that are becoming abandoned, and only after demolishing what was there in the first place.

A few more photos our reader sent in:

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Jackson Hill
05/01/09 10:04am

A Setback for Jackson Hill

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New Construction: Residential, Townhomes
24 Comments

A curious reader writes in to report on a new development on the east side of Jackson Hill St., between Feagan and Gibson:

The developer is building 5 townhomes on the plot. We were of the understanding that there is a mandatory 10′ setback but as you can see from the pictures – his actual setback is only about 5 feet. How did he get a permit for this development? He poured the slabs and did the framing over the weekend so we’re wondering if he’s even legal. Thanks for any info.

Time to pull out Houston’s development ordinance: Any building-line experts want to field this one?

Littler pics below:

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Comments
04/15/09 6:01pm

Comment of the Day: Heights Home Replacement Program

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Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Houston Heights, New Construction: Residential, Quicklink
25 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HEIGHTS HOME REPLACEMENT PROGRAM “Demo permits sold in the greater Heights last year – approx 220. (zips 007,008, 009) The Chron’s real estate report showed that 25% of 2008 home sales in the Heights were new construction. And how many were built in the last 10 years? Don’t know, but for anyone who thinks The Heights has NOT been decimated, go to HAR.com to see how nearly all listings were built since 1999 or are lot value only. Heard a story on the radio not long ago about how people stood in line for hours to see the Bill of Rights, but when an exact replica went on display, nobody bothered. What does that tell us?” [Sheila, commenting on Jack Preston Wood: Making an Impression in the Freeland Historic District]

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Buying and Selling
04/15/09 12:51pm

Bloated, Not Quite Finished, and Hanging on the Market: Some Second Thoughts on Those Greenwood King Numbers

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Houston Data, New Construction: Residential, Price Trends
7 Comments

The Swamplot reader who’s been focusing on Greenwood King Properties’ monthly market reports has spotted some problems in the latest sales data. The latest report, for the first time, provides separate totals for new homes and resales:

If dollars fall by more than units, then price has fallen.

If you add together 2 significant segments and one is lower and one is flat then the total is lower.

The quick math doesn’t work!!!

How can Flat+Down=Flat??

How can -38% dollars and -33% transactions = Flat??? It implies lower prices…

So now I have a report that raises more questions than answers. Total sales prices are flat? Resale prices are flat? ALL of the pain is in new construction?

Price has always followed volume in every market around the country. So are the price drops for resales ahead of us now? The average resale high end home in Houston is now $585,000??? Isn’t that LOT VALUE in most of these neighborhoods? We never got the news on what happened over the past 3 or 4 years on resale only. Were prices actually flat on the way up?

A few more comments on looming problems in the market for high-priced homes:

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Buying and Selling
04/14/09 11:31am

Latest Greenwood King Report: On the Double!

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Houston Data, Houston Heights, New Construction: Residential, Price Trends
2 Comments

Swamplot’s Greenwood King-watching reader informs us that the real-estate firm’s March survey of home sales in Houston’s tonier neighborhoods is already out — early, this time. And this month the report details separate data for new construction and resales. Snarks the GK watcher:

This is a typical reaction of the Realtors to falling prices. Find a way to re-segregate the market to make the bread and butter look OK. Last year it was “Inside the loop never goes down!” Pretty soon we will see the market cut into “Three Story (-34%) Two Story (-2%) and One Story (-26%) homes.”

Hmmm . . . not a bad idea! But what about the new numbers?

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Homes for Sale
03/09/09 9:35am

New Heights Fantasy 4-Pack: Welcome to the Neighborhood!

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Houston Heights, New Construction: Residential, Townhomes
14 Comments

A reader stumbles across this oldish-fashioned gated compound of brand-new $650K-$800K townhomes in the northern part of the Heights and sends in a photo report:

Driving to my favorite taco stand this morning, I happened on this “gated community” within the Heights on E. 22nd just west of Gostic. Thank God they will be gated in. We in the Heights don’t like having to interact with such snooty riff raff.

The 4 homes at 621 E. 22nd St., labeled The Court at 22nd Street, were developed by the Frankel Building Group. How will they do in the court of public opinion?

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Houston Data
02/23/09 3:01pm

Katy and Those New Home Growths

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Katy, New Construction: Residential, Quicklink
5 Comments

KATY AND THOSE NEW HOME GROWTHS “Houston is the largest home-building market in the nation, according to the Greater Houston Partnership and Builder and Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, with 42,697 building permits. Population trends, job growth, home prices and the rate of building permits all factored in to rank the top 75 markets in 2008. Assisting the numbers, no doubt, was Katy. Business Week magazine ranked Katy as the second-fastest residential community in the U.S. in a study published this month titled ‘America’s Biggest Boomtowns.’ The study was based on new home growth from 2000 to 2008.” And what will next year’s numbers say? [Houston Business Journal]

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Buying and Selling
02/04/09 8:50am

Hall Says No Go to Vo Pad

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

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.

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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?

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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!

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Ferndale
01/12/09 3:09pm

Bammel Lane Park Homes: Still Going On?

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Homes for Sale, New Construction: Residential
1 Comment

Speaking of abandoned residential projects, another reader wants to know if this development qualifies:

I have noticed the Bammel Lane Park Homes project appears to have ceased development. The houses are between Bammel Lane and Eastside. There are 3 or 4 very large homes that looked completed. ( I cannot figure out if they are occupado) Then, they were painted stark white? Not so good. The sign advertising the project is still up but it appears they are at a stand still. Can you ask the readers or let me know if you have any scoop?

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Cancellations and Delays
01/12/09 12:20pm

Half Off New Construction: Where?

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New Construction: Residential
23 Comments

A reader writes in wanting to know where all the half-built houses are. Sure, High Street came to a halt after producing a naked frame, but what neighborhoods in the greater Houston area feature finer examples of similarly dramatic frozen-in-time residential work that a real-estate gawker could appreciate? Abandoned slabs, lonely stick frames, flapping Tyvek — that sort of thing?

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Apartments
01/09/09 4:59pm

Mosaic Avoids Foreclosure, Files for Bankruptcy

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Condos, Condos for Sale, Financing, Foreclosures, Hermann Park, Highrises, New Construction: Residential
9 Comments

The developer of the Mosaic highrise overlooking Hermann Park — a limited partnership between Phillips Development & Realty and publicity-shy Florida Capital Real Estate Group — declared bankruptcy earlier this week to avoid foreclosure on a $71 million loan from Chicago lender Corus Bankshares. Florida Capital, originally the equity partner, will be taking over as the general partner.

The bankruptcy covers just the first Mosaic tower. The second tower, rebranded the Montage, has not yet defaulted on its separate $71 million Corus loan.

So how have sales been going at the Mosaic? It depends, the Houston Business Journal‘s Jennifer Dawson learns, who you ask:

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Apartments
12/30/08 5:15pm

Phillips Development at the Mosaic: Short-Term Rentals, Short-Term Stay?

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Condos, Foreclosures, Hermann Park, Highrises, Leasing
13 Comments

Need a place to crash somewhere in Houston for a short visit — say, a week — but don’t want to stay in a hotel?

Phillips Development & Realty, developers of the Mosaic and freshly rebranded Montage towers across Almeda from Hermann Park, is handling rentals of Mosaic condos owned by investors — as well as rentals of the many units the developer has been unable to unload. Now a source passes on a new rumor to Swamplot: Some of those available rentals may be extremely short-term.

Not a bad idea for a property that’s close to the Med Center! With that rumor, though, come a couple more:

Phillips’s Corporate Leasing Director will be taking over management of the Mosaic’s homeowners association from the company that had been running it since the building opened last year. But Phillips’s new tenure at the HOA may be a short-term one too. Why?

Because Florida Capital Real Estate Partners, the Mosaic’s lender, might just be foreclosing on Phillips’s property soon — both the Mosaic and an apartment complex in Tampa called the Casa Bella. Swamplot’s source also suggests that Camelot Realty Group — the company that’s clearly been very busy handling the Mosaic’s many condo sales — may already have had discussions with Florida Capital about taking over onsite rental duties from Phillips once the foreclosure takes place.

Photo of Mosaic and Montage: Swamplot inbox

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Apartments
12/01/08 10:18am

A Collection of Sticks: Costco Apartment Construction Collapse

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Greenway Plaza, Hazards, New Construction: Residential
12 Comments

A 3-story section of The Collection, the Morgan Group’s 528-unit apartment complex under construction behind the new Costco on Weslayan and Richmond apparently collapsed early Sunday. A Swamplot reader sends in these photos of the scene following the accident, along with a few sharp comments:

The 4 story “stick built” apartment facility known as “The Collection” (www.collectionliving.com) became a “collection of sticks” early Sunday morning. It seems as if the contractors and the Morgan Group were in a Thanksgiving hurry to get home for turkey and giblets and forgot to “tie in” to the adjoining 3 and 4 story section of the main building.

Good thing it was a Sunday as Monday morning will bring back a tribe of contractors to push to get this facility on the Harris County Tax Roll by Summer 2009….Someone could have been seriously hurt if not killed. The Morgan Group should be “thankful” this Thanksgiving that it was not the case – and that they can “rush” to completion.

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Apartments
11/18/08 9:13am

Maybe Siennna Is Available?

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Cinco Ranch, Fort Bend County, New Construction: Residential, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, Senior Living, Sienna Plantation
3 Comments

MAYBE SIENNNA IS AVAILABLE? Marketing new themed apartments has got to be tough these days — all those great Southern European-y names are already taken! “Out-of-state developers thought they had coined a great name for their senior living apartments in Katy. Then they found out a nearby master-planned community had already claimed the same name. A joint venture led by Georgia-based Formation Development Group LLC broke ground in May on The Sienna at Cinco Ranch apartments at 24001 Cinco Village Center Blvd., west of Houston. But the site was a little too close for comfort to the Sienna Plantation master-planned community located south of Cinco Ranch in Fort Bend County. So Formation Development formulated a slight change of plans — The Sienna at Cinco Ranch is now going to be called The Solana at Cinco Ranch. ‘There was a little bit of confusion,’ says Karen Thompson, a spokeswoman for the development firm. ‘They wanted to have something that was going to be unique to their property.'” [Houston Business Journal]

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