04/03/14 11:45am

Photos of 11718 N. Kathy Ave., Fondren Park, Houston

If you’re as impressed as we are by the free-rotated and seemingly free-spirited snapshots attached to the listing (see actual screenshot of the entire HAR photo gallery, above), you may be interested in the curious for-sale history of the property at 11718 N. Kathy Ave. in Fondren Park — as recorded by the MLS, at least. The 3-bedroom, 2-bath 1967 home is currently marked “pending,” but records show it’s had that same status since April 18th of last year. The current listing appears to date from September 2012, when it went on the market for $70,000. That’s still the current listed asking price. And $70,000 is also the amount the 1,771-sq.-ft. home on a 12,280-sq.-ft. lot sold for in 1999, according to MLS records.

Still Pending
02/03/14 10:30am

From the self-described “guy with a quadcopter” behind Skyhawk Videos, here’s new aerial footage from high above the brand-spanking-new intersection of I-10 and Houston’s latest orbiting ringroad, the Grand Parkway. The view is primarily to the southeast, with a few tilts and glances in either direction; the new section of State Hwy. 99, aka the Grand Pkwy.’s Segment E, begins in the upper right of the initial image and extends to the lower left, across the Katy Prairie to the outlet mall in Cypress, running over an ancient burial ground in the process. The highway is carrying the last of its free traffic; tolls kicked in on Friday, about a month and a half after the segment opened and just a few days after Skyhawk’s drone shot.

In the lower right of the image is the new 151,600-sq.-ft. Katy Costco and gas station, scheduled to open to the public this Thursday. Its 14-acre site is the focus of its own separate video as well, filmed on January 25th:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Grand Parkway, Costco, Cars!
09/20/13 3:30pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: SIGHTS UNSEEN “Pictures don’t sell homes. People don’t buy sight unseen. At best, high quality photos will give you a few more showings (by people who were enticed by the photos, thus not likely your buyer). List a property in Montrose, and take 6 photos of various homeless people, old-man armpits, and urinals, and it’ll still sell in a day.” [Cody, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Back Carpet] Illustration: Lulu

08/28/13 4:30pm

Who says Houston isn’t fast-paced and funky when the sun goes down? If you’ve got a minute, check out this time-lapse video made by Spenser Harrison. It takes in all the lit-up hotspots in H-Town: Main St., the Galleria, Reliant Stadium — heck, even the Pierce Elevated!

Video: Spenser Harrison

08/23/13 1:00pm

Might the distorted photos show how the square footage grew from HCAD’s record (576 sq. ft.) to what it says in this cozy cottage’s listing (653 sq. ft.)? Playful and a bit mind-bending, the panoramic views focus on the innards of the updated 1944-45 home on Art St., located in the Nitsch neighborhood near the Hardy Toll Road and W. Little York. Twist this way for a dizzying array of space-defying images:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

07/26/13 12:15pm

An intrepid Redditor recently explored the vacant Oakbrook Apartments and snuck away with these photos. The 222-unit complex, currently for sale, sits on 7.3 acres at 5353 De Soto St., east of Antoine and north of W. Tidwell, right up against White Oak Bayou. Writes the creative trespasser: “The majority of [the apartments] are unsecured at this point. There really didn’t seem to be much of anything left in any of the apartments, and I went in a lot of them. Most of the drywall is crumbling and you can smell the mildew from 20 yards away. Wiring and other appliances have been torn out in most of them.”

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

03/19/13 10:00am

Looks like this mile and a half extension of a hike and bike trail leading north out of Terry Hershey Park is ready to go. Photos popped up on HAIF yesterday that follow the trail as it dives beneath the Katy Fwy. and banks west between Highway 6 and Eldridge Pkwy. along the Addicks Dam.

According to the Terry Hershey Park website, this extension now makes a continuous ride possible from neighborhoods around Wilcrest, Kirkwood, and Dairy Ashford to the Addicks Park and Ride to the northwest.

Here are a few more photos of what you’ll see:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

03/04/13 2:00pm

And the celebratory stunt that the Art Guys pulled this month was walking the entire length of Little York Rd. Moving on, apparently, from their uprooting in early January at the Menil Collection, the shadowy figures Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing completed “The Longest Street in Houston” last Tuesday, walking the 29.6 miles of Little York from Mesa Road to where the concrete ends at Jasmine Crest Lane in Settlers Village.

This is some of what they saw:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

02/22/13 12:00pm

The old Warwick — now Hotel ZaZa — provided one of the most beautiful views in the world, as far as Bob Hope was concerned, but that was long before photos of the Main St. hotel’s Room 322 showed up on Reddit. User joelikesmusic started a thread on Monday in which the room — booked for a colleague by mistake, apparently — is described as a “goth dungeon closet.” And the photos do reveal the room’s peculiar decor:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

02/15/13 4:08pm

Ah, Friday: Why not take a stroll down Binz St. in the Museum District and have a look at what’s going on? Let’s head east from here: the corner of La Branch and Binz, near the Children’s Museum.

Our guide, Swamplot reader David Hollas, provides the photos and the observations:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

02/04/13 12:45pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: REAL ESTATE PHOTOS THAT ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD “I honestly love the house; it’s a very well-done renovation. But please, agents, quit with the HDR photos! I don’t know what looks stranger, the outdoor patio where the first floor appears to be in flames, or the close-encounters-of-the-third-kind turquoise glow outside every window.” [Dave102, commenting on Beaming with Built-Ins in Lakeside Estates]

01/02/13 1:15pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: JUST VISIT THE PLACE ALREADY “This is why, IMO, photos (or at least worrying about the quantity or quality) are not that important. People search for a price range, size, area, etc. After that, they’ll take their list of properties that fit and view them in person. Unless the pictures are TERRIBLE then the property will be viewed. And if they’re OUTSTANDING then the property will have to be viewed anyway (unless you’re going after someone buying sight unseen, which is rare). Photos do, IMO, almost nothing to sell a house. Then again, I could be saying this as I suck at taking photos so normally just snap off a few pics with my cell phone and call it a day . . .” [Cody, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: In the Box]

05/08/12 12:07pm

Here’s the fly-over (and -through) tour of the new BBVA Compass Stadium for the Houston Dynamo you’ve been waiting for — that is, if you were left hungry for more by the flyover tour of the stadium under construction captured by Brent Hall’s drone videocamera last summer. The big difference between that tour and this one, of course, is that the structure is now complete. The stadium’s first game takes place this Thursday, ahead of the Dynamo season opener over the weekend.

How do you make videos like this? With this sort of thing.

Video: Accent Aerial Photography