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TheNiche

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Everything posted by TheNiche

  1. TheNiche
    Yeah, you just hit on one of the demand drivers for Houston's midrise and highrise housing products. I had the priviledge to look over some demographic data for a particularly expensive highrise apartment building last year. It was crawling with ex-Manhattanites and was also very well-represented by other citizens of NYC, Boston, Chicago, and from many international cities. It seems that people moving from urban areas tend to gravitate toward housing with which they're familiar. Anecdotal evidence from my own personal experience also suggests that although Houstonians of moderate incomes may balk at rental rates in midrise and highrise apartments, many folks from the northeast see our 'upscale' urban apartments as inexpensive and will shell out the money for them without a second thought.
  2. TheNiche
    I know precisely what 1950 smells like. The bouquet of scents is too complex to describe fully, but...think about grandparents. Especially if they've lived in the same house without doing major renovations for about 56 years.
  3. TheNiche
    Yeah, but what are their preferences, especially at the local level? Not every single one of them is going to want to live in a highrise as compared to another kind of home of similar value, and of those that do, how many can afford it? In other words, how large is the market? These are questions to which I don't have answers. Intuitively, I'm strongly inclined to believe that it'll justify more product, but it is impossible to say how much without some pretty hardcore consumer research.
  4. TheNiche
    There's a lot of talk about urban professionals and empty nesters, but I have yet to come across a local source that reliably estimates the proportions of these groups that prefer highrise living to other housing products, much less broken further down by annual income. So the concept is very intuitive, but hasn't been verified empirically in any useful way.
  5. TheNiche
    I live right near there in One Montreal Place. I can't speak for residents of other complexes, but crime issues tend to be vehicular around mine. Along the streets, there are a fair number of stolen cars. In the complexes, there are occaisional vehicle break-ins. I've been there for many years, and although I can recall having heard of a few cases of home intrusion and burglary, I am not aware of any violent crime. No assaults, murders, or rapes. There is plenty of new residential construction around the TMC, but almost all of the new stuff is going to be very much more expensive. The older stuff around Holly Hall is very well-located, has a huge number of medical students (good neighbors), and can only possibly appreciate as the TMC literally grows into the neighborhood.
  6. TheNiche
    I know Cambridge. They've developed or currently own most everything between Fannin and Knight that is north of about El Paseo. They're also working on the development of a big medical office tower atop a three-story medical-retail mall along Fannin. To my knowledge, they've never done residential development. Everything is office or medical office...and now medical-retail.
  7. TheNiche
    It unceremoniously stops near Orem after passing through a really odd collection of big gaudy churches.
  8. TheNiche
    Actually, TXDoT didn't build feeder roads, but that doesn't mean that private developers can't do it for them out of their own pockets, if they own the land. There's already a section or two where this is about to happen. Also, to my knowledge, there are no protected wetlands along 288 inside of the beltway. Sims Bayou is a ditch. You're right that the typical form of linear commercial sprawl is still affected adversely, but I'm not really asking why there isn't more commercial development, so much as I am why there aren't more rooftops just off of the highway.
  9. TheNiche
    Yeah, I can relate. When I first got into the real estate biz, my very first project was in your hood. My aunt insisted that she tag along and pack heat to ensure that I didn't get shot while I was scoping things out and taking photos of comps and the general area. Not having lived in Houston for that long, I took her half-seriously...that is just unseriously enough to do it by myself and unarmed, but seriously enough to be really really on guard the whole time, with a near-constant adrenaline rush and seriously negative bias. But as I went about doing my own thing, it became more and more apparent that folks were really very accepting...they certainly noticed and paid close attention to the white guy in dark sunglasses and business attire (complete with tie and sports jacket on one day) walking down the street with a nice new camera with a long telescoping lens, occaisionally snapping pics of retail centers and apartment complexes from a distance (or possibly in their minds, the people standing outside of them)...don't get me wrong about that. But I got more questions about my welfare and safety than I did for handouts...or for that matter my camera. Turns out that most of the residents of these areas are older folks with a strong moral core. Who'd've thunk it? Now, that doesn't mean that my first choice for a place of residence is South Union, but there are worse places.
  10. TheNiche
    But historically, if you look at other parts of town, like around Acres Homes, developers seem to have followed a pretty predictable progression outward. I mean, Acres has never been much to look at, but it didn't keep Inwood from going in. Also, at least on the west side of 288, the crappy residential areas only tend to start south of the alignment of Airport Blvd. North of there is prairie...so even before 288 existed, why didn't the prairie fill in first? Pearland is only causing any impact to Houston at all because they've zoned out apartments. As a result, most of what should've been in Pearland has been pushed into this hole. There is a particularly large complex off of Orem that has recently gone in.
  11. TheNiche
    I have a theory about the vast prairies that lie south of the Loop, north of the Beltway, and along both sides of 288, extending from about Scott Street back towards Highway 90A. Am I right, or is this just some fluke that we have countryside so close to such a burgeoning urban area? The theory goes like this: Development in the area has historically been slow; the reason for this is likely that State Highway 288 was completed as a freeway in 1984, just prior to a major regional downturn that was particularly hard-felt in the housing market. As the region began to emerge from the downturn, much of the prairie land through which the freeway had been built remained undisturbed, but the few neighborhoods that had been built in the area prior to the freeway
  12. TheNiche
    Can you explain the logic? Perhaps I'm biased or just thick-headed, but wouldn't you want HQ to be as convenient to the greatest number of key personnel as possible? And is Houston considered a "division"? I thought that we were home to a number of their "divisions", as well as tiny fractions of countless other larger "divisions".
  13. TheNiche
    Wasn't Texaco bought by Chevron a good while back?
  14. TheNiche
    Why do you think that is?
  15. TheNiche
  16. TheNiche
    I drive through the TMC all the time on my way to other destinations, and as long as you aren't caught up in a daytime shift change, the traffic usually isn't too horrendous. Of course, I know the shortcuts.
  17. TheNiche
    I agree completely. It just removes one more confusing element from an already-confused streetgrid in that area and encourages park usage by people on their way to or coming out of special events. I'm not so thrilled with the idea of moving the utility station. There are PLENTY of vacant parking lots in that area, and adding another one probably isn't going to result in much new development. Besides, it would be really costly and Centerpoint has actually done a fairly nice job at making it look less hideous than it formerly was.
  18. TheNiche
    Well considering that Crawford is currently configured to remain on the surface as a pedestrian zone, you can bet that the lake isn't going to be on top of it. If this were any other street, I'd like the idea of sinking it. But Crawford is discontinuous as a result of the Arena's placement, so its traffic count is really low. With that in mind, the cost of implementing an underground street would include not only the $$$ but the opportunity to have used that underground space for more parking spaces. So IMO, it just isn't worth bothering.
  19. TheNiche
    Slumlording is actually a very good strategy. And there is potentially significant upside around UH which will result from future expansion plans. If your investment time horizon is at least 10 years, you'll definitely see significant appreciation in the area. If you can hold on for 20 years, all the better. I'm not sure that I'd buy lots, though, since shotgun shacks are often highly depreciated from the value of the property but still produce income in the interim.
  20. TheNiche
    Wow! 1.32 million square feet of new space is a lot to have come in all at once. According to Texas Medical Center, Inc., the gross physical plant space of the TMC is about 26 million square feet (old number, though, so there is probably a bit more). As many projects as are now in the pipeline for that area, I'm betting that there's a good four to five million square feet either proposed or under construction. In comparison, according to Grubb & Ellis' third quarter office report, the CBD has about 41.9 million square feet of office space. They don't count the Pavilions as being under construction yet, so they show zero construction of new office space. And to my knowledge, the Pavilions will only add about 220,000sf of loft offices...a drop in the bucket compared to the TMC's growth rate. So if we could expect for the TMC to have the equivalent of about 75% of downtown's office space by about 2010, and we allow for the TMC's current rate of growth to be sustainable and downtown's continues to be erratic, I'd entertain bets that by 2020 or 2025, the TMC could be of equal or greater size compared to downtown Houston. Wouldn't that be odd?
  21. TheNiche
    I remember that I used to see a lot of gulls in the expansive UH parking lots, too. I never see them anywhere else though... I wonder what makes them attracted to parking lots...
  22. TheNiche
    Let me guess...a coach taught your class. Yeah, it happened to me too.
  23. TheNiche
    If that were true, then how would they divide up the prize package that was supposed to go to the person with the winning submission?
  24. TheNiche
    Barring the possibility that some government entity somewhere has opened a bar, there is no such place as a public bar. I brought up the idea of smokers' rights only because it is absurd...I figured that you might then have an epiphany regarding the equally-absurd nature of non-smokers' rights, but I guess that I gave you too much credit.
  25. TheNiche
    Smoking is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to rising insurance costs, which are much more closely linked with insurance and tax policy as well as demographic shifts. In fact, the general decline in the percentage of the population that are smokers would likely indicate downward pressure on insurance costs...not that they couldn't admittedly be lower still. My key point, though, is that you have a choice as to whether you want to expose yourself to second hand smoke. Nobody forces you into a smokey bar or a restaurant except yourself. Very simple. If it is so low on your list of priorities, then why do you care? And if it stinks and stings so much, then why don't you care enough to think about it at the door? Is it the government's responsibility to protect you from your own forgetfulness? And if you want to talk about infringement of rights, what about smokers' rights? What about proprietors' rights? What right have you to tell them what they can and cannot do?
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