TheNiche

The easy way is to get yourself a Realtor first and let them show you the market. ...but beware! The higher the sale price, the more money they make. It is your own agent's incentive to get you to pay more. My own approach is to identify a bunch of properties that I like--don't worry if they aren't listed--everything is for sale at the right price. Ideally, you can find something that is FSBO (For Sale By Owner) or otherwise not listed with an agent. Those are sweet deals because both the buyer and seller can benefit from not having to split up 6% of the cost of the home between Realtors. Then you just take it to a good title company and use a mortgage broker to originate your loan. Usually, deals don't work out as sweet as that. Somewhere or another, a Realtor gets involved. Depending on the nature of the transaction, things can get dicey. Lots of decisions have to be made by the seat of your pants. If you've got a smart one that's watching your back, you've struck gold. Be picky if you use one. Don't get a stupid one or someone (like me) will take advantage of you if your agent doesn't accidentally screw up the transaction on their own. The corollary to that statement is, however, if the seller you're dealing with has a stupid one, you can use their Realtor, creating all sorts of neat conflicts of interest that can be worked in your favor under the right circumstances. ...just remember that if the seller feels taken advantage of, they know your new home better than you do and probably kept a set of keys. Always change out the locks. The last bit of advice: patience is a virtue. It never pays to be desperate...unless you're genuinely prepared to walk away from a deal if you can't get the price you want. In that case, threaten the seller to renew your current lease because his or her property is really the only thing that you've found that you really really like, and if you can't get that one, then it isn't worth it to you to buy anything. It's a lie, of course, but it puts the ball in their court with money on the table and strokes their ego at the same time because you'll leave the impression of someone that really cares about the property that they've spent so many years of their lives living in and maintaining with all those personal touches.

I still like the idea of using special districts with taxing authority, personally. That way, any neighborhood that wants to do it can do it, they can do it how they want it, and every neighborhood that does it has to pay for it (i.e. be accountable for their expenditures). And instead of paying for it in their electric bills, they pay for it as a property tax--a measure that is probably less confusing than an obscure surcharge on the electric bill. If each SN gets to decide what they want to do and they know that the costs of whatever they do will be spread throughout the City with only a tiny margin of those costs coming back to haunt them, then every single SN has an incentive to select the most expensive possible arrangement. It is the same reason that when it gets cold in my condo during the winter, I used to turn on the shower and use the condo association's scorching hot water to heat my place like a sauna than bother turning on the heater. I had to pay electricity myself. My neighbors paid the water bill. ...now, I make more money, so I can afford morality.

So the costs are recouped through higher electric surcharges, differing depending on costs incurred in each individual SN, is that right?

It's usually better to figure out how many resources we want to allocate to the issue and to particular neighborhoods first and plan around that. No sense in having Kashmere plan for utility pole replacement if it ain't going to happen anywhere in that area in the next 15 years or more.

It isn't really as bad as it looks. A lot of college students, particularly at UH and other second-tier urban universities, don't fit the traditional mold of a well-adjusted middle-class kid whose pre-determined destiny was to go to college and get a degree without having to work in anything more than a part-time job (if that). Many are first-generation college students and are very cognizant of the labor market. When times are good, they drop out and participate in a lucrative economy. When times are bad, they go to school. It also has a lot to do with interest rates, which correlate to the national economy. It is interesting, actually, because the 2001-2002 national recession affected Houston the worst in 2003, and the local effect only caused enrollment to peak in 2004.

No, it'll peel or fade over time. It's inevitable. Seems like some of the color treatments might be mixed into the concrete itself, though, and I'd imagine that with occaisional power washing, that might continue looking good for decades to come.

I have to admit, I prefer the minimalist skeletal look of this one to the substantial look of the faux-brick garage serving Camden City Center that a couple of people have cited elsewhere in this forum as the right way to do parking garages, but I can also appreciate violet's issues with the light pollution and the matter about cars' headlights pointing directly into neighboring buildings. If only they'd mitigated those externalities, I'd be giving two thumbs up on this project.

Look at Uptown. Most of their lines have been run above-ground in low-visibility rights-of-way. If the SNs were turned into taxing entities so that each neighborhood paid for its utility relocation (or had the ability to allocate their funds to alternate investments, as the locals saw fit), I'd be OK with that. If River Oaks residents want their utilities relocated and are willing to pay for it, then so be it. If 5th Ward would rather spend the money on social services or just not be taxed at all, then so be it.

Me too, especially for something completed so recently. Steel and concrete prices have risen so much that I just don't see how this is possible, even using low-cost construction techniques like tunnel-form (think Mercer).

I was in Galveston last week and spoke with a guy that drives the tractors back and forth that rake the beaches for seaweed. At this time of year, according to him, if the beaches don't get raked, they can build up a mound of the stuff that is five feet high. Seems hard for me to imagine, except possibly at low tide, but it makes perfect sense that the seaweed would capture sand, fill in, and create new beach.

Not a chance. At least not for a long, long time. Parking in downtown is tight enough as it is and has been a limiting factor for filling up existing office buildings. This one garage will not end all the parking problems, much less accomodate all the new demand for parking that will surely be created over the course of its functional life. More likely, you'll see more parking garages built to accomodate the growth.

If it's that important, at least have the City, a TIRZ, or a Management District do it systematically throughout particular neighborhoods rather than creating a disorganized zig-zagging patchwork of moved-around poles. The Uptown Managment District has done a good job at this.

This is the critical issue. Land values in a lot of Midtown have gotten beyond the point at which they can support lower-density projects, but the higher density stuff costs more to build and ultimately to buy or lease, except that the land values rose so quickly that it didn't give much of a chance for supportive retail to develop. The result is sort of a tricky circumstance where only higher-income singles and childless couples can or would ever want or can afford to live there, except that there are better urban environments at the same price level in other neighborhoods.

This is true, but the introduction of visitors to the mix of residents and office employees can create a security risk...and for people paying highrise prices, there is a strong tendency within that market to seek a commensurate level of building security. How do you handle water purification and wastewater treatment and removal?

Midtown, I can see as a new Gulfton if we have a major economic bust at some point beyond the next 10 years. The area east of downtown inside of about York has relatively few apartment complexes, though, and those that are there are pretty well spaced out from one another. South of Mckinney, there aren't any. And it is massive blocks of high-density apartments that create a Gulfton-like risk factor. With medium-density townhomes and a higher rate of home ownership, there is hope. Surely, there will be some pockets that degenerate into crappy areas (the former Markle Steel site comes to mind), but there is enough of a mix of product that it won't likely be throughout IMO. Also, there are parts of Montrose that better exemplify that "South Bronx-like" streetscape than in the East Downtown warehouse district on account of that the warehouse district tends to have larger parcels of land than do neighborhoods formerly platted for single-family homes. Larger parcels mean that common area driveways on the interior of a development are more common. Psst...hardi plank is a concrete fiber board. It may not look all that slick, but if properly installed, it'll stand the test of time far better than just about anything else.

I drove within eyeshot of it late last night. It was all lit up and the lighting was indeed very distracting. The design isn't at all sensitive to its surroundings. The person that was in the car with me is certainly no architectural afficianado, but she commented how nice it looks being so well lit, contrasting against the darkness of the other buildings. And from a distance at night, with the parking garage as a focus, it does kind of have a cool skeletal look. She wanted to see more parking garages built this way. I had to explain about the lighting being a problem for the Commerce Towers residents for the issue to sink in for her. We also weren't close enough to make out how rough the concrete treatment was.

Red made some very astute comments, but his conclusion of "0" is incorrect. Traffic would improve, but so would the cost of living. As it became more expensive to eat out, get lawn services, maid services, or other low-skill tasks done, people would do more of these kinds of things themselves or not at all (where possible). It would improve traffic, but at a pretty significant cost in other factors that influence quality of life. Think of it as a cost-based recession, which as Red pointed out, does decrease traffic on the roads. IMO, we'd be worse off for it.

I wouldn't expect much of a change from the Wal-Mart. Your greater concern should be that the starter home market is weakening as a result of more stringent lending practices and oversupply of new product.

To be clear, I'm weighing the value of a residential/office mixed-use structure vs. residential next to office, rather than simply long commute vs. short commute. To burb or not to burb is not at issue.

Most people don't like being that tied to their job. If they don't like what they do, being in the same building for so much of their waking life creates a feeling of entrapment. Additionally, the interests of both residential and office tenants are to keep a secure premesis, but that becomes exceptionally difficult if the same elevator bank serves different populations that come and go at different hours. The best solution would likely entail giving each building use its own lobby with either a seperate entrance or an access-controlled interior passageway, but then you may as well have one office building next to a residential building, joined by a skywalk or tunnel. Same difference, more or less. ...now live-work units--that's a whole different story altogether. Those really can be sweet little deals, but the target market for those tends to be an entrepreneurial or telecommuting crowd, so I come back full circle to the bit about people needing to be happy with their work.

I spoke with a rep from Post Properties a year or so back, and they commented that one of the most challenging factors about their urban projects is that retailers--especially restaurants--generate a lot of garbage but can't just take it out the back door and put it in an out-of-sight dumpster like they can with a strip center. And they don't like taking garbage through the front of the establishment. There's certainly a highest-and-best-use thing going on downtown. For several years, the highest use was residential pretty much throughout. It seems as though there's now a better mix of sites. Also something for shasta to consider, btw, is that residential and office uses don't often mix all that well because institutional investors tend to look for office properties or residential properties, but rarely both. If an investor wants both downtown residential and downtown office in their portfolio so as to diversify away risk, it is easy enough to buy all or part of two seperate buildings, but if they want only one and not the other, which is entirely possible depending on varying market conditions and expectations, then they'll move along to something that suits them better. Additionally, it is difficult to justify a rent premium on space in buildings that mix residential and office. Retail mixes well with either use, but there are really very few people that would rather lease a home in the same building that they work--most prefer to seperate the living and working function by at least a short walk, if not by a greater distance. The greater virtue in mixing uses is not so much to give a building as many functions as possible so much as it is to ensure that the elements that comprise a neighborhood are well within walking distance of one another.

What they were telling you was the sum of what is physically occupied and those units for which they have accepted applications but don't yet have income. To a financier, all that matters is cash flow. All that matters is the 92%. Also, the one-bedroom units tend to have the highest occupancy levels. I don't doubt your figures in the least, but it is important to bear in mind the financial risks from the developers' perspective when assessing real estate markets. Midtown is a somewhat different story because midrises don't cost as much to build as do highrises and the land doesn't cost quite as much, which means that they can be made affordable to a greater number of people. It is easier to justify Midtown or 4th Ward at this time.

The most that Post Rice can get is $1.77 per square foot for a 1/1 unit that is 733 square feet. Their average lease rate is $1.54 per square foot. Not even close to the rates that are required to justify new highrise residential construction, which is somewhere north of $2.00 per square foot, and at which point, demand really thins out. Also, as of 6/20/07, Post Rice was 92% occupied, down from a peak of 99% in November 2005. Aside from a few rental units in the Four Seasons that are outrageously priced, the rental units in 917 Main have the highest average ask rates in downtown, at $1.75 per square foot.

These fellows take a crack at it in a report comissioned for the Downtown Management District, but their conclusions are limited to the neighborhood level. It is a little off, I think, because there are a lot of different kinds of consumers represented in downtown Houston, the only one that really has a critical mass is office-oriented convenience retail. Dining has done fairly well because they can work the office crowd, hotel crowd, and some residents, but bars and entertainment establishments are in a state of flux right now, and it's hard to pin down that market. Destination retail, such as apparel stores, has always floundered in downtown. The Park Shops at Houston Center are doing terribly. Houston Pavilions could really make or break this segment in my estimation, and there is no foregone conclusion one way or the other. The folks that did this study do not attempt to figure out the suitability of individual parcels for retail. Your question becomes more difficult when applied to a specific site within downtown Houston because of traffic (both public and private) and pedestrian volume and patterns, visibility, adjacency to various types of property, the levels of occupancy and upside opportunities for population and employment growth in adjacent and nearby properties, and of course physical suitability--the Wells Fargo Building is never going to have outdoor storefront retail, for instance, in spite of the density of the skyline district. To try and tackle all these issues, a broker/appraiser/developer looks at retail offerings that are most comparable to what is on his site and can observe how rapidly retail space has absorbed and the frequency of tenant turnover given the rents that those similar properties are charging.

It will be torn down, per HBJ.