travelguy_73

IIRC, there was another Houston episode this year with two brothers in college whose parents (Meyerland residents) were buying them a townhome near St. Thomas. They looked at a couple of newish townhomes, and an old house in the Montrose area, and then settled (shock) on one of the townhomes. Given that they wanted two masters and some privacy, their choice made sense. No comment on whether it was a smart investment or not. Oh, and there was a suburban ultra-contemporary on My House Is Worth What last year. It looked like Cantoni threw up all over it...just too much, and I don't think it had appreciated much at all since the guy built it in his bachelor days.

Best me to it! We used this product on our house back in 2007 and it blends perfectly with our wavy-shingles. It is pricey, but if you only have a few dozen to replace, then it is quite cost-effective.

While I don't think MainPlace will be "open" by any means, since Hess will have a single tenant, it is likely to be closed tight.

Thanks for posting the LWV links. I have been looking for nonpartisan material to help me understand Props 2 and 3, and this goes a long way towards that.

We bought our 9-light door from Historic Houston last year, and love it. I think we paid about $350 for the door, and then countless hours refinishing it.

http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2009/09/21/daily58.html?ed=2009-09-28&ana=e_du_pub From the Houston Business Journal:

Ohhhh, basements! Lots of potential! You have a great style that I'm sure will attract lots of buyers there. I'm sure it will be interesting to work on homes in a different region. Good luck, you will be missed here!

I used Charles Bauer at Bauer Air Conditioning to move one of my A/C units, redo a lot of ductwork under the house, and relocate a return air. Did a good job, and the price seemed reasonable (though do you ever really know?). He was recommended to me via a colleague who used him to replace a couple of units.

October is prime planting time, as the winters here are better for new plants than the summers (gives them many months to get settled and prepare for the heat). Jasmine grows just fine on iron fencing, as you can simply train it up the rods, and then from rod-to-rod. Eventually it will fill in and form a pretty solid hedge. We are about to do just that with a 48" iron fence that surrounds our AC units. Will take 2-4 years to completely fill in, depending on sun. A final word of advice: If you have grass growing up to the fence, you would do well to add a narrow (1') border down the fence line for the Jasmine. As it grows, it will be hard to trim back the grass without hacking the lower part of the jasmine. You can then cover the new bed with mulch and run your weedeater along it without worry of the new plants. BTW, Houston Garden Center on the west loop has nice tall 3 gallon plants for about $9 each. We just bought 4 for our AC project.

Ditto. You will be hard-pressed to find a vine that will cover as well as Star Jasmine, yet won't completely want to take over everything else in sight like other vines. The first two years are critical, though: You will really want to stay on top of the new growth, training it evenly/consistently through the fence openings. Many people sort of let it do whatever for a year, and then try and train it, but by then the growth is stiff and much less pliable. I'm currently training mine on wire in an X pattern on a brick wall, and get out there every two weeks to train the new growth. It's strangely therapeutic.

Every old Houston picture seems to have smoke in the background. I used to think the same thing, but now think it was factory exhaust. Can't imagine breathing that in every day...or maybe we do, it's just clear now!

I'm just happy to not have a Tow Truck 500 on the freeway every time a break down occurs

Podocarpus should be on your list. Can be maintained into a nice upright form, and works very well in narrow spaces. I also have a thing for Mexican Weeping Bamboo, ever since seeing it at Buchanan's a few years ago. Horsetail reed is another interesting form, but can be invasive, so plant in controlled areas.

Yeah, I can't find it either (can't find much of anything with the HAIF search function). I think this might be right . Actually, now that I look at it again, I believe the northern permiter is at Rusk, and doesn't encompass the commercial land on Harrisburg. Another generally good way to tell when you are driving around is setback. I have noticed that Woodleigh and the other surrounding neighborhoods have a shallower home setback (might be dreaming on that one, though). Guess the others were more working class neighborhoods and Eastwood was the nice (Ha!) one in the area.

There was a cool map website posted on HAIF some time ago that allowed users to contribute data. I contributed the specific boundaries (as I know them) of Eastwood proper, which is boundaried by Cullen, Harby, Dumble, and Harrisburg (mostly--someone correct me if I am wrong). However, I believe the civic club represents a much larger area, and whether that is good or bad is another topic. Eastwood-related: This book-in-progress by Billie Mercer just came out in the latest Eastwood Newsletter. I haven't "flipped" through it all yet, but it has potential to be something very neat. Eastwood Today

I'm a CPA, but my background is Excel and corporate-level Oracle solutions...obviously $overkill for a small business. However, you might be well-served posting on this forum: http://www.accounting-and-bookkeeping-tips.com/accounting-forum/index.php I think that Quickbooks has a real estate template, which might be of benefit to you.

Filed under Eastwood amenities, Frank Mandola (Mandola Deli) recently purchased the yellow house next door to his deli on Leeland and closed down the day labor service that was there (good news in itself). The house is currently being offered up for anyone who wants to move it off the property. If there are no takers, it will be torn down. The deli will then be expanding. They will have more parking, an outdoor dining area, and a beer/wine license, plus expanded evening hours (I think their model is the Dry Creek/Cedar Creek "chain," though hopefully with better service ). I work with his wife, and she says they are very excited about the expansion, but that it will not happen overnight. So I would expect this time next year we will have another place to get out and meet the neighbors (I'm not a fan of Bohemo's). So improvements do come, albeit slowly.

That makes more sense. Austin (and Reagan) pull from much larger and more "diverse" areas than the elementary schools. sorry I wasn't clear, Lantrip is Eastwood area, and Oxford is Heights (finally remembered the name). Well, Heights is much further down the path, and so the cost of entry is higher which means residents who can afford to get in and do major renovations are likely older. In Eastwood, Lindale, Riverside Terrace, et al, 20-somethings can afford to get in and do work on their homes (though the availability of credit to do that work is limited right now). However, you are right that most 20-somethings may think they know what they want, but really they don't (at least that was the case with me, whose taste has changed almost 180-degrees in the past 10 years).

We don't have kids now, but are starting the adoption process in the next two years, so schools are a big sticking point for us, and we will likely determine whether we stay or go based upon how we decide to handle their education (public or private). A good friend of mine taught at Lantrip last year, and now teaches at one in the Heights (the name escapes me), and says it is night and day, especially with regards to parent participation. He said Lantrip is actually a good elementary school, but that the parents aren't nearly as involved as those at the Heights school. He also echoes that the middle- and high schools in our area are terrible. Then again, he says the same about the zoned middle- and high schools for the Heights, so I guess that tells us that change in the school system is slow, starts at the ground (K-5), and moves up. That makes sense given that it is typically the younger people in the gentrifying areas that are most motivated to improve the area, and want the schools their children are in to reflect that. My neighbors with kids (there aren't many!) send them to private school. They are quite pleased to have a nice low mortgage that affords them that luxury. Me, I would rather get more out of my property taxes and use the area schools.

I'm on Jefferson (in the forgotten side of Eastwood, LOL), but what an interesting story on the Clay house (which will now come up in search engine searches on that address, so let's hope it is true!). If you don't mind the brick 30's style of home, then that will open up options within Eastwood, Idylwood (my old neighborhood), and perhaps Lindale, though I know next to nothing about that neighborhood. I personally prefer brick for maintenance reasons, though the interiors of the 30's homes in this price range won't typically have the extensive woodwork that the 20's homes will (each decade of homes tends to lose interior style, from what I have seen). They mostly all have extensive hardwoods, though, and tons of windows (we have 29 or so in only 1600 sq ft). As for retail, it is a problem around here. Other than Mandola's Deli, which is within walking distance, and the auto parts store on Telephone, I can't tell you the last time I shopped locally. It's a shame, really, but I have gained an inderstanding of how important demographic information is to finance retail, and so I know retail will come in time. I do love the proximity to downtown (we can leave the house and be parked at Toyota Center/Discovery Green in 10 minutes), and the Columbia Tap bike trail, which we use all the time to get to Hermann Park and to our friends in Riverside Terrace. Those are huge draws for us.

I have lived in Eastwood for about 2 years now, thankfully in one of the more aesthetically pleasing homes . My street is a mix of single family and duplexes and LOTS of garage apartments. Our house was a mess when we bought it, not dilapidated or anything like that, just really sad. We saw that it had potential, and now it is one of the best homes on the block (from the outside, we haven't finished the interior). I have to say that we were very excited when we moved in, thinking we were going to fix our place up, and that the neighbors would be so excited that they would throw us a party and then immediately start work on their homes--errr, hasn't quite happened yet. I have helped other neighbors with their yards, but ache for them to do more. I'm not very patient, which is a bad trait in a gentrifying area! IMO, the economy slowed things down considerably, and right now only a couple of homes on my block are undergoing any sort of work. As Dan mentioned, the housing stock for sale is VERY hit and miss. We drove around for weeks every day at lunch looking for for sale by owner signs because we had heard that there were lots of private sales (there are, and that screws up comps as well). There are currently two homes on my block for sale, one renovated, one needing TLC, but not a major reno. Neither of them have sold, , which is depressing. They could both use a price correction, and I wish the owners would just do it so we could get their Days On Market to stop adding up. But back to your original question: I'm positive on Eastwood, but I don't think that it will see the same wholesale changes than Woodland Heights has seen, at least not for a very long time. I am, hoever, pleased to see the townhomes east of downtown continuing to be built, not because I like them, but because they attract the same type of young professional that Eastwood needs. And as the townhome buyers move east of downtown, they tell their friends, and word spreads.

Like shape and interior looks great, but the wheel/tire package is way undersized.

We're DINKs, so I guess we have more free time. When we have kids in the next couple of years, I imagine we might be asking the same question about the value of satellite, especially as internet-based TV makes inroads. As it is, our list of recorded shows and Netflix movies in the queue are more than we can watch. If I could pay for channels a la carte, I would for sure!

VW has designs to become a larger presence in the US (have some very lofty sales goals--the Toyota of Germany?). I sincerely hope that doesn't mean becoming bland and soulless like Toyota, though maybe if they can keep some interest and increase reliability, then it is a fair trade-off.

It isn't rude, but people value different forms of entertainment differently. I cringe at the thought of paying more than $40 or $50 for a concert or stage ticket, but people pay many times that because they enjoy that type of entertainment. Yet I will fly halfway around the world to go to spend 4 hours at an auto show. If, like many of us, you have invested a few thousand in a home theater, you naturally want to maximize your enjoyment of that purchase, and unless you are a blu-ray junkie, a quality satellite system allows this for relatively little money. And as for HBO and Showtime, I think that most people will tell you how worthless they are. I watch more movies on FX than I ever did on those repeat-crazy channels.