League City island idea calls for luxury living

Plan to include high-rise housing, boardwalk and room for boats

By NANCY SARNOFF
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

The owners of a 35-acre island in League City's South Shore Harbour have revealed plans for the property, a concept, they say, that is new for the Houston area.

They envision the Clear Lake island as an exclusive walkable community with single-family homes, high-rise condominiums and townhomes modeled after Charleston, S.C., architecture.

There will be no commercial development on the gated property, which they've renamed Beacon Island. (It used to be known as Lighthouse Island.) A 24-year-old lighthouse on the property will remain part of the project.

Parcels will be sold to developers who will build the homes and towers, said Houston-based Verandah Cos., which owns the land with Crow Holdings of Dallas.

Zeigler Cooper Architects designed a master plan that builders must adhere to.

In keeping with the Carolina coastal theme, the homes will be painted in muted pastels and have wide porches.

Gas lamps will line the streets.

The plan calls for 800 units, 85 boat slips and a boardwalk that's now under construction.

In addition to 12 large estate lots, which will sell for between $500,000 and $700,000, the concept includes townhomes, two midrise structures and two 25-story high-rises with 180 units apiece.

Housing prices are expected to range from $300,000 to $3 million.

Verandah's Robert Stratton expects most people to make the island their primary home.

"We're looking for doctors, NASA people, engineers. Downtown commuters looking for primary residences," he said.

Looking for locals
Whether it's sales of suburban homes or downtown lofts, a common question throughout the recent housing boom has been, "Who's buying all these properties?"

At the Herrin building, a historic condo conversion just east of downtown, the answer is somewhat unexpected: not one Houstonian.

"Everyone that buys is from the West Coast, East Coast or up north," developer Mir Azizi of Caspian Homes said.

Maybe it's because people from the coasts are more used to urban living, where transitioning areas are seen as fashionable.

East of downtown is clearly still in the midst of change.

New condos and townhomes are being built next to vacant buildings and old warehouses. There are few restaurants close by, much less grocery stores.

Homes in the area are still relatively affordable.

Prices in the Herrin start in the $130,000s.

But many of the lofts are small, so the price per square foot is high.

The units — mostly flats — have an urban feel with original brick walls, stained concrete floors and exposed ductwork.

The building is geared toward a very young market.

While each unit has a balcony, they're only accessible through the windows.

"For young people, it's a fun thing," Azizi said.

"There's no way I could sell a unit like this to someone 40 years old. That's not my client."

For those interested, there's still room for locals.

Just 14 lofts in the 52-unit building have been sold.

A welcome detour
While consumers were frustrated when har.com was down for several days last week after a hacking incident, Mark Woodroof of Prudential Gary Greene, Realtors was elated.

Traffic doubled on his company's Web site, as house hunters figured out some firms have much of the same information on their sites as HAR, the Houston Association of Realtors, does on its.

"We pulled our traffic over the weekend and it was like someone turned on a light switch," Woodroof said.

Companies like Prudential Gary Greene buy data feeds from the Realtor association and re-sort the information for their own Web sites.

Search tools on other realty sites are hosted by the association's servers, which makes them vulnerable when something goes wrong at har.com.

Woodroof says the public should have access to for-sale listings, but they should get it from the brokerage community, not the trade association.

"We think practitioners should be the first point of contact," he said.

Investors Dropped Out of Housing Market in '06:

But Lots of Buyers Are Still Looking for a Vacation Place

Source: The Dallas Morning News
Publication date: 2007-05-01
By Steve Brown, The Dallas Morning News

May 1--Investors hightailed it out of the home market last year, a new report confirms.

But buyers were still shopping for vacation homes.

Sales of homes to investors plunged almost 30 percent in 2006, according to the study released Monday by the National Association of Realtors.

Even so, more than 1.6 million U.S. homes were purchased by investors.

About 22 percent of all houses sold last year were acquired by investors, compared with about 28 percent in 2005, the Realtors' research found.

It was the lowest percentage of investment sales in three years.

"We expected the drop in investment sales because speculators left the market in 2006, which caused investment sales to fall much faster than the primary market," economist David Lereah said in the report.

But buyers of vacation or weekend houses shrugged off worries about a stalling housing market.

About 14 percent of U.S. home sales last year were for vacation or weekend use -- a new high.

Sales of vacation homes increased almost 5 percent in 2006.

At the same time, sales of primary homes dropped about 4 percent.

"The rise in vacation home sales is based on strong demographic and lifestyle factors," Mr. Lereah said.

"The demographics favor vacation home sales because large numbers of consumers are in the prime buying ages, and buyers want recreational property for personal use -- investment is a secondary consideration," Mr. Lereah said.

The Realtors' survey found that the average vacation homebuyer is 44 years old, has a median household income of $102,200 and buys property within a few hundred miles of their primary residence.

The South and West were tops for vacation home demand.

On average, investor buyers were younger and had less income than vacation homebuyers, according to the Realtors' study. And they bought properties a median distance of 22 miles from home.

More than 40 percent of investment buyers said they were making the purchase to diversify their investments and generate rental income.

Investment buyers said they planned to hang onto their property for a median of five years.

The median price of vacation homes purchased was down slightly to $200,000.

The median priced investment home sold for $150,000 -- down more than 18 percent form 2005.

"Anecdotally, part of the drop in the median investment price results from investors shifting away from pricier markets like Florida, Nevada and Arizona, and into affordable locations," Mr. Lereah said.