Who is buying all the luxury condos in the Galleria area??

[Schumacher713]

Wealthy Hispanics buy up sons of those places. Old retired people snatch them up. They like the security, no yard, and no stairways like a townhouse. There are plenty of people that can afford those places. I could easily afford it. I just hate the Galleria area and I am not fond of highrise living. I tried it once for a year. It was like living in a retirement home. The views are amazing, but it is a pain in the butt to get around.

[madrone2k]

[quote=Htown2013;29908971]Who is buying all the luxury condos in the Galleria area? The ones that are > $500k and especially > $1M. These probably come with uber high monthly association fees. If there building that many, someone has to be buying them./quote]

Not sure if you are talking about recent condo construction. Since the recession (2008 and after), there hasn't been much financing available for highrise condo construction. However, financing for rental properties has been more plentiful and we've seen a lot of construction of that type.

In 2007, I bought a condo in the area, so I know a bit about it. I think the buyers since then have mostly been wealthy foreigners and US empty-nesters. Many of the former have been 2nd-home-owners, who (I think) are so wealthy they don't worry much about the high association fees. The domestic empty-nesters do care, so they tend to buy the smaller units with smaller monthly fees.

This year, we are seeing renewed activity in the highrise condo market. Meanwhile, the high-end rental market might be getting overbuilt, according to some folks. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

[Htown2013]

I always thought it would be hard to resale a highrise condo in the Houston market. I always suspected it was wealthy foreigners and executives needing a regular part-time presence in Houston.