Hey Houstonians , you think your rent is to dang high!? (La Marque: house, neighborhoods)

[tstone]

Originally Posted by NewYorkiforniainHouston

I had a 2 br 1 ba garage apartment in the Heights on 12 1/2 St. for $750 in 2002

oh wow I just checked Craigslist and they're going for $1250-$1500 yikes
I think the rents started rising when the influx started though

$750 to $1250 over 17 years is only a 3% increase year after year, and going to $1500 is only a 4.2% increase. Certainly not outrageous or unreasonable.

[DabOnEm]

Originally Posted by tstone

$750 to $1250 over 17 years is only a 3% increase year after year, and going to $1500 is only a 4.2% increase. Certainly not outrageous or unreasonable.

It is if wages aren't increasing like that and that's honestly the biggest problem.

[tstone]

Originally Posted by DabOnEm

It is if wages aren't increasing like that and that's honestly the biggest problem.

That's true, but stagnant wages is a nationwide issue. Housing increasing 3-4% per year is likely in line with desirable parts of flyover-ville too. Doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary for Houston.

[shytiger]

Originally Posted by crone

We learned very early, what you save on housing in Houston is spent on transportation.

Also in some places, property tax a city earning tax plus a state income tax is cheaper than property tax in Houston.

Somehow the governments get what they want.

Very well said. I was born and raised in Houston...I can't believe people are driving in from Fulshear and Brookshire. We should have building a speed rail 15 years ago.

My property taxes more than doubled since 2008. If you live close to I-10 and the beltway, you're looking at around 8k minimum/yr in property taxes and that's with one exemption.

[LocalPlanner]

The "upscale rental" market didn't even exist in Houston, for the most part, until the 2000s - Museum Tower was pretty much the first such development. Then the combination of renewed desirability of urban living for affluent professionals (rather than always trying to commute from the 'burbs) and the general aging of our existing apartment stock (mostly built 1960s-1980s, with a few complexes built early to mid 1990s) led to the market opportunity for something newer, nicer, and more expensive. Rents in older stuff went up a bit as areas like Montrose became more trendy, but it really wasn't dramatic until the O&G boom of 2011-2014. The massive influx of highly paid workers, many of whom were still fairly young, completely transformed the market, and it has plateaued at a new level.

The phenomenon of super-cheap rentals in "fun" central neighborhoods through the 1990s was pretty much an anomaly by U.S. standards for non-declining large cities. Honestly, it couldn't last, even if Houston has only made slow progress on its "urbanism" quotient.

And quit the townhome hating, please.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

And quit the townhome hating, please.

It's not the fact they're townhomes,per se. It's that they're being plopped on top of the formerly reasonably-priced housing that matched the fabric of the rest of the neighborhood, and are indistinct from the same things the same developers are building all over the inner loop.

And then some of the designs that have nothing but a massive 2-car garage door in the front. Makes the street look like a self-storage lot with living quarters, not an urban neighborhood.

[kemahkami]

Originally Posted by jfre81

And then some of the designs that have nothing but a massive 2-car garage door in the front. Makes the street look like a self-storage lot with living quarters, not an urban neighborhood.

Parking minimums at work.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by ScrappyJoe

Parking minimums at work.

Let's start treating it as a bug and not a feature. Then we might get building standards rooted in 2019 and not 1969.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by jfre81

Let's start treating it as a bug and not a feature. Then we might get building standards rooted in 2019 and not 1969.

I agree that parking minimums need to go away, but also know that builders aren't going to drop garages anytime soon - the general consensus is that homes will be less marketable without them. Same goes for apartments - new ones would continue to have over one space per unit until the market decides it can accept otherwise.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

the general consensus is that homes will be less marketable without them.

Of course it wouldn't be. It's in a city where you still have to drive everywhere.