My scouting trip to north of Houston

[bpollen]

Originally Posted by rockinar

Just FYI, lawn care is my hobby.

That "great yard" on Southern Pines is 100% Poa Annua weeds, front and back. It needs to be totally redone from scratch. Tree canopy needs to be opened up too to allow some light in or you would only grow weeds in the yard. Current or previous owners let the tree canopy grow over and it killed the lawn and the weeds took over. They ignored that 100% too. Poa does not take over an entire lawn in one year. This has been totally neglected for several years.

That yard is one of the worst neglected yards I have ever seen. One scale of 1-10, with 10 being worst. It's a 8-9. We only have two types of grass in Houston for the most part. St. Augustine and Bermuda. Poa Annua is not one of them. LOL.

I know you are just window shopping. But if you did not know this stuff, it could cost you thousands to fix or DIY for a few hundred if you had free labor.


My guess is that house is being bought as a flip. Has potential, needs work.

Kingwood has large sections that are pretty old (early 70's or so). These fixer uppers in there should not be too hard to come by I would not think. I have seen some beaters like this in The Woodlands too that were going for as low as $80K. Good area in the older front section of The Woodlands, but the houses were old, neglected and beat.

Nothing wrong with that front section of Kingwood. It's as nice as any part of it. It's just older.

Thanks for the information. No, I didn't know that about POA. That's an expense I wouldn't have expected. But it needs to be totally redone in the interior, which I don't want to do, anyway.

Thanks for the information! I need to pay more attention to the state of the yard. I mainly just look at the size and configuration and if there's a lot of stuff I'd have to pull out.

[bpollen]

Originally Posted by rockinar

Also I'd rather have a house that sits close to the street with a small front yard. My front yard is only 1,000 SF. it's tiny. But I don't care. My backyard is where I hang out at. My back yard is 5,000 SF. I have my own ballpark of privacy back there.

I could care less about a small front yard. Less maintenance, and I don't hang out there anyways.

Well, you make a good point. It's more the claustrophic feeling I got, and that may come mainly from the very narrow streets with cars parked all along the sides. That, plus the houses being so close on both sides, I felt I couldn't breathe! Also, don't want people staring in my front windows or hearing people talk in the street outside too much. Still....less yard maintenance in the front, so that is a plus.