Buying a home in Houston! (The smart-way) - Part I

A thorough semi-analytical view of the Houston real estate market!

As the 4th largest city in the nation, Houston represents one of the best places in the nation to purchase real estate whether for investment, a 2nd home or for your primary residence! A strong and stable yet growing job market, a diverse business environment, good weather and above all else cheap real estate and land prices all combine here to create a great area to invest.

Practicing real estate since 1999, I have watched intimately the city of Houston grow and evolve and I am excited about its prospects for the future!

Stretching over more than 600 square miles the city of Houston was made famous in real estate circles by George Mitchell, the developer of the Woodlands which was America's first master planned community! A master planned community is a community where every aspect of the eventual development is planned out from different styles and price points of the housing to the number of elementary, middle & high schools to the stores, apartments and office complexes that are to be part of the community! In essence, these communities become sub-cities that allow you to have everything you need without having to leave your community!

The popularity of this as a concept in Houston and nationwide is evident, with Houston becoming a city known for it's suburban communities, like Sugarland (ranked the 3rd best place to live in America in 2006 by Newsweek), Kingwood, Pearland (Silverlake & Shadow Creek Ranch), Telfair and Coles Crossing to name a few!

For those wanting a more urban approach, Houston like most major metropolitan cities is seeing a renaissance of sorts occur within it's inner city core! The re-development and gentrification of these urban communities is fastly changing the landscape of what was once considered a 5 gallon hat, sleepy cowboy town into an urban metropolis!

The change is evident as you drive the streets of Midtown (formerly 4th & 3rd Ward) with the construction of new 3 story townhomes with their 3rd & 4th floor observation decks. Neighborhoods that were formerly known for their crime rates like 5th Ward (east of downtown Houston, on I-10) are now the next hottest thing, while the East End (southeast of downtown) is undergoing a transformation as people restore and give the old bungalows in these areas a healthy dosage of HGTV personalization!

Click here http://tinyurl.com/yohbng to see a map of Houston so that you get a visual picture for how the city is laid out! Houston's growth can be traced by the huge circular loops that make up a large part of our highway system; from downtown Houston, the inner city core is located within the ever-famous 610 loop, then you have Beltway 8, FM1960 in North Houston and Hwy. 6 is South/Southwest Houston, and presently we have Hwy. 99 in Southwest Houston & Katy which is progressively expanding going north and the next eventual loop to go around the city will be the Prairie Hwy which go out as far as the Prairie View area.

With just this knowledge alone as a basis, you could make a huge sum of money simply investing the land along these corridors during the various stages of their development.

In the next installment, I will build upon this foundation by identifying trends and market conditions in some of the above mentioned areas along with more detailed analysis of the overall Houston market!

Thanks for tuning in, PLEASE COMMENT with any questions or remarks!

Tyron C. McDaniel, Real Estate Expert

tyron@tyronknowsrealestate.com