Move to Midtown, its one of the nicest places in the inner city to live for people in their 20's, and there is easy access to Allen Parkway and Memorial (which will take you to the Galleria area with little traffic).
Holy Moly! I just took a quick look at home prices in my old neighborhood in Bellaire and there are now houses selling for over 1 million bucks. On Spruce St, where I used to live there was a house going for $765,000. We sold our house on Spruce around 1991-92 for $60,000 and at that time it was one of the nicer houses on the street. This used to be solidly middle class neighborhood, that was fairly integrated (at least between anglo and hispanic). What the hell happened?
my wife's grandmother passed away a few years ago and she had lived in Bellaire ...she had a "shack" basically (about 1,100 sq. ft. 2 bedroom, 1 bath with a tiny yard) ...they put the house on the market and it sold in about 2 hours (seriously) for $300,000....the house was torn down less than a month later
There is nearly a 100% chance that your old house has been demolished. Bellaire is close to the Galleria and minutes from downtown yet is still has a residential feel with decent sized backyards, low crime and good schools. The whole neighborhood has completely turned over in the last 10 years and new construction on virtually every single lot. Simply put, it is no loner affordable.
You know all of this was true when we lived there from 1976 to the early 1990's and yet it was still a middle class neighborhood and River Oaks and West U. were the wealthier inside the loop neighborhoods. What changed so drastically about the Houston economy that would fuel this kind wholesale redevelopment?
it did the same thing the Heights did ...it became trendy (obviously there is more to it, but both the Heights and Bellaire became targets for white collar folks who had lots of money and wanted a short commute) the same thing is about to happen in the area around 43rd/TC Jester area (can't remember the name of the neighborhood)
it's Garden Oaks, right? i've seen incredible appreciation for homes where i live...off memorial drive, west of the beltway and east of Eldridge. in the past 10 years, homes have skyrocketed in value here. of course, at last check I-10 and Gessner was the demographic center of Houston, so that probably makes sense.
What happened to Bellaire? Easy: a bunch of MDs decided to make Bellaire their home, tore down the old houses, and built themselves some nice new ones. It's not a "middle class" area anymore.
I grew up on Jaquet (street with the little park along 610 between Fornace and Bissonet) and last time I drove through there, most of the houses that were there when I was a kid had been replaced by new David Weekly type 2-story homes. It didn't even look like the same neighborhood. Thank goodness my house is still there, but it's one of the few that are.
A friend of mine at the Houston office works 7-4. I'm not sure if that's the norm or not, but I don't have a problem with going in at 7AM at all. It sounds like traffic is reasonable that time of day.
That's what I was thinking. He could be my neighbor. Anyway, I think the smart thing would be to rent an apartment near the office until you're familiar with the city yourself to look at houses. You can find decent rents in the Galleria area.
Okay, it looks like this is going to happen now. We're in the serious apartment finding phase, now. Looking for a 2 bedroom apt with a reasonable commute to the Galleria area. (yeah I know) Looks like we're going to have to fork a lot more in rent. We're paying less than $600/month for an 1100 sq. foot condo here. Oh well.
When you have a choice to choose between which city you want to live it, why would anyone want to choose Houston over LA or SF? MMmm........Can somebody provide me with some pics of what Houston actually look like, I ever been to Houston before, but I went to a lot of places such as LA, NY, SF, Las Vegas, BOSTON, CHICAGO, SAN DIEGO, AND ETC......
