My Bellaire Blog

Have you ever been to the Awty International School campus at I-10 and N. Post Oak?  All the walkways are framed with rose bushes - still in bloom at this time of the year…  It is just beautiful and so fragrant to walk around the campus!  The same goes for St Anne’s Catholic Church/School at Westheimer and Sheperd.  Roses are quite delicate and they need the exact amount of water and sunshine – and pesticides to prevent fungus in the humid Houston summer.  However the gardeners at these 2 places are doing an amazing job.  I have a rose bush in a pot that I purchased a couple of years ago.  I forgot the name of it, but it is purple and so fragrant.!…  I could not resist but photograph 2 of the blooms last week to share with you.  I wish I could transmit scent over the Internet…

What’s your favorite rose?

Recent bloom in a pot

I have not used any chemicals yet...

Jennifer Hernandez from Patriot Bank Contributed this:

Well, on Friday I did receive confirmation from Santa that I have been good….rates were 4.625% on a 30 year fixed. (They were 4.5% for about an hour). This is for purchases. Refinances are a bit higher, so additional quotes apply. My feeling is that this WILL spark the interest of home buyers, and that activity in the new year will be renewed, and that it will spark the activity the government is hoping for. Why are rates so low? Who cares…take it for what it is, if I can be so blunt.

I would like to address builders. I predict that this is the next industry to be really affected by our economic downturn (recession!).  In fact they already are. Track builders mostly, who build specs. But custom builders too. They are being squeezed , and in some cases cut off, by banks . The strong builders are surviving, and are being required to put more equity in deals. Gone are the days of 100% cost lending. So, in turn, builders with inventory worried . They cannot get more lines to build more homes. Many will unfortunately go under. Spec lending is on hold with many banks, including ours. The banks just don’t want the risk. So I sit here and think what this could mean for consumers:  (a) Good deals on new construction (b) less inventory , and that will cause inventory homes to be more expensive. (c) less new homes, for now. ONLY MY PREDICTION that has no merit other than my own.

I hope you are enjoying the holidays! Have a great week, and keep saying your prayers. Its working.

Jennifer Hernandez

Vice President/Mortgage Consultant

Patriot Bank Mortgage

Office:    713-337-8400

Mobile:   713-446-7791

E-mail:    jennifer@patriotbankusa.com

Web:      www.loanwithjennifer.com

I ran into a friend of mine today, and she asked me the question “How’s the market?” She knows I am in Real Estate.  I gave her a fact: a house in Bellaire closed last week after being 3 days on the market.  She could not believe it.  So I told her it sold for a little over $2 million and she was even more perplexed!  Yes, this is how Real Estate is.  There are no generalizations to be made.  We can pull alot of statistics and look at numbers, however it will not tell you how long your particular house will take to sell…  I sold an older home in West U in November the day after it hit the market…To get a better idea of what your home will sell for, get the help of a professional.  Or, if you’re just playing with the idea of selling or purchasing, you can sign-up for an automatic email update that will send you information on recent sales around your house.  It is free!  Just email me at Lucie@kw.com with your email address, street address and the frequency of the updates you would like (weekly, bi-weekly or monthly).  You can remain anonymous.  Why not take advantage of it?  It is based on real MLS sales data as opposed to assessed tax values you find on many “real estate valuation” websites.  Now you can get the answer first hand on how YOUR market is doing!

I wanted to share my first attempts at growing food in Bellaire.  For so many years, after being discouraged by the hard clay that surrounds our home, I gave up my passion of growing vegetables and fruits.  Finally, this summer I reconfigured the backyard, cut out the tree that was shading it as well as the evergreen bushes, and spread bags of soil around the beds.  Finally I could experiment with my green thumb.  Well, as you can see in this photo, I have quite a few tomatoes!  Papayas have also done extremely well:  I just pray we won’t get a hard freeze before I pick all the ripened fruits.  Bell peppers are not doing so well.  I put them on a southern exposure but they are shaded by my neighbor’s house.  Other than that, herbs are flourishing:  Basil, parsley and fennel.  I have a few sprouts of Swiss Chard but they are taking forever to grow! 

How about you?  Have you tried your luck at gardening in Bellaire?  What works and what doesn’t?  I would love to hear from you.   One house on Evergreen has a loaded tangerine tree.  My mother on Azalea Trail was successful with eggplants and figs.

My Papayas

This is a contribution by Jennifer Hernandez:

Merry Christmas….oh, is it not Christmas yet? I thought the 4.875% 30 Fixed I saw this morning was Santa’s gift to me for being such a good girl this year. Then it vanished into thin air hours later, and we are at 5.25% . We should be careful what we wish for.  Rates are extremely low, but the economy is in the tanker. There are so many things making the yields (rates) of bonds go down on a daily basis. Remember that yields/rates down means prices are up. Prices up means that there is more demand for bonds. This happens when investors lose confidence in stocks, and they buy more bonds. For the mortgage coupons these days, no one seems to know what they are buying. The spreads between buying a point are unreal, anywhere from .500% – .750%. Never in 14 years have I seen that much of a spread. So save your money to buy that point down, otherwise, you will be paying dearly in the interest rate.

Some headlines for you, that affect the market in every way: Foreclosures have risen in every state in the nation (out just hours ago), foreclosures are forecasted to double in 09, California is on the verge of literally running out of money (all of Arnolds muscle flexing and charm means nothing now!), car giants are folding, we are officially in a recession (since Dec 07- ya think?), major corporate layoffs, terrorist attacks in Mumbai, changing regime in USA for the presidency, and to top all this off, there are pirates attacking ships off the coast of Somalia. Pirates? Are we living in some fairy tale now? Some days it sure feels like it.

But let’s look at the bright side! Gas is under $2.00/gallon, every consumer product imaginable is on sale, cars prices are rock bottom, and we have a new President that has given hope to the country, and seems like the world. There are right this very minute, 4,000 job openings in the Texas Medical Center that need to be filled. Houston is adding jobs! The Medical Center led us through the 80’s, and it will lead us through this, I can assure you.

I had a thought this week that should solve our country’s problems: why don’t we use part of lottery winnings to finance these bail outs!? The mega jackpot was $146 million! Who needs that kind of money anyway?

Have a great weekend! 

JENNIFER HERNANDEZ

Jennifer Hernandez

Vice President/Mortgage Consultant

Patriot Bank Mortgage

Office:    713-337-8400

Mobile:   713-446-7791

E-mail:    jennifer@patriotbankusa.com

Web:      www.loanwithjennifer.com

You probably remember the controversy surrounding the sale of part of Bolsover Street to a mid-rise developer a year-and-a-half ago.  The Sonoma project has been put on hold because of unavailable financing due the credit crunch.  However people who already put down a deposit on a condo will be refunded their money, which is good news in these shaky cicumstances.  The $1.6 million the City received for the street is hers to keep and will be reinvested in the neighborhood, more specifically for the reconstruction of Morningside St. between Rice and Sunset that is under way.  And if after 5 year the developer fails to build the project, the portion of Bolsover street that was sold to them reverts back to the City.  Now that’s a deal!  In the meantime, the lot sits vacant to the despair of area homeowners and the businesses who were forced to relocate when the building was torn down. Five years in this situation can seem like eternity!

Never a news about recycling has ever excited me like this one!!!!  The expansion of Bellaire’s curbside recycling to include glass (clear and colored) as well as plastics numbers 1 to 7 has left me ecstatic.  Before the first curbside program was implemented, I would make the trip once every couple of weeks to the Bellaire Recycling Center with all acceptable recyclables.  However, the implementation of the curbside recycling left me in a guilt-ridden dilemma:  I was conscienciously recycling the few items accepted by that program, but I was not going to make a special trip to the Recycling Center – and suffer the foul-smelling air from the water treatment plant on Edith Street -for a few clear glass jars.  Sorry, but my efforts were plenty enough like that…  I didn’t like throwing glass nor did I enjoy throwing plastic containers with numbers other than 1 and 2.  But nothing convenient was in place and I could never understand why…  So I welcome with glee the new program…  I won’t feel guilty any more emptying a wine or beer bottle or other cleaning product containers.  As far as I am concerned, that’s great news.  My wish is that everyone in Bellaire embraces this progress and starts recycling with renewed enthusiasm.  It cannot get easier than this.  By the way, I hope the company buying all this material is using every bit of it to make new stuff!

5909/5959 Realty Ltd., a partnership led by Braun Enterprises, has purchased two Bellaire office buildings totaling 152,000 sf from The Matrix Group.

The buildings at 5909 and 5959 West Loop South are 96 percent leased with leases averaging 1,100 sf.

The buyer assumed a loan that has a high prepayment penalty and three years left on its term and brought 45 percent equity to the table.

Hopefully the new owners will do some updating/upgrading to the buildings that boast a great location but look quite dated on the exterior.