Woodlands, Texas Real Estate Blog

If you or the kiddies are looking for a fun and lavish way to spend a little time with Santa this holiday season, sled on over to the Woodlands Resort and Conference center for breakfast with Santa on December 8 and December 15 between 9 and 11 a.m.

A holiday breakfast feast in the Grand Ballroom will incude freshly cooked waffles and omlettes at stations and you can spy on Santa to see what he likes best from the buffet of scrambled eggs and blintzes, fresh fruit and juices. The cost is $16.95 for good little boys and girls 12 and under and $21.95 for parents.

It’s that time of year again… Turkey with all the trimmins’ and the 18th Annual GE Run Through The Woods on Thanksgiving morning. As they have every year, proceeds from the run will go to benefit the South Montgomery County YMCA Partners Program and other educational programs in the area.

The run is for serious runners as well as general exercise enthusiasts and visiting kids and grandparents who just want an excuse to get out and stretch their legs before they sit down to a big Thanksgiving dinner. You might even feel a little less guilt about having the second helping of dressing!

In response to a lot of buyers who have an increased awareness of the environment and the impact of our emissions on it, more and more of the builders in The Woodlands are incorporating ‘green’ building techniques into their homes, either as standard features or as upgrades.

In addition to reducing their impact on the environment, lower utility bills are an added incentive for new home buyers to watch your energy consumption and assesss your ‘carbon footprint.’

I read everyday it seems that the housing market is starting to slow down and that there’s a bubble just waiting to burst. But that just isn’t my experience here with The Woodlands real estate. I have experienced bidding wars for homes in the last few weeks which has never happened before. Sales of exisiting homes are ‘hot, hot, hot’ in The Woodlands and I don’t see an end in sight.

But for those of you who are interested in what’s going on on a national scale here’s the scoop:

This has certainly been an unusual summer in The Woodlands and Texas as far as the weather goes. We usually have our rainy month of May and then the sun comes out and it’s hot, hot, hot until September. This summer though we have had many rainy days throughout June and July. Which is nice because it helps keep the temp down but we are lucky here because we haven’t had the flooding like they’ve had in Central Texas. I have a lot of people contact me and ask if we flood in The Woodlands. We do not. Even during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 when half of Houston was under water, we were high and dry. When we get an extremely strong downpour there may be a little water standing in a couple of streets, but it recedes quickly and I’ve never heard of any homes getting water in them. Part of that is because we have so many retention ponds and drainage systems in place that we are well protected. When George Mitchell designed the master plan for The Woodlands back in the 1970s he did a great job of looking ahead to the time when The Woodlands would be built out and he planned back then for an infrastructure that could handle all the rain we can get here in a short amount of time.

Everyone knew it was coming, but the resale market in The Woodlands looks like it’s finally starting to make a long awaited move up due to the decrease in new home construction in the area. Some of the older neighborhoods like Grogans Mill and Panther Creek have enjoyed quite a jump in price per square foot over the last 12 months. In June of 06 Grogans Mill sales averaged $88 sq. ft. and this year for the same period it’s up to $98. Panther Creek saw an increase over that time period from $91 sq. ft. to $104 a sq. ft. Wow!

The Houston Chronicle recently reported that existing home sales in the 10 villages of The Woodlands are outpacing the Houston area by almost 2 to 1 in the percentage of increase in the median price per square foot. The older villages in the area are seeing a price boost due in part to a shortage of new homes and their location closer to the Woodlnds Town Center and I-45.

The Woodlands Custom Home Sales center has recently announced the release of 80 new lots in the Player Golf Course neighborhood. Of these about half will be golf course lots. The second release of the custom home lots on the Player Golf Course will be in the fall of 2007.

The Village of Creekside Park will be releasing 35 lots on the south side of the creek with some of these being waterfront lots. This is scheduled for 2008.

The 2nd Annual YMCA Trail Run “Presented by Conroe’s Incredible Pizza” will be Saturday, May 12, 2007 at the Conroe Family YMCA. The event features a 5K Race, 1 mile Kids Race and 3K Family Walk. The course will wind through the beautiful Camp Owen, an outdoor adventure camp located on 100 wooded acres, adjacent to the Conroe Family YMCA.

It’s hard to imagine, but new home sales in The Woodlands are about to undergo a big adjustment as the last sections of The Woodlands Proper are close to being built out.

The Village of Sterling Ridge where the last of the new home construction is underway will be completely built out by the end of summer according to some of the new home salespeople I work with on a regular basis.