Well quite a bit actually, and right now if a person has great credit and a down payment they can buy a dream home for two hundred thousand dollars. The State of Texas has always had more affordable housing, even in the luxury end of industry, but if you take that same amount and try to buy a home in Chicago, New York, or Hawaii, and you will not receive very much for your money. Currently a studio apartment on East 54th street in New York is going for $319,000.00, and that does not include the $568.00 monthly maintenance fees.
Right now a home shopper in the Metro area can find three bedroom two and one half bathroom homes that are new construction from the $121,000.00 range and up. Dual income households can easily afford the monthly mortgage payments, and up keep costs. One problem is that those typical thirty year mortgages are harder and harder to come by today. Most home loan lenders want bigger down payments, and a fifteen-year term. They are still gun shy from the fall out of all those sub-prime loans that were approved in the 2000s.
If you do not mind the commute, some super custom luxury homes, in areas like Spring, The Woodlands, Conroe, Magnolia, and Tomball are widely available. The Spring Texas area has been voted one of the most affordable and best places to live by many real estate, and financial publications in recent years. It is perfectly situated for work, outdoor activities, dinning, and entertainment. Add all those previously mentioned attributes to a reasonably, or below market priced home, and you have your own personal nirvana.
Prices remain extremely high in the Galleria, Hedwig Village, Memorial, and Spring Branch area, and unfortunately, $200k is not going allow for the purchase of a mini mansion or personal compound anytime soon. However, looking further west there also seems to be homebuyers frenzy out toward the Cypress, Texas area, and many PGA designed golf courses are popping up out there too.
For persons relocating their families to the Houston Metropolitan area, you will be like a kid in a candy store when you start shopping for a home. The overall lot sizes, options, and amenities in most suburban neighborhoods outshine any state in the Union when it comes to the bang for the buck factor.
Growing up North, I’ve always been fond of residential suburbia, which greatly defers from subdivision living encountered upon moving to newer and expanding locations, such as, Houston. However, the growing trend in housing is “master planned communities”, which according to Chris Fiscelli writing in Reason Public Policy Institute, are “suburbia’s response to the boring, cookie-cutter, detached globs of housing that still make up much of America’s suburban nation”. The distinguishing markers of a master planned community are as follows; golf courses, expansive parks with bike paths and jogging trails, and even community clubhouses with recreational facilities, such as, pools and spas. So it seems that just as Americans are demanding more amenities and luxuries in their everyday products i.e.; cars, cell phones, we are now requiring our neighborhoods to supply an abundance of recreational amenities from which to choose but how do you know which community works best for you and your family?
The beautiful 2400 McCue has announced that just five homes remain. The developer close-out will put an end to this development chapter, although for the residents that call this Galleria mid-rise home it is just the beginning of exceptional, Uptown/Galleria living.