Devastating floods over, but their effects remain
MEYERLAND: Hit twice in less than a year, suburb now anxious about curbside appeal
The Anders family — mom, dad, two kids, two dogs and a cat — moved into a midcentury-modern rancher in Meyerland last spring, just five weeks before the Memorial Day weekend floods inundated it with 2 feet of water. They moved out and stayed gone for months while the house was remodeled “from top to bottom.”
Last Monday, the floodwaters were back, this time rising 6 to 8 inches and forcing the family to ask again whether they should remodel or start over and rebuild. Erin Anders spent days working her way through piles of soggy laundry and stepping around heavy-duty fans noisily drying out the hardwoods. She paused to talk with the insurance adjuster.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The seller’s disclosure said the 1959-vintage home had never flooded before, Anders said, “so we felt comfortable.” Besides, she said, “Meyerland is supposed to be the neighborhood to be in, right?”
The suburban enclave just outside Loop 610 in southwest Houston sprang from former rice fields in the mid-1950s. For years, it attracted families seeking a comfortable home zoned to good schools and close to the Texas Medical Center and many of the city’s synagogues. Yet two devastating floods in 11 months have families and real estate agents asking existential questions about the neighborhood: Will people still want to buy homes there? What will happen to land values and home prices?
Ed Wolff, a real estate broker who lives and works in Meyerland, was assessing the damage to his own home while trying to advise clients who were in the process of buying or selling properties there.
By week’s end, two of his buyers who were under contract on houses there decided to pull their offers. Neither house flooded last week, but both did last May.
“It was the psychological aspect of it that affected them more than the
“It was the psychological aspect of it that affected them more than the reality.” Ed Wolff, real estate broker
reality,” Wolff said.
The optics certainly were disturbing. On the streets near Kolter Elementary, a high-performing grade school where students learn in multiple languages, piles of watersoaked carpets, wood boards and drywall were heaped onto curbs in front of flooded houses. The school was closed for two days last week, and flooded-out homeowners left to stay with friends or family. Pricey houses
The recent housing boom brought only more popularity to Meyerland. Housing got more expensive, with the median price per square foot increasing 22 percent between 2011 and 2015, according to the Houston Association of Realtors.
Last year, however, the median price per square foot declined 8 percent compared with 2014.
By comparison, the Bellaire subdivision was up 4.5 percent, and Westbury gained 10 percent.
The Harris County Appraisal District said it is still analyzing data from Meyerland for the past year so it declined to say how real estate values have been affected.
It’s hard to find a house in Meyerland listed for less than $400,000, and the prices go up to $1.4 million. Most of the neighborhood is bounded roughly by Beechnut Street to the north, Bellfort Street to the south, Chimney Rock Road to the west and South Post Oak to the east. ‘Saturated’ market
Stacey Christman, a real estate agent who sold about 10 Meyerland-area houses that flooded last year, said builders initially were paying around $400,000 for lots. But she noticed prices starting to drop in the fall as builders slowed their acquisition pace as the economy softened.
“Between the market being saturated with flooded houses and oil prices going down, you don’t have as many people buying houses,” Christman said.
She became active in real estate in the area because she wanted to help people who were facing similar circumstances she was many years ago. Christman used to live in a part of Friendswood that flooded so many times the homeowners were bought out by the government, who removed their homes.
Christman now has three listings in Meyerland that flooded in 2015. Two of them flooded again last week, and a buyer has one under contract.
The buyer had plans to remodel it, but she’s not sure what will happen now.
“People are going to be pretty gun-shy,” she said. Character affected
The 2015 deluge had another impact on Meyerland that residents like Anders find unsettling. Builders started putting up more and larger new homes after the floods, affecting the character of the once-uni- form neighborhood. That trend is now likely to be accelerated.
Anders, whose home features a U-shaped layout and 18-foot ceilings, doesn’t want everything to look the same.
“You don’t want a cookie-cutter neighborhood,” she said.
While some of her neighbors may cut their losses, sell and move elsewhere, others are moving forward.
After last year’s flood, Houston-based Partners in Building began taking new home orders from Meyerland-area residents whose homes were badly damaged.
The company expects to do more this year.
People will continue to want to live in Meyerland because they grew up there, their kids are in the schools or it’s close to their places of worship, said the homebuilder’s president, Jim Lemming.
“Folks we’re talking to, they want to stay there, and this is the route they’re going to go,” said Lemming, who is building homes 5 or 6 feet higher than the ones that flooded.
Wolff, who sees a neighborhood where values have remained stable, said Meyerland’s location relative to other parts of Houston means there will always be people willing to buy there.
“Does it keep Meyerland affordable because we’ve flooded multiple times? Maybe,” he said. Hopeful for future
Residents are angry and want answers about why their neighborhood has taken so many hits.
Wolff, who only had 2 inches of water in parts of his house this time around, remains hopeful the city will fix any drainage issues that may have caused the flooding.
“We are physically capable of preventing some of this,” he said. “There are plenty of places on earth that have engineered their way around these issues.”