Still time for red, white, blue and cool in hottest time of sales year
The Houston Association of Realtors confirmed this week what was suspected — June was even hotter than the searing outdoor temperature. A total of 8,414 single-family homes sold last month compared to 7,771 last June — marking the largest sales month by volume in Houston history. The median sales price went up 2.6 percent to $239, 023 and the average price came up 1.5 percent to $304,155 — setting two more monthly records.
Total dollar volume for properties sold in June hit $2.9 billion, but much of the real estate community is still finding ways to keep it cool.
••• Jessica Davis, an agent with the Katy office of Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty, is chilling with her Falcon Ranch neighbors by temporarily converting her golf cart to a snow cone and beach-ball delivery service at the neighborhood pool. Davis said she plans to be there with her “cool rig” every other weekend throughout the summer. ••• Keeping it all in the family for the third generation, Ed Wolff, president of Beth Wolff Realtors, brought his twins Tenley and Jake, to the company’s Woodlands office at Hughes Landing to share in the July 4 parade and celebration there.
“The parade honored our servicemen and had such a wonderful patriotic feeling with school bands and area businesses and services participating,” Wolff said. Sporting a “Party like it’s 1776” T-shirt, Jake has proven as adept at representing the company at community event as his father was at his age when his grandmother, Beth Wolff, CEO was building the company.
••• John Daugherty, Realtors agents Charlie Neath, Courtney Duperier and Brian Spack are sponsoring the BriarGrove’s Swim Team’s Summer League. The company has been a longtime sponsor of the popular program. Neath particularly enjoyed the the annual swim meet this year, as his children Andrew, 12, Ruby, 9, and Nola, 7, brought home a number of awards.
••• Along with the brisk business of real estate, other important indoor activities continue. Lis Harper of Bernstein Realty appeared at a recent Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission meeting to testify in support of preserving the historic shopping center facade at the River Oaks Shopping Center, a Houston landmark and one of the oldest shopping centers of its kind in the United States. Harper said that a developer proposed demolishing large sections of the façade to modify the building and add an apartment high-rise.
“As a neighbor, I am deeply concerned by the disruption this construction will cause to the beautiful buildings we know and love. As a Realtor, I am constantly taking clients along West Gray so that they can enjoy that beautiful drive along the art deco street with a view toward downtown — they love it,” she told the commissioners. Harper reported that the HAHC did not certify the changes, but stayed tuned.
“The developer can still proceed unless the community mobilizes the stop the work,” Harper said.