Elliman lauds Houston’s luxury condo market
The top brass from luxury real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman gushed over Houston’s burgeoning high-rise condominium market this week, highlighting Texas as a destination for the country’s wealthiest individuals.
“I wish I was as bullish on New York and L.A. as I am on Florida and Texas,” Howard Lorber, executive chairman of New York-based Douglas Elliman, said at an event celebrating the company’s entrance into the Houston market. “People are migrating from high-tax states to low-tax or no-tax states.”
Individuals from the East Coast, he said, are heading to Florida, while those on the West Coast are moving to Texas.
“That’s why we’re here,” Lorber said Wednesday night at the posh Post Oak Hotel near the Galleria.
Elliman in August announced it had formed a joint venture with Houston-based Sudhoff Cos., which specializes in selling new condominiums in some of Houston’s most affluent neighborhoods. Sudhoff, formed in Houston in 2010, is now operating under the Elliman umbrella.
Executives dropped in for the Houston event — some for less than 24 hours — which also included a summary of the Wealth Report, an annual publication
featuring international property data, luxury spending research and global wealth trends.
Despite a darkening economic outlook, the global population of individuals with an ultrahigh net worth is expected to increase by 22 percent by 2023, adding 43,000 more people to the ranks of those worth more than $30 million, according to the report, published by Elliman and London-based property consulting firm Knight Frank.
“Property is the beneficiary,” said Paddy Dring, Knight Frank’s global head of prime sales.
Through the Sudhoff deal, Elliman now represents some $500 million in local development projects, including the Hawthorne, the Giorgetti and the River Oaks. Jacob Sudhoff, now CEO of Douglas Elliman, Texas, said he planned to expand with offices in Dallas and Austin early next year.
To be sure, Elliman’s foray into Houston gives another boost to the city’s luxury real estate market, particularly in the highend condo segment.
“There’s tremendous opportunity here in Texas to build more luxury housing,” Susan De França, president and CEO of development marketing for Elliman, said during at the Wednesday event. “And the clientele today has become much more discerning. They want higher-end finishes, more luxurious amenities and unparalleled services.”
While high-rise living is relatively new to this area, it’s appeal has grown in recent years, in part a result of some of Houston’s flaws.
“Flooding, traffic — it all helps us sell more condos,” Sudhoff said. “We’re appealing to that demographic that want to have that lock-and-leave and don’t have have to worry about their homes.”