Million-dollar listing in Eastwood signals change as prices skyrocket
An investor-owned Eastwood home has been listed at a record price for the neighborhood: $1 million.
As demand for Inner Loop real estate has skyrocketed, so have prices in previously affordable neighborhoods. From 2003 to 2012, the median price per square foot in the neighborhood east of downtown hovered around $94, according to Houston Association of Realtors data. That jumped to $182 a square foot in 2018.
The five-bedroom, four-and-ahalf bathroom home at 4503 McKinney St. is listed at $275 a square foot.
The dramatic change is part of a trend of rapidly rising prices in parts of Houston with inexpensive real estate and easy access to downtown. In pockets of Northside Village and the Greater Fifth Ward, the average cost per square foot has risen as much as 270 percent since 2014, according to HAR data. Historical connection
The Eastwood neighborhood, roughly centered around Polk Street and Lockwood Drive, was master-planned in the early 1900s by William A. Wilson, who also created Woodland Heights, where $1 million homes are no longer unusual. Wilson’s old Heights home, built in 1910, was listed in 2018 for about $3 million.
In 1913, The Houston Daily Post noted Eastwood’s central location, calling it “one of the most convenient, attractive and beautiful homesites in the city of Houston.” The deed-restricted neighborhood is still known for its Arts and Crafts homes and has only become more convenient with the addition of the light rail leading downtown.
The growing demand for the location has been reflected in growing home prices. As recently 2014, the median home value in the neighborhood was $133,000, according to Census data. Now, the median listing price for homes on sale in the neighborhood is $305,000, according to HAR.
The median home price for Houston is about $240,000.
Before 4503 McKinney St. was listed for $1 million, the previous record listing was one block east, which HAR reports as having sold between for between $717,000 and $827,000.
While that home focused on preserving history — it was one of the first homes in the neighborhood, and won a Good Brick Award from Preservation Houston in 2006 — 4503 McKinney St., which the Harris County Appraisal District lists as built in 1900, was torn down to the studs, said the home’s selling agent Kay Wright. The home was bought by investors to flip. Real estate mantra
“It was pretty much gutted,” she said. “They redid everything from roof to electrical to plumbing.”
The home has two master bedrooms and herringbone wood floors. But the main draw, according to Wright?
“The location.”