レースカーやスポーツカー、クラシックカーはお好きですか?泰が教えてくれた「Coffee and Cars」というイベントがあり、1月3日にThe Postで実際に行ってみました。フェラーリからランボルギーニまで、そしてその間のあらゆるエキゾチックカーが集まっていて圧巻でした!しかもこのミートアップは一般公開で無料なので、気軽に車を停めて歩きながら、大迫力のエンジン音を楽しむことができます。次回は1月17日にThe Woodlandsの9595 Six Pinesで、午前8時から11時まで開催予定です。さまざまなカーショー情報が載っているウェブサイトもあり、見に行くだけでもとても楽しめます。www.coffeeandcars.net
Do you like race cars, sports cars, vintage cars? There is an event called Coffee and Cars that Ty told us about so we went to check it out on Jan 3 at The Post. We saw all kinds of exotic cars from Ferrari’s to Lambourghini’s to everything in between! The cool thing is that these meet ups are actually free to the public, so you can just park your car and walk around and listen to the loud revving engines. The next event is January 17 in the Woodlands, at 9595 Six Pines, from 8am-11am. There’s a website where you can find the different car shows and they are pretty entertaining to attend! www.coffeeandcars.net
Susan’s son Zach is in love with Chinese dumplings, especially XIAO LONG BAO. They are small steamed dumplings with soup inside. It is hard to find a good restaurant for these special dumplings but WE FOUND ONE! Let me highly recommend “Love’s Dumpling House”, located off I-10 just between Wirt and Bingle Rd. This is actually their second location, with their first being in Katy on Mason Rd. Zach and I went to the new location on I-10 and they were still doing their soft opening. Lucky us, we also met the owner, Mrs. Liang! She is a super sweet lady who started her first location in 2024. Zach and I ordered the shrimp and pork wontons in spicy soup, a combination fried rice, the pork xiao long bao, and some mini pan fried pork and shrimp dumplings. All were A+++ excellent! We loved it and I think you will love it too!
Almost two weeks into 2026 and we are happy to report many exciting new things at Annoura Realty! First, Mariko successfully closed TWO commercial deals, one warehouse lease and one office lease, both for the same company from the Netherlands. She and Susan are also under contract for their $4.85M listing on Tidwell to a company out of California. Together, Mariko and Susan welcomed Mr. Funahashi to Houston last week, after a few hiccups with his apartment. Quick thinking, creative flexibility, and close relationships with the apartment manager helped us come up with a win-win solution for our newest member of Daido Steel. Meanwhile, we have two new inquiries from Kobelco, who I see has a new building in La Porte! Susan will be helping these two new expats in the coming weeks figure out the best place for them to settle down. One more exciting newcomer is the Yamamoto family of HORIBA. Susan toured them last weekend and could not help but reminisce about herself in 2007 when she had two boys, aged 3 and 1, like the Yamamoto family. This super cute family of four chose one of Susan’s personal rentals in Clear Lake and will move in right after the current tenant’s lease expires. Two more newcomers on the horizon include one from Daikin and one Japanese doctor who will be working in the medical center.We are so blessed and happy to have these newcomers contact us and can’t wait to meet them and help them find their homes. Do you know anyone moving to Houston? Please, please let them know about Annoura Realty and make sure they mention your name so we can send you a super special thank you gift!
Happy New Year! This is the first newsletter of 2026 and I hope you spend some time to make some goals, find joy, and really enjoy your life. One of my top priorities will be to savor precious time with my family members, especially my sons, two of which are in college and are basically grown up men now! Since the last newsletter, our family wrapped up our family vacation with a stop in Buffalo Gap, TX for an amazing steak dinner at Perini Ranch Steakhouse. We made it back just in time for 2025 to end, with a visit to Fidelity Investments to open up Roth IRA retirement accounts for Joe and Ty. With the new tax laws, people can now move up to $7000/year (max $35,000 over 5 years) of unused 529 money into the beneficiary’s Roth IRA, as long as the beneficiary has at least $7000 in income that year. Since both boys met that requirement, this was a good choice for unused 529 money. Inspired by our friends, The Galvans, we have also been doing a lot of COOKING! Yes, you laugh because normally I am not a good cook, but with the boys home for winter break, we baked a turkey, grilled peppers with Oaxaca cheese, even made some homemade chicken salad. For new years, Ty and his friend Zayan made a beautiful charcuterie tray that we ate while watching the fireworks in Kemah. Joe stayed with us for almost 6 weeks for his super long winter break, helping Koh change out the Tundra break pads, replace the family microwave (result still unknown), and enjoyed playing multiple rounds of golf at Bay Oaks. Ty returned back to Maryland to finish up semester 2 of the Naval Academy last week. And, with Zach also starting back up at school, Koh and Susan are back to juggling work, carpool, and all of Zach’s extracurricular activities!
The week ending 12/22/25 data has been released! It’s Week #51 of 2025 and it shows that compared to Week #51 of 2024, there are slightly more new homes on the market (up 3.6%), slightly less homes going under contract (down 2.8%), less closings taking place (down 4.7%), and more showings taking place (up 6.1%). The most interesting number perhaps is the number of ‘off-market’ listings rising 17.3% compared to the same week last year. What does this mean? It means that 17% of seller tried to sell their home but 1. could not get the price they wanted or 2. could not get any offers or 3. the home could not pass inspections or 4. the seller and buyer could not agree on terms. So because of one of these reasons, the seller gave up and pulled the home off the market and gave up. This is an interesting phenomenon because in the past, the seller was either more accommodating or the buyer wanted the house so much that they would bid an acceptable price or give up on asking for repairs. This indicates that sellers are more strong willed than last year and buyers are simply not willing to pay prices they don’t feel are fair. Instead of the seller being flexible to the buyer’s demands, 17% of sellers simply give up and decide not to sell.