Has the real estate market slowed down? Several factors have happened in the last couple weeks that indicate so. The first sign is that we have homes for sale that have not moved yet. This normally NEVER happens! It could be the new laws regulating buyer agent agreements or big changes that happened August 17 in the way realtors have to now navigate transactions. The Fed cut interest rates a few days ago and we realtors think this will get the buyer’s market tickled to act. We hope so at least! In exciting news, we are working on a new listing in Montrose. The owners of Nippon has hired us to lease our their restaurant space so we are now looking for the perfect person who wants to open a Japanese restaurant in Houston. Also, the double apartments in Corpus Christi owned by a Tokyo investor should be closing some time next week. Title is clearing some hiccups and then we should be on our way! On the lease front, we have two new expats with the Government of Japan coming to Houston. Now working with the first to find her favorite place. Mitsui has a newcomer on the horizon, preparing to move to Houston in October. What is keeping us very busy is a bundle of homes about to hit the market for sale. Now making ready 2114 Castle and 2119 Laughing Gull, both in League City, both should be hitting the market in the next two weeks. Mid September we will list a 2 bedroom condo in the Medical Center inside the Valencia for sale, and by the end of September we will be getting a townhome listing in the gated subdivision of Park Shadows, right behind the Boeing building. On the lease listing side, we will be bringing to market two homes in Northfork in the next two weeks. If you know anyone that needs to move to Houston or move away from Houston, please introduce them to Annoura Realty Group! We survive on word of mouth referrals! And, don’t forget to have the new person mention your name. We would like to thank you with one of our special Thank You boxes!
We have several people to celebrate this newsletter. First, we have two new Mr. Ito’s! One moved into a medical center area apartment and one moved into a Clear Lake area single family home. Annoura Realty is always happy to support new expats for Baylor College of Medicine and Mitsubishi Chemical! We also welcomed a new Japanese expat family from Nippon Steel, The Toyoda family. With his offices in the Memorial area, they opted for a single family home in Katy. Mariko was hard at work helping everyone these past couple of weeks, good job M! On the sale front, repeat client Nick closed on his Cottage Grove home last week, so congratulations to him! Meanwhile, we put several homes on the market these past 2 weeks. One was a home in League City on Edinburg which was so popular it was leased in single digit days. For sale, we listed a home on Creekside and also have a home on Sun Harbor currently on the market. Our agent Shantel Looker has two listings on the market. One is a 2 acre waterfront lot on the north shore of Clear Lake and one is a single family home with a pool in Dickinson. We have four condos for sale in the Ponderosa Forest complex (also down in Dickinson), with one also on the market for lease. And, speaking of leases, we have two other properties on the market for lease right now. One is a cute two bedroom condo near UHCL, and the other is a single family home in Bay Glen on Chestnut Springs. On the radar for newcomers: expats from the Government of Japan, Shin Nippon Machinery, Mitsui, Baylor College of Medicine, MD Anderson, and Toray!
The second half of July seems to be somewhat calming down. The huge rush of juggling 20 different people at the same time is completed now that everyone is moving into their selected homes one by one by one. On the buy side, Vivian and Patrick safely drove halfway across the country from Connecticut to Cypress, successfully signing their documents on take 2 with a mobile notary who met them along the way! That was an exciting story to follow! On the list side, Gina’s condo was delayed because Salvation Army got backed up from Hurricane Beryl and could not go out to empty out her unit. We are hoping they pick it up in the coming days. Our personal rental on Saint Cloud will switch tenants at the end of this month/beginning of next month when Cody and his wife move to Colorado for new jobs (congratulations on getting your PhD’s!) and our newest Kaneka expat moves in. James’ Chestnut Springs lease just hit the market for lease and will be a good choice for anyone who wants their kids to go to Ward Elementary. Here is a link to that listing: www.har.com/32928972. On the horizon, we have several move outs at the end of this month, which means we have a lot of make readies on the schedule! One is a lease listing in Bay Pointe, one is a lease listing in League City inside The Landing. One is Gina’s condo’s lease listing in the Bay Area, and the fourth is a lease listing for a condo on Richmond. On the sale listing side, we have another FOUR upcoming! One is a cute two story inside Brittany Lakes, one is a one story inside Bay Glen, one is a one story on a huge cul de sac lot in League City, and one is beautifully update corner lot townhome inside the gated community of Park Shadows. With these 8 listings all coming at us, we are making schedules for the turnovers and lining up vendors while also handling several insurance claims for damaged houses from Hurrican Beryl. Never a dull moment!
Coming to Houston is a new Mitsubishi Chemical expat who Mariko will be touring this week and a new Baylor College of Medicine doctor family who did a vitual tour and chose a nice unit in the Medical Center area. Excited to meet Asami san when she and her family arrive in late August.
As always, if you know anyone moving to Houston, away from Houston, or even within Houston, please don’t hesitate to let us know! We launched a new Referral Campaign and are personally thanking anyone who refers a new customer to us! Be sure the new person mentions you referred us and we will reach out to you right away!
With Hurricane Beryl hitting Houston last week, Annoura Realty was super busy helping everyone get their homes cleaned up and repaired. Our company specializes not only in helping expat relocate to Houston, but we also help Japanese investors buy properties in Houston. For those investors who buy through us, Annoura Realty offers property management services. Currently in our portfolio, we handle about 85 properties, so when a storm hits, we are super super busy! Hurricane Beryl brought along very strong winds, which caused many wood fences to fall and lots and lots of tree branches (and entire trees!) to fall. All homes required serious yard clean up from all the tree debris.
On a positive note, Team Annoura welcomed many newcomers to Houston in the first two weeks of July. One of our Daikin expats Mr. Homma, moved in successfully to his Memorial area highrise, while his colleague Mr. Yagi opted to be closer to the Daikin headquarters in Waller and chose a brand new apartment in Cypress. On the same day, NOEX expat Mr. Takemoto opted for the suburbs for the excellent Katy area schools, and Dr. Ishigami who will work at Texas Children’s Hospital moved in smoothly to his Medical Center area highrise. Welcome to Houston, everyone!
July 1, Susan had two sales closings: one was Nick Davis’ downtown area condo, who came out with a full price offer, and one was Ryan and Elaine’s amazing two generation Village home in Towne Lake, who came out with an incredible gain after a wise purchase during COVID. On the newcomer side, Susan toured a new intern with NAIND (Nihon Shokubai), who smartly chose a trendy apartment in Clear Lake. How exciting that he will get to spend the next year at the NAI Houston office! Mariko succeeded in finding a nice home for the 6 member Osada family. We wish Dr. Osada a successful experience working at Baylor College of Medicine.
Susan’s personal rental in Clear Lake looks like it will next be rented to our newest Kaneka expat, Mr. Jeong and his family, as the current tenant has obtained their PhD and is moving Colorado at the end of the month. We wish Cody and Megan all the best! Also on the newcomer side of things, we welcome a new Tokio Marine member and a new Benichu expat. Both toured last week with Susan and opted for spacious units in the same Memorial area, convenient to work and to the Japanese supermarket. Friday we almost celebrated the closing of Vivian and Patrick’s home in Marvida. I say almost because the mobile notary accidentally had them sign on front and back, which the lender said no to! Take two was Saturday, so closing and funding is expected on Monday (today), as they drive their way from Connecticut to Houston and should be here by Tuesday. Special thanks to Perry Homes sales consultant Janet Nicholson for helping us every step of the way! Jenn Tran, thank you so much for the referral!
The past 3 days we had four more move ins. First, we offer a warm welcome to Mr. Maruyama of Mitsui. He moved into his Memorial area apartment on Saturday and his family will soon follow! Speaking of families coming, Mr. Mizuta has his family coming soon, so he opted to move into a neighboring apartment with a much larger footprint. Finally, Mr. Takehara moves into his new residence today as well. Congratulations to all of our newcomers!
In other big Annoura Realty news, long time agent Nan Feng has left Annoura Realty Group to join a team that will help her grow her commercial real estate endeavors. We will miss Nan but wish her all the best and much success on her new team.
On the other spectrum, we are super excited to welcome a new member to the team, Joanna King Mitchell! Joanna and Susan went to high school together and Joanna is now a transaction manager for several Houston agents. Joanna will help all of our new expats after they have chosen their homes. There are still many tasks to go: getting electricity, water, gas, renter’s insurance, paying deposits and first month rent, and getting the keys. Joanna will help everyone coordinate all of these tasks from contract to close, and we are super excited to have her join Annoura Realty Group!
At the time of writing this newsletter, I am flying in the sky heading back to Houston from Annapolis. For tomorrow, Mariko has helped me make 6 appointments for Ayumi san, and Nakamura san just WhatsApp’ed me from Japan to go look at a possible investment home in Clear Lake. We have two closings scheduled for Monday (the day this newsletter goes out) so hopefully while you are reading this, both have closed and we can say congratulations to Ryan & Elaine as well as to Nick (and Katie). Hitting the market was our agent Shantel’s big land listing, over 2 acres of waterfront on the north shore of Clear Lake. This parcel has utilities running to it and will be perfect for 1, 2, or even 3 homes to be built on them. Our past client Jenn T referred one of her friends to us, Vivian from Connecticut. Last week we helped negotiate the terms of Vivian’s brand new Perry home and look forward to the builder orientation this week. Our newest NOEX expat is slated to take our listing in Katy on July 1, our newest Daikin expat is expected to move in to his Memorial highrise today as well. Mariko is working on two move-ins today too, so I would say that July 1 is going to be one super duper busy day! We have several new listings hitting the market today and in the coming days. One is a rental in Bay Glen, a quick 2 minute walk to Ward Elementary. It is tenant occupied until the end of July but will be available before school starts. We have three homes that will coming up for sale soon, one on Sun Harbor, one on LaCabana, and one on Castle. All will begin make ready as soon as the tenants finish up their leases and vacate. With the shortage of homes for sale under $350,000, many of our investors are seeing good opportunities to sell. Several of our tenants renewed their leases last week, while several put in their notice to vacate. The coming days and weeks will be very busy at Annoura Realty as we make ready many of the homes in our portfolio to either re-lease or list for sale. Happy to report that Penrice had a successful yard makeover and several AC units at many of our rentals broke but were repaired over the past couple of weeks. On a side note, Annoura Realty could like to send out a warm welcome to Takemoto san, Ogura san, Homma san, Yagi san, and Ueda san, our newest expat clients to Houston!
