Every year, HAR awards the Top 20 realtors who are under the age of 40. The criteria includes excellence in the areas of sales, leadership, and community involvement. These young people are considered Rising Stars in Real Estate. Among the 20 winners this year was our very own Mariko Fujita of Annoura Realty Group! The award ceremony celebration took place on October 4 and all of our peers and partners were there to celebrate! We are incredibly proud of you, Mariko!
Closings are happening but more sales than leases. Last Monday Susan closed her Corpus Christi deal, representing Takuya’s company as the seller. The deal entailed two apartments, 47 units, seller financing, FIRPTA, and a remote online notary with the seller signing in Tokyo. A few days later, we closed another deal representing the sellers, with the wife being in California and the husband being in Sapporo, Japan (with Matt and Takuya!). Sam and Megumi did a great job on their investment home. Holding for only 3 years, they cash flowed 6% (net) the entire time, then sold at a healthy 17% appreciation! On the lease side of things, we welcomed a new expat from Nippon Chemical Texas, Mr. Asano and his wife (and dog, Will). We also look forward to a new wave of expats coming in October! We will have a busy week ahead as we prepare to bring to market for sale four more homes. With the yen weak and the dollar still somewhat strong, many of our Japanese investors are seeing the benefit of selling their assets here and sending the money back to Japan in yen.
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!
Annoura Realty Group is constantly thinking about special things to do for our clients! One of course, is our famous Welcome Bucket, which is given to all newcomers when they move into their new homes. This branded bucket contains everything a new person might need when they move to a new country, in order to get their new lives started: dish soap, clothes detergent, paper towel, toilet paper, (lots of) snacks, water, beer, even shampoo, conditioner, and body wash! After attending a real estate conference and listening to a famous speaker, Susan learned that it is also very important to remember our past clients, and especially past clients who recommend new clients to us. It is to them we owe a huge thank you for helping us grow our business. So, Susan found a custom box company who helped her design a custom box with our logo and colors. Then, she chose a few special items as the gift inside the box, added stuffing, some marketing items, and a hand written thank you card. Each box is labeled for delivery and/or is ready to be shipped to the people who send us a new client! Last week we shipped two boxes and hand delivered four. We have seven more to deliver and will knock those out right away! If you know anyone moving to Houston or who wants to change houses and move within Houston, or is moving away from Houston and needs us to help sell their house, please let them know about Annoura Realty Group! Our five man team would love to help, and be sure they mention your name so we can thank you with a special Thank You Box!
