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!
Last week Susan had a 3 day reunion with her former HIT Partners members. Mr. Takahashi and Mr. Watanabe both flew into Houston to meet up and discuss exit strategies for their clients. Back in the day, maybe 8 years ago or so, Susan and her two partners formed an investment company that bought nearly 100 properties, leased them all, then sold them to Japanese investors. Annoura Realty stayed on to manage them. The Japanese investors bought predominantly because of a Japanese tax law that allowed them to depreciate their improvements over a short 4 year period (versus America which is a 27.5 year long period). Many wealthy Japanese people used this tax law to reduce their taxable income and many targeted Texas because compared to places like California, the land value here was closer to 20% of the overall value of the property and a perfect amount of improvement to depreciate. Fast forward to 2024 and it is time for many of the investors to sell. Not only has the market gone up since they purchased, but the market could be stabilizing or slowing, so we are recommending them to sell. Additionally, with the yen now at 155 yen to the dollar, it is a very good time to sell the US Dollar based property and then send the dollars back to Japan for a big yen bonus on the currency exchange. The partners also own several properties in Houston still and one in Corpus Christi, so we flew to Corpus to visit that property (47 units) and to visit with the property management team there. Susan will help sell all of that and their properties here in Houston. It was a super productive 72 ours together and so happy to get back together with the team, just like the good ole days!
Summer is a time to slow down and spend time with friends! With all my family members gone, I was fortunate to have some free time to meet up with good ole friends. This is precious time I rarely have! First, I met up with the Foltyns and the McGaritys for a daytime 4th of July get together. Our 3 families have raised our kids together and one by one have seen them go off to college, with Ty and Jack both recently leaving for the Naval Academy and Air Force Academy respectively. The last two left are Jana and Zach! The Foltyns hosted and grilled up some amazing burgers! Next up, I got to meet up with Dr. Adachi over the 4th of July holiday. I have known Dr. Adachi since he first moved here maybe 15 years ago. He first leased, then he bought a home, then he sold that home, and then he bought a bigger home. Then during COVID, he asked me to help him buy a lake house. That was 3.5 years ago and I had not gone there to see it or see him since then so it was a treat to get to spend the 4th of July there and to catch up with how he and his family have been doing. A second outing last week was with Ryan and Elaine! They too, bought a home during COVID and recently hired Annoura Realty to sell it, so that they could move into the city. It was so fun getting to catch up with them at Uchiko last weekend. Two cool things is that it was walking distance to their new place so they just walked right over, and the second cool thing is we went during Happy Hour so we got some great food for some special prices! If you have free time and would like to meet up, I have some free time these days and would love to catch up!
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!
