Welcome to Houston

The first thing I ask isn't what house you want

The first thing I ask is what matters most to you. What you care about, what you want to hear.

In that moment, the most important thing for me is listening to what my client has to say. Explaining comes later.

Don't search by ZIP code

Houston is round, and market areas are irregular. They lean on geography without following it, and they don't follow postal lines at all.

Two different ZIP codes can be ten minutes apart. A single one can cover things that have nothing to do with each other.

So when someone filters by ZIP, they usually end up hiding houses from themselves. Different ZIP codes don't mean different houses.

I'd start the other way around: we talk about what you're looking for, and the areas come out of that.

HOA, deed restrictions, and other restrictions aren't the same thing

This is the question people actually ask me. And it doesn't only affect your payment — it affects what you can do with your property and inside it.

An HOA is a fee, and it's also rules. You pay monthly or yearly, and in exchange they maintain what's shared: the entrance, the green space, the pool. But that same association usually has a committee that approves exterior changes — the color, the fence, the roof, a room you want to add.

And the question isn't whether the house has an HOA. It's which one, what it charges, and how it has behaved.

Deed restrictions aren't a fee. They're private rules recorded against the property, and they travel with it when it changes hands. They say whether you can rent, whether you can rent by the night, whether you can run a business from home, how many cars and where.

And there's more, recorded on your subdivision plat:

• Building lines. How far back from the front and the sides you have to build. They limit where you can expand.
• Easements. Strips of land where someone else has the right to enter or maintain something — drainage, power lines, a pipeline. You don't build there.
• 55+ communities. Occupancy requirements that limit who can live there.

We go through this together before you make an offer.

Schools: I'll show you where to look, not what to think

I want you making an informed decision. But you're the one driving — I don't tell people what to do.

When someone tells me they want good schools, I send them to the search tool to read it themselves. Ratings change, boundaries change, and what makes a school right for your child isn't mine to decide.

What I will explain is how school zoning works here, because it surprises almost everyone. A mailing address doesn't determine the district. You can have a Houston address and be zoned to Spring ISD. You can be in The Woodlands and be zoned to Conroe ISD, or to Tomball ISD. Two houses on the same street can land in different districts.

I'd confirm the district and the specific campus for that exact address, with the district itself, before deciding.

Water

I'll say this one plainly, because it costs money.

Houston has a lot of flood zones. Whether that rules out a property depends on what matters to you.

A FEMA map is a reference, not the last word. They're built on historical data, and FEMA itself notes that flood risk changes over time while older maps may not reflect it. And most homeowners policies don't cover flood damage — that's a separate policy.

If the house you like sits in a zone that requires it, that raises your monthly payment somewhat. It may still be the right house, for reasons that outweigh the cost. Or you may prefer areas that haven't flooded and don't carry the requirement. It's particular to each case, and we look at it with the official maps open.

The house here isn't the one in your head

Generally, we don't have basements here. What we have is attic, and that's where everything goes. If you were counting on a basement for storage or an extra room, that square footage has to come from somewhere else.

And if you don't live here: come walk the area before you buy. At the time of day you'll actually be living it, looking for what matters to you. Nobody can do that for you, myself included.

Pre-approval, before you go looking

I'm not a lender, but I know good ones. I'll give you several names of people who do this well, so you can talk to more than one and pick. If you already have yours, that's fine — I work with whoever you bring.

I'd start there, and here's why. The range of houses in this market is enormous: you can find one house and, in a neighborhood not far from it, another that costs more than double. Going out to look without knowing your number makes a process that's already stressful and emotional even harder.

And a seller who gets an offer with no pre-approval letter reads it as an offer that might not close.

If you're paying cash, that's a different conversation, and we'll have it.

Not sure yet what you can afford? Start there, not with a listing. Calculate your purchasing power

Your credit doesn't decide where you live

I bring this up because I run into it often: people who've ruled themselves out of an area before they even asked.

I wouldn't keep a client from living in an area because they don't have credit or employment history here. Credit is one of the qualifications. It isn't the only one. If the application is strengthened other ways, it can stand up even with a short history.

Where you live is decided by your family and by what you can carry. And by an agent who knows how to negotiate.

If you're investing, tell me which of the two you're after

Cash flow or appreciation. The answer sends us to different parts of the north.

A lot of investors screen with the 1% rule: they want a $250,000 house to rent for $2,500 a month. In the more expensive areas up here that generally doesn't happen — a $360,000 house doesn't rent for $3,600. For an investor coming from another market, that's usually the hardest adjustment. It doesn't mean the market is bad. It means you're measuring it with a ruler built somewhere else.

Something else that moves the math: tax rates vary from one community to the next, and many areas that have been built out longer carry lower ones.

My recommendation is always the same: a market study on the rent and another on the value, before you set your strategy. Both, not one.

The hard part isn't the house

When I first got to this country, the public libraries changed my life. Not because of the books — they got me out of the house, put me in front of other people, and that's where I took English classes and other things. They're a door into what the community offers, and almost everyone underestimates them.

The other thing was group fitness classes. My Zumba class changed my life — that's where what I call my Zumba family came from. In a city where everything is a drive away, a class you show up to on a schedule is the fastest way to meet people, and those ties hold you up later.

If what you want is variety, it's here: barre, yoga, pilates, hot pilates, infrared sauna, stretching studios. The big franchises have locations across the area. And the medical infrastructure isn't only the Medical Center downtown — The Woodlands and Tomball have their own.

The hard part about moving is almost never the house. It's not knowing anybody.

The first thing I ask is what matters most to you. When you're ready to have that conversation, I'm here. Let's talk