You’re driving through Tanglewood past your favorite home in Houston. It evokes a sense of
‘90s nostalgia: one-story with a circular driveway, a big oak tree in the front, and lived-in charm
that only comes with time. You smile every time you pass it. Then one month it’s gone, and a
year later a brand new luxury mansion is standing in its place—taller and more modern than
anything that street has ever seen. You slow down, squint, and do the math. It’s the same lot, but
it tells a completely different story. Once you start noticing this happening, you see it
everywhere.

Vintage homes in Houston’s most established neighborhoods can never be quite replicated by
newer constructions. Maybe it’s the craftsmanship, the character, or the sense that it has been
lived in and loved. That charm can’t be taken away, and it can’t be fabricated in new
constructions. Falling in love with an older home, though, has a way of coming with a long list
of surprises: outdated systems, a layout that made sense decades ago but doesn’t work for the
way people live today, a foundation with a few opinions of its own. The heart says yes, and then
the inspection report arrives.

That tension is exactly what’s driving the teardown trend, especially given the scarcity of land in
Houston’s most desirable zip codes. The neighborhoods everyone wants to be in were filled up
decades ago, which means if you want to be there, you’re buying whatever is already standing
and deciding what to do with it. According to the National Association of Home Builders, as of

2021, 9% of new homes in the United States were teardown-rebuilds. This definitely holds true
in Houston.

A teardown-rebuild lets you have the location you’ve always wanted without inheriting the
problems of the existing structure. There’s no surprises behind the walls, no renovations that
stretch twice as long as anyone promised, no compromising on a floor plan that almost works.
You get to build exactly how you want to live, in a neighborhood that already has everything you
were looking for. Since COVID reminded every single one of us how much time we actually
spend inside our homes, buyers stopped being willing to settle. The house has to feel right—all
of it. When that house doesn’t exist yet, more and more people are deciding to build it
themselves.

If you’re staring at a property right now, trying to decide your next move. You could renovate,
rebuild, or walk away entirely—and that’s a conversation worth having with someone who really
knows this market.

Until next time,
Dee Dee Guggenheim Howes