Best Heights Neighborhood

Filed in Heights News & Events by on August 28, 2013

What is the Best Heights Neighborhood?

As a Heights Realtor, this is a question I’ve been asked many times in the 20+ years I’ve lived here. And now that CNN recently  published that the Heights is one of the Top-10 Big City Neighborhoods in the U.S., the question comes up again.

Best Heights Neighborhood

Random Heights Neighborhoods

Asking the best Heights neighborhood is kind of like asking what is the best car. Everyone has different tastes, likes, degree of snobbishness, price range, etc.  That’s why there are 100’s of cars to choose from. Well, there likewise there are MANY Heights neighborhoods to pick from. Many of them are very distinctive. Click on the Neighborhoods Tab, above to get a feel for some of them .

Houston Heights and Woodland Heights are the best known, but others include Norhill, Sunset Heights and Brooke Smith. See my Map of Neighborhoods to get a rough idea.

Houston Heights has some of the best known streets and many dramatic homes. Heights Blvd, Harvard, Arlington and Cortlandt are some of the key streets. These central streets especially (between White Oak Blvd. and 20th St.) used to be the “in” place to live.

Houston Heights has several historic districts now. Owning a big home in a historic district protects you from the neighbor’s house being demolished and “inappropriate” housing replacing it. See maps of these Historic Districts. If being in a historic district appeals to you, you have several to pick from here.

Eclectic_Houston_Heights

The Heights is one of Top-10 Big City Neighborhoods per CNN

The majority of Houston Heights is not deed restricted, nor lot size restricted. This means a lot of tear-downs were replaced by two or more new homes. With escalating land costs, this is the only way of building “affordable” homes. New homes range from $300K front-loading homes on the edges of the Heights to $1.2MM for big homes in great locations.

Woodland Heights is definitely a prestigious area to live. It is a deed-restricted area, and generally lot size restricted. So, no tear downs being replaced with multiple homes. New homes here are built on full sized lots, so they are expensive. New homes this year have been priced at $860K to $1.2M.

A big part of Woodland Heights is now a historic district. There are a lot of surrounding neighborhoods surrounding Woodland Heights that have deed restrictions or are part of the Woodland Heights Civic Association.

So, in answer to the question of best Heights neighborhood: the most prestigious areas are Woodland Heights and parts of Houston Heights. But, the more affordable areas like Sunset Heights and Brooke Smith (where land prices aren’t yet ridiculous) have some great values.

For more information on the Heights/Greater Heights please see:

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