Looped In

Looped In

Ep131: Houston mayoral candidate, challenger Tony Buzbee

Dec 10 • 35 min

Tony Buzbee, who’s headed to a runoff Saturday in the 2019 race for Houston mayor, sat down with Nancy Sarnoff and Chronicle City Hall reporter Jasper Scherer to talk about his rise from small-town kid to millionaire lawyer and mayoral hopeful. This a one…

Ep130: Houston mayor candidate, incumbent Sylvester Turner

Dec 10 • 34 min

Mayor Sylvester Turner decided what he wanted his future to look like after watching the Kennedy/Nixon debate in 1960. That determination propelled him through school, where he graduated as valedictorian, all the way through Harvard Law, which was not his…

Ep129: Pocket listings and porch potties

Nov 20 • 29 min

NAR’s new policy on pocket listings is expected to result in a more transparent housing market, but there are loopholes, Nancy and Rebecca explain. They also talk about a recent luxury real estate event where agents learned about condo amenities for the…

Ep128: Glamping in the Gaslands

Nov 14 • 28 min

For a long time, “man camp” evoked images of tents and mobile homes, but many have received a makeover. Large energy companies clamoring for safe housing — where their employees can get food and rest without any of the late-night carousing that can lead…

Ep127: Turf wars: Homeowners vs. the Harris County Flood Control District

Nov 6 • 37 min

Matt Zeve delivers a lot of bad news as deputy executive director of the Harris County Flood Control District. In the coming years, he’ll be delivering a lot more. Potentially thousands of Harris County homeowners have fences, sheds and even swimming…

Ep126: Harvey investors, two years later

Oct 25 • 24 min

After Harvey came the crisis investors, who bought hundreds of homes to flip. In places, they snapped up entire blocks. What do those communities look like two years later? Vacant and abandoned homes, as well as impromptu rentals, dot the landscape. Real…

Ep125: Gentrification targets Independence Heights

Oct 9 • 17 min

In Independence Heights, developers are tearing down the original bungalows and replacing them with skinny townhomes with tall fences. Whole Foods, often a harbinger of gentrification, has opened a store there. Like in other neighborhoods under a similar…

Ep124: George Mitchell’s unconventional journey to build The Woodlands

Sep 18 • 41 min

Late billionaire George Mitchell was a Galveston-born wildcatter who became widely known for being the father of the modern process of fracking. Yet as a young executive, Mitchell became fixated with the idea of creating a healthy, sustainable community…

Ep123: Beer Me!

Sep 11 • 22 min

The number of craft breweries in Houston has grown by more than 250 percent since 2013 when there were only 18. The industry explosion (there are now 64) helped pave the way for new legislation that allows breweries to sell beer to go. Beer aficionado…

Ep122: The life of Ed Wulfe

Aug 29 • 6 min

A ceremony celebrating the life of the late Ed Wulfe revealed a different side to the gregarious real estate developer and civic leader. For almost two hours, family members and friends, including Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner shared stories highlighting…

Ep121: The legal battle over real estate commissions

Aug 13 • 24 min

New lawsuits challenging how real estate commissions are structured could lead to a number of possible outcomes, including changes in how much home sellers pay in fees and how agents who represent buyers are compensated. Plaintiffs in the case want to see…

Ep120: Breaking ground on the Ion

Aug 2 • 15 min

In a fancy white tent in the parking lot of the former Sears department store in Midtown, officials from the city, county and Rice University hosted a groundbreaking ceremony and press conference for the new Ion innovation hub. Across the street, Rice…

Ep119: A vision for the Astrodome

Jul 17 • 34 min

L.A.-based Architect James Richards was living in Houston in 2015 when he heard the Astrodome was going to be open to the public for a 50th anniversary celebration. He figured it would draw a small crowd of nerdy architect and engineer types, so he…

Ep118: Naming Houston neighborhoods

Jul 2 • 20 min

Is it “Montrose” or “the Montrose?” What’s “the 44?” And where in the world are the falls in Cypress? On the newest episode of Looped In, we explore the origins Houston neighborhoods names and highlight examples of real estate developments that have…

Ep117: A stroll through Glenwood Cemetery

Jun 21 • 31 min

A mile from Houston’s bustling business district, the historic Glenwood Cemetery is a respite from the bars, townhomes and apartment buildings that surround it. With gently rolling hills, wildlife and all manner of vegetation, the 19th century park-style…

Ep116: Rethinking Realtor fees

Jun 7 • 19 min

A lawsuit filed in Illinois earlier this year was the latest attempt to upend the current system of how real estate commissions are structured. The case argues that if not for rules put in place by the National Association of Realtors, consumers would pay…

Ep115: A bold plan for the Texas Medical Center

May 29 • 47 min

TMC3, a biomedical research campus planned for 37 acres between Old Spanish Trail and Brays Bayou, aims to take Houston’s powerhouse medical center in a bold, new direction. Plans call for the land to house medical and commercial space, a hotel,…

Ep114: Local writer on Houston: ‘America’s Boom Town’

May 16 • 19 min

Ralph Bivins has been covering the real estate market in Houston since the late 1980s when he started as a reporter with the Houston Chronicle. He now runs Realty News Report and has just published his first book: “Houston 2020: America’s Boom Town - An…

Ep113: Buildings, barbecue and bus lines

May 8 • 30 min

Looped In collaborator Allyn West recently left the Chronicle for a new job. But before going, he spent some time in the podcast studio to talk about his favorite — and least favorite — things about Houston. In an extended lightning round, Nancy and Lisa…

Ep112: The story of Swamplot

Apr 24 • 48 min

For 12 years, Larry Albert, a.k.a. Gus Allen, published Swamplot, the news and gossip website that highlighted the absurdities of Houston’s homes, gas stations, streets, parks, buildings and everything in between. On March 7, the site stopped publishing.…

Ep111: Demystifying opportunity zones, part II

Apr 18 • 28 min

There are more than 100 opportunity zones throughout Harris County, and At-Large City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards has been meeting with residents to explain how this federal program works and how it stands to affect investment and development in these…

Ep110: Demystifying Opportunity Zones, Part I

Apr 9 • 22 min

For the first time in his 40-year legal career John Ransom, has been getting cold calls from people with technical tax questions. Specifically, they’re asking about Opportunity Zones. John Ransom, a partner and tax specialist with the Jackson Walker law…

Ep109: Overcoming opposition to affordable housing

Mar 26 • 27 min

One of the barriers to building affordable housing often comes in the form of NIMBYism. The neighbors got wind of the proposal, swiftly launched a campaign to oppose it, and ultimately the developer walked away. It isn’t always this way and it shouldn’t…

Ep108: How an old Sears building could launch an innovation district

Feb 28 • 38 min

Nancy and Allyn talk to Rice Management Co.’s Alan Arnold about plans for the former Sears building in Midtown. The property, now called The Ion, is being redeveloped as part of Rice’s broader plan to create an innovation district on 16 acres

Ep107: Harvey tours

Feb 21 • 24 min

Harvey tours About six months after Hurricane Harvey ripped through southeast Texas, Chronicle editor Dianna Hunt, who helped guide the paper’s coverage of the storm, took some family members visiting from Massachusetts on a driving tour to show them some…

Ep106: The Houstorian Calendar

Feb 14 • 26 min

A few years ago Houston preservationist James Glassman began posting each day on his Twitter feed about important events that happened on any given day in Houston history. Those tweets inspired a new book, “The Houstorian Calendar: Today in Houston…

Ep105: The Loopie Awards for Houston real estate

Feb 5 • 32 min

For Looped In’s second-annual Loopie Awards, Nancy asked listeners to vote for their favorite real estate deals and developments of the past year. She gets help revealing the winners from none other than Looped In co-founder Erin Mulvaney.

Ep104: Rent, Buy, Repeat

Jan 24 • 29 min

Nancy and Allyn bring back former guest (and Chronicle tech writer) Dwight Silverman to talk about his adventures in the Houston housing market. Silverman, a baby boomer who for years owned a townhouse in Montrose, decided to see what renting was like.…

Ep103: Door to Opendoor

Jan 16 • 22 min

As promised, Looped In hit the road to visit a house listed for sale by an iBuyer, a company that uses data and technology to make fast offers on homes, close on them quickly and then turn around and resell them. After downloading an app and answering a…

Ep102: An eye on ibuyers

Jan 4 • 24 min

ibuyers, these new data-driven real estate companies that buy properties directly from homeowners, are battling for market share in Houston and across the country. Nancy and her colleague Rebecca Scheutz are joined by industry analyst Daren Blomquist of…

Ep101: Meet the legends of Houston real estate, Part II

Dec 19, 2018 • 28 min

In the second part of Looped In’s discussion with Houston real estate veterans Joe Colaco, Marvy Finger, Ed Wulfe and Welcome Wilson Sr., we talk about what it was like to work with the legendary architects Philip Johnson and Cesar Pelli; what transit…

Ep100: Meet the legends of Houston real estate, Part I

Dec 10, 2018 • 40 min

For Looped In’s 100th episode, we sat down with some of the city’s most prominent figures in real estate and development. Joe Colaco, Marvy Finger, Ed Wulfe and Welcome Wilson Sr. have spent a collective 230 years shaping our skyline and our suburbs….

Ep99: WORTH ANOTHER LISTEN: Houston real estate history 101

Dec 5, 2018 • 36 min

Looped In has been on a mini break gearing up for a new year and new episodes, so enjoy this rerun from November 2016 on the history of Houston neighborhoods. (Incidentally, we recorded this episode right after real estate developer Donald Trump was…

Ep98: Still homeless after Harvey

Nov 16, 2018 • 14 min

Nearly 1,800 households in East Texas are still living in trailers provided by FEMA more than a year after Hurricane Harvey. Now, many are at risk of losing their temporary shelters.

Ep97: Adding developments to flood plains

Nov 8, 2018 • 28 min

More than a year after Hurricane Harvey, developers continue to build in parts of Houston that flood, and it’s not expected to stop anytime soon. After all, one-third of the city is covered by flood plains. On the newest episode of Looped In,…

Ep96: Small house, big city

Nov 2, 2018 • 23 min

After years of catering to move-up buyers with big housing budgets, builders in Houston are introducing new models with lower price tags and smaller footprints. One company is marketing a 1,000-square-foot model with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and…

Ep95: Why Mattress Firm blanketed the market

Oct 16, 2018 • 21 min

Nancy and Chronicle retail reporter Paul Takahashi deep dive into Mattress Firm’s strategy of “over-storing” and talk about where the company – now in Chapter 11 – goes from here. Houston retail expert Jason Gaines of NAI Partners joins them…

Ep75: Why building affordable housing can be so unaffordable

Apr 16, 2018 • 51 min

In her attempts to bring a communal-style pocket neighborhood to Acres Homes, Heidi Eagleton discovered another way she could build in the underserved area: affordable housing. But her homes don’t fit the typical image of affordable. They have exposed…

Ep74: ‘Bean’ there, done that

Apr 4, 2018 • 23 min

Whenever Houston finds itself in competition with another city, it’s usually about the food, the fashion or the attitudes of the people – and it’s usually Dallas that we’re defending ourselves against. Houston recently found itself fending off…

Ep73: Immigrants’ impact on rebuilding Houston

Mar 21, 2018 • 26 min

Perhaps unlike any other time in history, immigrant labor is playing a critical role in getting Houston back on track, a theme highlighted in a new documentary called “Immigration’s crossroad, rebuilding after Hurricane Harvey.” Director Gregory…

Ep72: Buffalo Bayou Reborn (w/Anne Olson)

Mar 6, 2018 • 39 min

Hurricane Harvey destroyed the lower portions of Buffalo Bayou Park, devastating the beloved dog park and causing the loss of some 400 trees. After hauling off 30,000 cubic yards of sediment — at a cost of more than $1 million — the Buffalo Bayou…

Ep71: Gosh Dome It!

Feb 27, 2018 • 39 min

Ryan Walsh, one of the county officials guiding the redevelopment of the Astrodome, and local preservationist James Glassman join Nancy and Harris County reporter Mihir Zaveri to discuss the plans, the funding and the ethos of the project, which aims…

Ep70: If these walls could talk: the final days of Montrose’s antique French ballroom

Feb 20, 2018 • 17 min

Nancy and Allyn talk to Chronicle writer Molly Glentzer about her story on dismantling the 18th century ballroom at La Colombe d’Or, the boutique hotel on Montrose Boulevard, to make way for a luxury residential tower.

Ep69: Documenting racial tensions in Riverside

Feb 14, 2018 • 34 min

Houston native and L.A.-based filmmaker Jon Schwartz talks about his 1987 documentary This is our home, it is not for sale. The film explores integration, real estate blockbusting and white flight in Riverside, a historic Houston neighborhood along…

Ep68: The silver lining to Amazon’s snub

Feb 6, 2018 • 20 min

In its failed bid for Amazon’s second headquarters, Houston offered up three urban sites with tremendous potential: a vacant downtown skyscraper, a sprawling property along Buffalo Bayou and an aging department store in the center of urban life….

Ep67: Buying and selling flooded homes

Jan 29, 2018 • 44 min

Nancy gets a look behind the curtain on an industry that’s playing a key role in Houston’s post-Hurricane Harvey real estate market: investing in flooded homes. She and her Chronicle colleague David Hunn talk to Brian Spitz, a local investor…

Ep66: The Loopies: Our inaugural awards for Houston real estate and things

Jan 4, 2018 • 23 min

For the first episode of 2018, Nancy and Allyn asked their social media followers to cast their votes for some of 2017’s most outstanding real estate deals and developments in the inaugural Loopie Awards. They, along with the help of some of their…

Ep65: H-E-B bets on Meyerland (w/Scott McClelland)

Dec 22, 2017 • 28 min

Scott McClelland, the newly minted president of H-E-B, will open nine stores in and around Houston in 2018 and will begin building what could be H-E-B’s most anticipated store yet: Meyerland. McClelland joins Nancy to talk Meyerland, kosher…

Ep64: Building the perfect prefab

Dec 14, 2017 • 25 min

Houston architect Brett Zamore earned high praise more than a decade ago for his modern reinvention of the shotgun house. His next move was designing and building kit houses in the urban core. Zamore joins Nancy and Allyn to discuss his latest design:…

Ep63: What NOAA knows now about Texas storms

Nov 29, 2017 • 17 min

New storm data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, or NOAA, could lead to sweeping changes in the way real estate is developed in the Houston area. The research shows the amount of rain typical of a 100-year storm has risen by…

Ep62: Future proofing

Nov 22, 2017 • 39 min

A world where a self-driving car is a common mode of transportation is not that far away. Such a scenario has implications for real estate development. Take office buildings, which in Houston are required to have 2 1/2 parking spaces for every 1,000…

Ep61: What downtown could look like in 20 years (w/ Bob Eury)

Nov 14, 2017 • 37 min

Two decades from now, downtown Houston could be a be a thriving neighborhood where the streets teem with life seven days a week. In this future world, start-ups in modern offices would create the latest technological advances in the fields of energy…

Ep60: Living large in a micro condo

Nov 7, 2017 • 31 min

A pair of developers from Montreal join Nancy and Allyn to talk urban housing trends from around the world and their newest Houston project: an upscale development in Midtown with 14 pint-sized condominiums.

Ep59: Amber’s journey (Harvey series, part VIII)

Oct 27, 2017 • 26 min

Before the storm hit, Amber and Lenny Ambrose packed up their two young kids and small dog and drove to Amber’s parent’s house in Nederland, outside of Beaumont. The Ambrose’s house in Candlelight Forest flooded during the Tax Day storm in 2016, and…

Ep58: Swamped and the city revisited

Oct 19, 2017 • 28 min

From episode 23, Nancy and Erin talk to Chronicle journalists Mike Morris (City Hall) and Mihir Zaveri (Harris County) about their reporting on floods and development after two major flooding events two years in a row.

Ep57: MUDs and floods (Harvey series, Part VI)

Oct 13, 2017 • 18 min

Residents of Canyon Gate say they were never told about the warning that said their neighborhood could be subject to severe flooding because it was built in a so-called flood pool behind Barker Reservoir. Investors who bought millions in bonds that…

Ep56: Brandon’s journey (Harvey series, Part V)

Oct 6, 2017 • 28 min

Brandon Polson recounts his journey from helping his neighbors escape their flood-ravaged apartment complex to spending an evening with one of the biggest celebrities on the planet.

Ep55: Riding out the hurricane in a new house (Harvey series, Part IV)

Oct 3, 2017 • 37 min

As Harvey’s flood waters continued to rise in Braes Heights, Scott Davis, his wife and their two young daughters fled to a neighbor’s place – a brand new house built five feet above grade. As Davis sees it, the safest place to ride out the hurricane…

Ep54: What’s zoning got to do with it? (Harvey series, Part III)

Sep 27, 2017 • 31 min

Before Hurricane Harvey’s flood waters could even recede, the national media was reporting on Houston’s lack of zoning and how it played a role in the floods. Local law professor, land use expert and repeat Looped In guest Matt Festa explains how…

Ep53: Milton’s journey (Stories from Hurricane Harvey and Houston’s recovery, Part II)

Sep 22, 2017 • 40 min

From his second-story apartment in west Houston, Milton Lawson thought he had avoided the worst of Harvey. But then officials began releasing water from the nearby Addicks reservoir. Lawson recalls his journey from evacuation, to rundown FEMA hotel,…

Ep52: Stories from Hurricane Harvey and Houston’s recovery, Part I

Sep 20, 2017 • 18 min

Looped In returns with a multi-part series exploring the lives of several Houstonians who survived Hurricane Harvey but remain in a state of limbo as they seek to rebuild after the worst rainstorm in U.S. history. In coming episodes listeners will…

Ep51: Breweries: The latest neighborhood amenity

Aug 14, 2017 • 23 min

Research has shown that living near a Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s or Starbucks can increase the value of your home. The same might be true of craft beer breweries, these suddenly popular hangouts that have been multiplying in Houston’s inner city and some…

Ep50: Warehouse wars

Aug 10, 2017 • 23 min

Retailers don’t just take up space in shopping malls and strip centers. Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart and others have been building giant warehouses to store everything from toothpaste to toilet paper to toys. Nancy talks to Chronicle reporter Dylan…

Ep49: Acres Homes is where the art is

Aug 2, 2017 • 33 min

Nancy hits the road to visit painter John Calaway in his new studio in Acres Homes, a historically African-American neighborhood that has long attracted artists for its open space and affordable land. Now, though, high-end developers are discovering…

Ep48: Deconstructing the Houston farmers market

Jul 29, 2017 • 25 min

Nancy and her Chronicle colleagues Allyn West and Jody Schmal discuss the hour they spent with the new owners and consultants (including James Beard award-winner Chris Shepherd) of the Heights-area farmers market.

Ep47: Why Houston has so much parking, Part II

Jul 20, 2017 • 29 min

When real estate investor Mark Davis released some early renderings for a redevelopment project on lower Westheimer, they were criticized by some who didn’t like the plans for parking on the site. Davis tells Nancy and Allyn what he actually wants…

Ep46: Why Houston has so much parking, Part I

Jul 14, 2017 • 36 min

City planner Christopher Andrews joins Nancy and her co-host Allyn West to discuss how Houston’s parking ordinance and other building regulations shape the way real estate is developed here. They discuss one project at length – a lower Montrose…

Ep45: How legal weed can spark a real estate market

Jul 5, 2017 • 32 min

Texas may be a long way from legalizing marijuana, but if that day ever comes Houston’s real estate market could change dramatically. That’s what happened in Denver, where commercial real estate prices have spiked and apartment rents have doubled, in…

Ep44: Montrose, TX: uniquely urban in a city of sprawl

Jun 23, 2017 • 30 min

When Houston Chronicle managing editor Vernon Loeb arrived in Houston some four years ago he rented an apartment in Montrose and began exploring the area on foot. An avid marathoner, Loeb learned his new neighborhood by running it almost every…

Ep43: Will the Heights farmers market get ‘hipsterized?’

Jun 15, 2017 • 37 min

New owners of the Heights-area farmers market say they want to expand the offerings with a seafood counter, a butcher and a baker. They plan to improve the space by adding bathrooms and fixing the jumbled parking area. Nancy and her colleague…

Ep42: Swiping right on 609 Main

Jun 6, 2017 • 32 min

In 1970s and 1980s Houston, skyscrapers were built as urban icons where form often overtook function. Nancy Sarnoff talks to the Chronicle’s Allyn West about how the city’s newest office towers are transforming into dynamic spaces meant to engage…

Ep41: Looped In LIVE!

May 31, 2017 • 25 min

Nancy and Erin (she’s back for one more episode!) host their first live show from the lobby of downtown’s historic Texaco building – now a luxury apartment tower called The Star. In front of about 25 of their most loyal listeners, the ladies…

Ep40: Concourse Cuisine

May 22, 2017 • 22 min

A wave of new restaurants connected to local superchefs (such as James Beard Award-winning Hugo Ortega of Hugo’s and Chris Shepherd of Underbelly) are beginning to congregate in an unlikely place: the airport. From farm-to-table to Asian-fusion, the…

Ep39: Millennials, meatloaf and Mulvaney

May 11, 2017 • 32 min

On Erin’s last official episode of Looped In, she and Nancy share memories of their past year podcasting about the quirks, the curiosities and the characters that define Houston real estate. Looped In will continue, but the…

Live show update

May 10, 2017 • 1 min

Eek! We’re recording our next episode in front of a live audience. Want be part of our first live show? Listen for details.

Ep38: Grocery Store Wars

May 4, 2017 • 29 min

Houston has perhaps the most competitive grocery market in the country, and as H-E-B’s real estate broker, it’s Lance Gilliam’s job to keep up with the major players and the latest trends. Gilliam, a partner with Waterman Steele, joins Nancy and Erin…

Ep37: What’s up with Uptown’s Zone d’Erotica?

Apr 27, 2017 • 23 min

Nancy Sarnoff and Erin Mulvaney are joined by retail guru Ed Wulfe to discuss Uptown’s Zone d’Erotica, the adult novelty shop widely seen as a striking contrast to the gleaming Galleria and other luxury spaces surrounding it.

Ep36: Affording Houston, Part II

Apr 18, 2017 • 17 min

Nancy and Erin continue their conversation with the Houston Housing Authority’s Tory Gunsolley about how the city is grappling with its lack of affordable housing.

Ep35: Affording Houston, Part I

Apr 13, 2017 • 20 min

Historically, Houston has always been a relatively cheap place to live. Now, not so much. There are more than 300,000 households here paying more than 50 percent of their incomes on housing, according to the Houston Housing Authority’s Tory…

Ep34: Apartments: When will the specials end?

Apr 5, 2017 • 28 min

For the past 30 years multifamily analyst Bruce McClenny has seen the apartment market boom and bust a few times. The wild overbuilding always results in the same thing: developers cutting rents and offering steep discounts to get “heads in beds,” as…

Ep33: High-rise living in a low-rise town

Mar 27, 2017 • 38 min

Condomania: Nancy and Erin are joined by Jacob Sudhoff, a luxury real estate broker marketing some of the most expensive condos in town, to discuss why Houstonians never had much of an appetite for condo living and how that’s changing.

Ep32: #Downtown

Mar 10, 2017 • 21 min

Downtown boosters have floated myriad proposals over the years as they’ve worked to transform the city center into a vibrant place for people to live, work and most importantly, stay. The latest proposal is a plan to address and provide…

Ep31: The cost of labor lost

Mar 2, 2017 • 27 min

Many of the thousands of laborers building Houston’s glass and steel skyscrapers, apartment complexes, houses and roads are immigrants living here illegally. What if they were forced to leave the country? Chronicle reporter Dylan Baddour recently…

Ep30: Houston, we have a plan. Now what?

Feb 24, 2017 • 27 min

Houston architect and planning advocate Joe Webb joins Nancy and Erin to talk about “Plan Houston,” the city’s first-ever comprehensive planning effort meant to provide a strategic vision for housing, transportation, neighborhoods and other key…

Ep29: Does the Texas bullet train have a shot?

Feb 17, 2017 • 30 min

Before a 240-mile train connecting Houston to Dallas becomes a reality, the folks proposing it must convince an unknown number of property owners to sell them their land. The company behind the project, Texas Central, says it has agreements to buy a…

Ep28: Airbnbust

Feb 7, 2017 • 21 min

If you tried but to rent your house during Super Bowl LI but never had any takers, you’re not alone. Supply of short-term rentals was way up during the week of the big game. Nancy and Erin are joined by Heights resident Sorcha Landau who listed…

Ep27: PARTY!! Finding the sights and celebs of Super Bowl LI

Jan 31, 2017 • 27 min

Houston will get a flash of Hollywood glam this week when celebrities begin to descend on the Bayou City for Super Bowl LI. Local publicist Mark Sullivan dishes on the best places to get a glimpse of Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Josh Brolin among lots of…

Ep26: Can your house score $10k this Super Bowl (w/Laura Spanjian of Airbnb)

Jan 26, 2017 • 35 min

Thousands of Houstonians have listed their homes on various vacation rental platforms in hopes of cashing in during Super Bowl LI. But is it realistic to find someone who will pay thousands of dollars a night for your home or apartment? And what about…

Ep25: Housing Boomer

Jan 10, 2017 • 29 min

Dwight Silverman spent years raising kids in a comfortable subdivision in piney northwest Houston before deciding to buy a townhouse inside the Loop. About a year ago, he and his wife moved again. They sold a bunch of their furniture on Craig’s List…

Ep24: And the Swampie goes to…

Dec 26, 2016 • 35 min

It’s Swampie season. The real estate website Swamplot is collecting ballots for its annual “Swampie” awards, which showcase all that is remarkable and peculiar about Houston real estate. Nancy and Erin bring Swamplot editor Christine Gerbode…

Ep23: Swamped and the City

Dec 22, 2016 • 27 min

Houston was hit with two major flooding events two years in a row. Roads and highways were under water. Subdivisions and people’s homes were destroyed. Questions arose about why is this happening and what can be done to stop it. One of…

Ep22: Montrose: can you manage this?

Dec 16, 2016 • 19 min

There could be weighty implications for Houston if president-elect Donald Trump picks Ben Carson for secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Nancy and Erin explain, while also updating listeners on the lawsuit against the…

Ep21: All about the sprawl

Dec 6, 2016 • 29 min

Town centers in The Woodlands, Sugar Land and elsewhere are filled with storefront-lined streets, multifamily housing and even hotels and office towers. But there’s a darker side to suburbia in areas that lack infrastructure and private…

Ep20: Houston Real Estate History 101

Nov 28, 2016 • 35 min

Which Houston neighborhoods were designed to look like English cemeteries? Why does U.S. 59 outside the 610 Loop veer off at a 90 degree angle towards Sugar Land? Houston housing expert Scott Davis answers these questions and others as he shares his…

Ep19: Ms. Mulvaney goes to Washington

Nov 14, 2016 • 21 min

In typical millennial fashion, Looped In co-host Erin has picked up and moved. She put Houston in her rear-view mirror last week when she took a three-day road trip to her new home in the Washington D.C. area. In this episode of Looped In, Nancy…

Ep18: ‘Brew’-haha in the Heights, Part II

Nov 4, 2016 • 27 min

Nancy and Erin hear from H-E-B’s Scott McClelland, who is hoping Heights residents vote ‘yes’ Tuesday on the ballot measure that would allow off-premise beer and wine sales in what is now the dry part of the neighborhood. He has a lot riding on the vote.

Ep17: ‘Brew’-haha in the Heights, Part I

Nov 2, 2016 • 28 min

On Nov. 8, residents in a corner of the Heights will vote on a measure that, if approved, would allow stores to sell beer and wine for the first time in more than 100 years. Heights resident and real estate broker Bill Baldwin loves his Cabernet, but…

Ep16: Make Bayous Great Again

Oct 25, 2016 • 32 min

On the latest episode of Looped In, Parks Board president and CEO Beth White joins Nancy and Erin to chat about the transformation of Houston’s once tired bayous into connected greenways throughout the city. A Chicago transplant, White compares…

Ep15: The Z Word, Part II

Oct 18, 2016 • 20 min

Nancy and Erin continue their conversation with Houston land use professor Matthew Festa about the city’s lack of a formal zoning code. And in the “lighting round of questions,” find out what Festa’s favorite land use juxtaposition in Houston…