• Home
  • popular
  • EVENTS
  • submit-new-event
  • CHARITY GUIDE
  • Children
  • Education
  • Health
  • Veterans
  • Social Services
  • Arts + Culture
  • Animals
  • LGBTQ
  • New Charity
  • TRENDING NEWS
  • News
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Home + Design
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Innovation
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • subscribe
  • about
  • series
  • Embracing Your Inner Cowboy
  • Green Living
  • Summer Fun
  • Real Estate Confidential
  • RX In the City
  • State of the Arts
  • Fall For Fashion
  • Cai's Odyssey
  • Comforts of Home
  • Good Eats
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2010
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2
  • Good Eats 2
  • HMNS Pirates
  • The Future of Houston
  • We Heart Hou 2
  • Music Inspires
  • True Grit
  • Hoops City
  • Green Living 2011
  • Cruizin for a Cure
  • Summer Fun 2011
  • Just Beat It
  • Real Estate 2011
  • Shelby on the Seine
  • Rx in the City 2011
  • Entrepreneur Video Series
  • Going Wild Zoo
  • State of the Arts 2011
  • Fall for Fashion 2011
  • Elaine Turner 2011
  • Comforts of Home 2011
  • King Tut
  • Chevy Girls
  • Good Eats 2011
  • Ready to Jingle
  • Houston at 175
  • The Love Month
  • Clifford on The Catwalk Htx
  • Let's Go Rodeo 2012
  • King's Harbor
  • FotoFest 2012
  • City Centre
  • Hidden Houston
  • Green Living 2012
  • Summer Fun 2012
  • Bookmark
  • 1987: The year that changed Houston
  • Best of Everything 2012
  • Real Estate 2012
  • Rx in the City 2012
  • Lost Pines Road Trip Houston
  • London Dreams
  • State of the Arts 2012
  • HTX Fall For Fashion 2012
  • HTX Good Eats 2012
  • HTX Contemporary Arts 2012
  • HCC 2012
  • Dine to Donate
  • Tasting Room
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • Charming Charlie
  • Asia Society
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2012
  • HTX Mistletoe on the go
  • HTX Sun and Ski
  • HTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • HTX New Beginnings
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013
  • Zadok Sparkle into Spring
  • HTX Let's Go Rodeo 2013
  • HCC Passion for Fashion
  • BCAF 2013
  • HTX Best of 2013
  • HTX City Centre 2013
  • HTX Real Estate 2013
  • HTX France 2013
  • Driving in Style
  • HTX Island Time
  • HTX Super Season 2013
  • HTX Music Scene 2013
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013 2
  • HTX Baker Institute
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • Mothers Day Gift Guide 2021 Houston
  • Staying Ahead of the Game
  • Wrangler Houston
  • First-time Homebuyers Guide Houston 2021
  • Visit Frisco Houston
  • promoted
  • eventdetail
  • Greystar Novel River Oaks
  • Thirdhome Go Houston
  • Dogfish Head Houston
  • LovBe Houston
  • Claire St Amant podcast Houston
  • The Listing Firm Houston
  • South Padre Houston
  • NextGen Real Estate Houston
  • Pioneer Houston
  • Collaborative for Children
  • Decorum
  • Bold Rock Cider
  • Nasher Houston
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2021
  • CityNorth
  • Urban Office
  • Villa Cotton
  • Luck Springs Houston
  • EightyTwo
  • Rectanglo.com
  • Silver Eagle Karbach
  • Mirador Group
  • Nirmanz
  • Bandera Houston
  • Milan Laser
  • Lafayette Travel
  • Highland Park Village Houston
  • Proximo Spirits
  • Douglas Elliman Harris Benson
  • Original ChopShop
  • Bordeaux Houston
  • Strike Marketing
  • Rice Village Gift Guide 2021
  • Downtown District
  • Broadstone Memorial Park
  • Gift Guide
  • Music Lane
  • Blue Circle Foods
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2022
  • True Rest
  • Lone Star Sports
  • Silver Eagle Hard Soda
  • Modelo recipes
  • Modelo Fighting Spirit
  • Athletic Brewing
  • Rodeo Houston
  • Silver Eagle Bud Light Next
  • Waco CVB
  • EnerGenie
  • HLSR Wine Committee
  • All Hands
  • El Paso
  • Avenida Houston
  • Visit Lubbock Houston
  • JW Marriott San Antonio
  • Silver Eagle Tupps
  • Space Center Houston
  • Central Market Houston
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Travel Texas Houston
  • Alliantgroup
  • Golf Live
  • DC Partners
  • Under the Influencer
  • Blossom Hotel
  • San Marcos Houston
  • Photo Essay: Holiday Gift Guide 2009
  • We Heart Hou
  • Walker House
  • HTX Good Eats 2013
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2013
  • HTX Culture Motive
  • HTX Auto Awards
  • HTX Ski Magic
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2014
  • HTX Texas Traveler
  • HTX Cifford on the Catwalk 2014
  • HTX United Way 2014
  • HTX Up to Speed
  • HTX Rodeo 2014
  • HTX City Centre 2014
  • HTX Dos Equis
  • HTX Tastemakers 2014
  • HTX Reliant
  • HTX Houston Symphony
  • HTX Trailblazers
  • HTX_RealEstateConfidential_2014
  • HTX_IW_Marks_FashionSeries
  • HTX_Green_Street
  • Dating 101
  • HTX_Clifford_on_the_Catwalk_2014
  • FIVE CultureMap 5th Birthday Bash
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2014 TEST
  • HTX Texans
  • Bergner and Johnson
  • HTX Good Eats 2014
  • United Way 2014-15_Single Promoted Articles
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Houston
  • Where to Eat Houston
  • Copious Row Single Promoted Articles
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2014
  • htx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Zadok Swiss Watches
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2015
  • HTX Charity Challenge 2015
  • United Way Helpline Promoted Article
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Fusion Academy Promoted Article
  • Clifford on the Catwalk Fall 2015
  • United Way Book Power Promoted Article
  • Jameson HTX
  • Primavera 2015
  • Promenade Place
  • Hotel Galvez
  • Tremont House
  • HTX Tastemakers 2015
  • HTX Digital Graffiti/Alys Beach
  • MD Anderson Breast Cancer Promoted Article
  • HTX RealEstateConfidential 2015
  • HTX Vargos on the Lake
  • Omni Hotel HTX
  • Undies for Everyone
  • Reliant Bright Ideas Houston
  • 2015 Houston Stylemaker
  • HTX Renewable You
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • HTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Kyrie Massage
  • Red Bull Flying Bach
  • Hotze Health and Wellness
  • ReadFest 2015
  • Alzheimer's Promoted Article
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Professional Skin Treatments by NuMe Express

    No easy resale

    How much does a free house cost? The Extreme Makeover Houston family faces taxrealities that go beyond TV dreams

    Peter Barnes
    Aug 5, 2010 | 11:17 am
    • The new house looks great — but like anything in life, nothing is ever exactlyfree.
      Photo by Sarah Rufca
    • Uncle Sam still wants his taxes — whether you're a charming reality TV story ornot.
    • The Johnson family are happy over an incredible gift now (and rightly so), butthe cameras won't be there in the years to come.
      Photo by Caroline Gallay
    • Ty Pennington's show hasn't been without controversy.
      Photo by Jack Potts

    Want a free yacht? I know where you can get one. Seriously.

    Sailboats that once sold for six figures now bob abandoned along the Intracoastal Waterway like sun-cracked mooring buoys. Hulking gobs of fiberglass, epoxy and disposable income decay by the hundreds beside affluent coastal communities because the boats’ insatiable maintenance proved too much for even their high-income owners during a recession.

    Turns out, being rich is expensive.

    Few consider that, though, when Extreme Makeover: Home Edition cordons off yet another working-class neighborhood. Almost as if the building bubble hadn’t exploded and soaked the economy with trillions in toxic assets, the show offers a hard luck family the perfect solution to their financial problems: A bigger house.

    The trouble is, much like a yacht, maintaining a luxury home like the one just built for a charming Houston family (Eric and Elaine Johnson and their five daughters) can easily gobble up $22,000 per year. To its credit, the show’s production company has raised additional money for the Johnsons, secured three years of free power from Spark Energy and made the house so efficient a project spokeswoman said it should cost less to cool than the two-bedroom it replaced.

    None the less, anyone who’s considered buying a 4,500-square-foot home might want to keep in mind the bills that come with it, even when the mortgage is paid off.

     Taxes: $9,200

    Looking at the tax assessments of a few comparable structures, $135 per square foot is a conservative estimate of the value Harris County appraisers place on new, luxury homes. (Land is assessed separately, so the neighborhood shouldn’t affect this number.)

    At 4,500 square feet, that works out to $607,500. Add the land at $15,000 for an appraised value of $622,500.

    Including exemptions, the Houston home makeover family was billed for property taxes equivalent to 1.48 percent of the appraised value of their old house in 2009. If that rate stays the same, and it might not, their new tax bill for a $622,500 house would be $9,213. That’s in addition to the $832 that county records indicate the household already owes for taxes from 2008 and 2009.

    It’s also worth noting that the show uses an outrageous tax loophole that, if challenged by the IRS, potentially could expose home makeover families to tens of thousands of dollars in income taxes on the value of the houses.

     Maintenance: $6,225

    Eventually roofs wear out and refrigerators quit. The standard advice to homeowners is to budget one percent of the property’s value for repairs each year, although some advisors recommend budgeting as much as 3.6 percent.

    The estimate above uses the lower value, even though a house built by volunteers at breakneck speed is bound to have more issues than one built over the course of several months.

     Insurance: $3,112

    While rates vary significantly based on the state, the property, and the owner, online calculators usually estimate homeowners’ insurance costs at .5 percent of the home’s value per year.

     Utilities: $3,540

    Eventually, the free electricity will stop. According to a website that markets services to new homeowners, the average Houstonian pays $295 per month on heat, Internet, etc.

    Back in days of interest-only mortgages and irrationally appreciating home prices, an entire generation of homeowners managed to forget that houses are, basically, money pits. In a lot of ways, they’re just like boats – constantly battered by the weather, expensive to operate and full of moving parts that inevitably break when you’re least prepared to deal with them.

    Plus, the Extreme Makeover houses are often notoriously hard to sell because they’re usually built in modest neighborhoods where rich people simply don’t shop for houses. Even with the properties handed to them mortgage-free, at least five families to date from the series have either entered foreclosure or come close to it.

    To be fair, that’s a not huge percentage when you consider the show has built more than 140 houses. But at what point is our country going to get over the ridiculous notion that middle class families ought to spend their money on colossal houses rather than putting their savings into something that won’t lose its roof in a hurricane?

    Such is the nature of television that viewers rarely get to see whether, five years later, the featured families have sailed off into the sunset or abandoned their prized gifts on shore because owning them was simply more than they can afford.

    unspecified
    news/city-life
    CULTUREMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME
    Get Houston intel delivered daily.

    WEATHER WATCH

    Houston will have vivid sunsets and air quality issues from Saharan dust

    Brandon Watson
    Jun 30, 2025 | 11:00 am
    Silhouette of electricity pylon against orange sky,San Antonio,Texas,United States,USA
    Getty Images
    The Saharan dust cloud causes vibrant sunrises and sunsets.

    An annual meteorological phenomenon has blown in to make Houston's sunsets a little more spectacular. A huge Sahara Desert dust cloud made its way to the Houston area on June 29, bringing hazy skies. The bad news is that air quality might worsen; the good news is that locals can expect a week of Technicolor twilights.

    According to the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, the dust is caused by the 2.5-mile-thick Saharan Air Layer, which is associated with “warmth, dryness, and strong winds.” That has strong effects on weather patterns, including lessening the intensity of cyclones. ABC13 meteorologist Travis Herzog shared an image of the dust cloud on Threads.


      
     
    View on Threads


    But Saharan dust can also wreak havoc on health. The fine particulate matter can trigger symptoms for locals with asthma, allergies, or other respiratory issues. Those sensitive to atmospheric irritation may experience sneezing, coughing, a scratchy throat, or shortness of breath. Some studies have even linked it with an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recommends that people with underlying conditions stay indoors during dust storms. The vibrant red, orange, and yellow skies can still be enjoyed with the comfort of air conditioning.

    The blast of cold air will be welcome to everyone as the Sahara dust can also cause some of the hottest days of the year. NOAA says that is because the thick cloud can stifle cooling afternoon thunderstorms.

    Still, Houstonians might want to step outside to snap a pic of the breathtaking skies. The vivid dusks and dawns are caused by the sun’s rays scattering the dust particles in the atmosphere. Sunrises and sunsets typically take on warmer hues as low-angle sunlight passes through the atmosphere, but the dust particles enhance the striking effect.

    National Weather Service forecasts say that this year’s cloud will only bring light concentrations with no major impacts on visibility. The phenomenon is expected to dissipate by the end of the week.

    sahara dusthealthmeteorologysunsetsair qualitysunrisesweather
    news/city-life
    Loading...