An Austin tie

Prominent Houston hotel taken over by national group: $4.5 million in updatesplanned

Hotel Derek, a 314-room independent boutique hotel in the Galleria area, has been sold to a group affiliated with the Hotel Driskill in Austin.

The 14-story Hotel Derek is located at 2525 West Loop South and Westheimer Road, one of the most prominent intersections in Houston.

Lowe Enterprises Investors (LEI) has acquired the Hotel Derek on behalf of a national hotel investment venture LEI formed last year with The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America and a subsidiary of Allstate Insurance Co. An LEI affiliate, Destination Hotels & Resorts, will take over the hotel management.

LEI plans to spend $4.5 million in the property to refresh the guest rooms and common areas and enhance the meeting space, including updating the technology. The company does not expect to change the hotel’s name or to affiliate with a big national chain.

LEI plans to spend $4.5 million in the property to refresh the guest rooms and common areas and enhance the meeting space, including updating the technology.

“This is a rare boutique property in a market that is dominated by branded hotels. Its convenient location and modern style coupled with its meeting space options make the Hotel Derek an ideal choice for groups as well as business and leisure travelers,” noted Russell Munn, senior vice president of LEI.

LEI also owns, on behalf of an investment client, the Hotel Driskill in Austin. Destination Hotels & Resorts is known for operating premier boutique hotel properties, including a number of hotels in Hawaii and the ski areas of Colorado.

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rent report

New report reveals how many Texans are paying too much for rent

Photo by Francesca Tosolini on Unsplash

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Millions of Texas renters, both current residents and new arrivals, suffer from wallet whiplash.

A new report from the Texas Affiliation of Affordable Housing Providers shows 45 percent of the state’s renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Renters occupy more than 4.2 million Texas households, representing nearly half of the state’s residents.

Worse yet, 81 percent of extremely low-income households in Texas spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing, the report says. For that income group, Texas has a shortage of 864,000 affordable homes.

Thirty percent is the standard financial benchmark for spending too much income on rent, while 50 percent puts a renter in the “severely cost-burdened” bucket.

“To sustain growth and secure future prosperity, Texas will need more than 320,000 additional affordable homes [rented and owned] to address workforce housing affordability and meet the demands of a growing population,” says the report.

“Today, the state is creating thousands of new jobs,” the report adds, “but housing supply has not kept pace with demand, driving up housing costs and constraining continued economic growth.”

Not surprisingly, people who live in or move to three of Texas’ biggest metro areas get hit with the state’s highest apartment rental rates. Here’s Apartments.com’s list of the 10 most expensive places for renters in Texas, based on apartments whose average size ranges from 713 square feet in Austin to 771 square feet in Plano:

1. Frisco — $1,477 per month
2. Plano — $1,461 per month
3. Austin — $1,417 per month
4. Dallas — $1,413 per month
5. McKinney — $1,363 per month
6. Grand Prairie — $1,327 per month
7. Irving — $1,318 per month
8. Garland — $1,237 per month
9. Fort Worth — $1,217 per month
10. Houston — $1,183 per month

San Antonio boasts some of the lowest average rent among Texas’ 10 most affordable markets: $1,075 per month. Mesquite, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb, also fits into that category, with average monthly rent of $1,052.

Earlier this month, Gov. Greg Abbott announced more than $114 million in grants to help develop or rehabilitate properties, providing more than 4,400 affordable rental units.

“As our state grows, we must ensure that Texans have access to the affordable housing they need to thrive,” Abbott says.

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