The sounds of construction ring out everywhere you look in this quiet northwest Houston neighborhood.
"It's just a mad rush right now for people wanting houses. We don't have enough houses," said builder Miguel Facundo.
He has been building houses in the Garden Oaks area for 27 years and he says he's never been so busy with new residents.
"It's oil related and medical and there's tons of engineers here in Houston," Facundo said.
And he says he's never seen his customers spend so much money.
"It surprises me every single day. We start off with one price and then all of a sudden by the end of the conversation or the end of the hour, the customer wants more and more things," he told us.
But Garden Oaks and its slightly more affordable neighbor, Oak Forest, are old, established neighborhoods. There aren't any empty lots here.
So developers are paying big bucks to tear down old homes to make room for new ones. Which would residents rather have next door?
"Houses need to be updated and some of them, it's just a better way to handle the square footage," said resident Jeannette Blesener.
Civic associations say they've never seen so many demolition applications. The city of Houston approved more than a dozen last week in these two neighborhoods. And long-term residents like Corrine Sanzo expect the trend will continue.
"I'm not planning on selling right away," said Sanzo.
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