Google Earth Hybrid + HAR.com = Zillow.com?

I read about this in Wired magazine tonight and had to check it out. It will let you browse comparable home purchases and listings using an interface like Google Earth's hybrid browser - that shows the satellite image but also overlays the street names. I updated the information on my house and made a free account in about 2 minutes. To verify I was for real - the last step of the sign up process presents a list of 10 home owners. All of the couples are made up names (except for you and your spouse). We were in the list - my name was even spelled right. The size of my home was way wrong. I updated with the number of bedrooms and proper square feet and all. At some point it will go through and use the info I put in and compare it to the others of comparable size and calculate an updated value. The article in Wired says the "Zestimate" will update weekly.

Here's a screen capture above the Fox Run corner store - showing Gateway Baptist Church, some Fox Run, some Legends Run, and some Legends Ranch.



The site is at www.Zillow.com

EZ TAG Airport Parking now available at Houston’s airports

Did you know you can use your EZ TAG to pay for parking at Bush IAH? Now we both know... Click here for more.

The Grand Parkway - SH 99

If you live in the area, The Grand Parkway coming to town probably isn't news to you. Did you know it's coming right down Riley Fuzzel road? State Highway 99 will directly border Spring Trails, Fox Run, Lockeridge Farms, and Bender's Landing. We fall under section "G". Here's a link to section "G" on the official Grand Parkway site.



If you don have the .pdf reader, here's an enlargeable overlay of the .pdf maps from www.grandpky.com:



The good news - it will connect us to Porter - and US 59 - and Humble! The bad news - more noise? Will we even be able to hear the Grand Parkway over the monster aircraft using the "12,000-foot long runway 15L-33R, located on the west side of IAH, running parallel to Aldine Westfield" that was re-opened on March 8th 2006? Is this a good thing for property values - or bad?

Here's the time line - this is am image cut from a www.grandpky.com .pdf file and I've removed the other segments to just show segment "G".

Airplane Lights

(posted by John) This is from my back yard in Bender's Landing. This is two shots at night on top of each other with a long open shutter. That's an airplane from Bush (IAH). I just set the site up tonight so I'm kinda grasping for content...

From a while back

(Posted by John) Here's a shot from a while back in front of Imperial Oaks. You can see the coffee shop that was here a while. I don't generally take pointless shots out of my car window, but it would be cool to see some shots of the area from waaaay back. Remember when Rayford was just two lanes?

The First Post!

(Posted by John)

If you have anything you'd like to say or talk about, please send it to post@rayfordroad.com and it will show up here shortly. You can send pictures for posting to pictures@rayfordroad.com and I'll put them up.

www.RayfordRoad.com and www.BendersLanding.net live here. The intention of this site is to be a community post site for the entire Rayford Road area including but not limited to: Benders Landing, Benders Landing Estates, Legends Ranch, Legends Run, Spring Hills, Fox Run, and Imperial Oaks. We are an unincorporated area of Montgomery county Texas. We have a Spring, TX zip code and mailing address but we're not Spring. Our kids (and maybe we) go to the Conroe Independent School District but we're not Conroe. When I get asked "so where do you live?" - it takes a little explaining to be accurate, but I usually say " The Woodlands area" to make things easy. If you have anything you'd like to say or talk about, please send it to post@rayfordroad.com and it will show up here shortly. You can send pictures for posting to pictures@rayfordroad.com and I'll put them up.

I bought Rayfordroad.com and Benderslanding.net a while back not sure as to what I was going to do with them - well here it is - enjoy. Right now there is an audience of 1 for this site - me. I hope you and I can get something out of it. This site has nothing offical to do with any of the neighborhoods listed above. This is not a POA or HOA site. I am not trying to sell you anything.

A couple of rules:

1. Please keep it clean.

2. You can advertise anything you want if it is local.

3. You can post any non-offensive picture you want by sending to pictures@rayfordroad.com. I don't know of an automated way to do this quite yet. You can use .html linking to post to post@rayfordroad.com if the image is not imbedded - but linked.

And I will:

1. At your request remove anything you find offensive

2. At your request remove anything you accidentally posted you want gone

3. Put your link up on this page if it is of possible local interest.

My very best regards,

John