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Marketing Your Property: Make Sure The Camera Is In Focus

Not exactly the photo you want the world to see when you are marketing your home for sale. You’d think the agent would have known better, but the buck always stops with us, the homeowners. Of course, maybe the problem is that this home happens to be on Margarita Drive

Field Of Golden Dreams

Hot off the press in the May, 2009 edition of D CEO: a fantastic business take on Alan and Shirley Goldfield’s Champ D’Or in rural Denton County by Mark N. Vamos — best story about the 35,000 square foot, French baroque castle (meets Plano McMansion) yet.  Vamos, a seasoned business editor and writer ( Newsweek,  Businessweek, Fast Company), delves into Goldfield’s background and company with a tantalizing chronology of how he earned the bucks to build a spread that has been priced from $72 million to $35 million, depending on the land tossed into the deal. (Or the market.) At one point, he says, a financial firm named The Stanford Group (heard of them?) made a serious play to provide Goldfield’s company, Cellstar, $25 million in needed capital. Cellstar’s board refused to reply to the offer, and the deal never went through.

Wow — Sir R. Allen Stanford would have felt right at home on Turbeville Road.

Cost Cutter On Meadowbrook

In the heart of Preston Hollow’s honeypot, this builder means business. The home has been slashed from $6,795,000 to $5,895,000 — a reduction of $900,000! The floors and walls are like jewels, literally. Almost 12,000 square feet of imported lapis, marbles, granites, onyx columns and tiles from top quarries, including a detailed mosaic of “Appelles” on the upper balcony. I’ve drooled over this house many a time, and hope it finds a loving buyer with deeeeeep pockets.

State Of The Dallas Market: We May Not See Mega Leverage For 50 Years

W. Michael Cox is the Director of the O’Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom at the Cox School of Business at SMU, and a Chief Economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas for the past 25 years. Cox, appraiser Brad Edgar, and economist Britt Fair (Hexter-Fair Title Company) spoke to a group of Realtors today about the Dallas market. Couple highlights:

No inflation is going on right now, the government is trying to stop de-flation. Almost all the experts agree that we may see eventual inflation because of the economic stimulus — that money pumping into our systems. We may have a window of about 12 to 16 months before interest rates will have to rise to control it.  The Fed can and will monitor inflation tightly 24/7 and may in fact want to see a bit of inflation, say 2 to 4%, anything but hyperflation or deflation.

The banks still aren’t lending, what will it take to move them? Maybe higher interest rates. Cox doesn’t think you can pass laws forcing banks to lend money.

“When the risks and rewards are in balance, they will lend,” he says.

Our day of reckoning for the stimulus package will be when we convince China and Japan that treasuries are worth buying.

Why are the banks doling out TARP funds to the “troubled” banks rather than the solid banks, so the solid banks could lend the funds?

Good question, said Cox.

Unemployment is starting to affect everyone, even in the higher net worth classes. Though Texas thankfully lags the nation in unemployment, layoffs may not be over yet. Two solid businesses now: healthcare and education.

And these men think Americans’ spending habits have changed dramatically, maybe forever for a generation. Just as they did after the Great Depression, people are tightening their belts. Whether they keep them tight and how many years they live lean depends on how affected they are by this economic downturn, how long it lasts. We may not see mega leverage for another twenty years.

Higher taxes may force people out of states like New York and California, and we could see another wave of  sunbirds heading here for our sensibly valued homes. Watch: commercial real estate failings. Be glad we live in a city that continues to attract business and generate jobs as well as technology (intelligent medical systems being developed at Texas Instruments) and varied corporate headquarters. Buffalo, New York was home to the largest number of wealthy individuals in the U.S…  once upon a time.

Stealth Real Estate Sales: How The Rich Buy Their Homes In Secret

What I heard at a very interesting real estate talk this afternoon confirms what I wrote in Park Cities People: $87 million in Dallas sales since September, 2008 have been of homes not even in the MLS — twelve pricey properties, the lowest priced at $2.5 million. Appraiser Brad Edgar, Edgar Appraisal Services, who appraised them, told a group of agents and mortgage bankers that high end sales in Dallas are quite healthy, just under the radar.

“There were two on Daria Place,” he joked.

Then Brad treated us to the inside story on a home he was asked to appraise several months ago. It was an assignment he now says should have tipped him off: he was asked to appraise two homes on Daria Place last fall, one not on the market, and the broker was paying for the appraisals. He even walked up to the wrong house and started measuring.

“Guess they’ll get a discount if they ever decide to sell or refinance,” jokes Brad.

But something told him he ought to encourage his college-age daughter to accompany him — even though, after hearing about homes for the last 25 years, she was not terribly excited.

After December 3, however, Brad’s daughter became quite happy she went to work with her Dad for one day.