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Tuesday Morning Tussle: One Week To The Foreclosure Auction

Next Tuesday morning foreclosed homes in Dallas will be sold on the courthouse steps. Foreclosures are a sad time and I cannot think of a worse, more horribly stressful scenario than being forced out of your home. I know — it happened to me.

Update: Belo Interactive Media Gave Brokerages Heads Up Last Week

A representative from Belo Interactive Media (a company owned by A.H. Belo Corporation) visited some of The Dallas Morning News’ biggest residential real estate advertisers last week to break the news about their new online real estate venture, according to a source at one of Dallas’ local real estate brokerages.  A.H. Belo is expected to send out a press release tomorrow Wednesday outlining the new online real estate partnership involving DMN and Sawbuck Realty. The source added that the Belo rep was especially concerned about confidentiality and made sure to retrieve all promotional materials before leaving the brokerage.

Updated: Tuesday 9:58 a.m.

Audio: Allman Talks About DMN Real Estate Deal

As Tim pointed out on Frontburner, it’s probable that if the deal is going to happen (and from what I’m hearing there could be a press release as soon as tomorrow) then it will be done with A.H. Belo because they are the parent company of The Dallas Morning News. However, Pierce Allman says Belo Corporation (parent company of TV stations across the country including WFAA-TV Channel 8 locally) in the voice mail. When we get official word on which one it is we’ll let you know. While we track down this piece of information feel free to listen to the voice mail message where Allman outlines the deal between DMN and Sawbuck Realty here:

pierceallman1

Sawbuck’s Marriage With The DMN?

Wow, Josh, so this is the big story I heard bits and pieces of all last week. Very interesting. Here’s what I know about Sawbuck Realty: it’s an “alternative brokerage” without brick and mortar, launched in the D.C. area, and likes to partner with top-producing, hand-picked real estate agents in a given community. They are expanding rapidly.

Sawbuck’s business model serves consumers at the beginning of a transaction by offering an online, map-based search system for local listings — I mean all local listings, everything in the MLS — hence this new affiliation with The Dallas Morning News is, I suppose, going to take the MLS to the DMN website. Then Sawbuck refers the buyers to an agent in the company’s referral network, in our case, a Dallas agent. They take a referral fee of about 30% from every closed transaction. I guess, in this case, the DMN will take the fee. Looks like they are sending the agent a white hot lead: the company claims that 50% of leads become closings. And get this for drawing in consumers: Sawbuck is said to offer buyers a no-fee mortgage and settlement package, as well as all the property information online at the beginning of a search.  Sawbuck’s co-founder, Guy Woolcott, has said his company does a lot of work to qualify the buyers prior to sending that referral. Last year, here’s what he told Inman News:

“We’re actually contributing something to the deal,” Wolcott said. “We’re not just flipping (agents) a lead; we’re giving them a real buyer.”

The company offers live chat on its site so that consumers can ask questions without being connected to an agent and then choose to be connected when they are ready.

The agents that Sawbuck refers buyers to are hand-picked, and the company prefers to partner with experienced, top-producing agents who often are a part of a team, he said.”

My sources tell me they first heard about this Thursday when their giddy DMN ad reps paid them a visit, and they were shown a spiral notebook they had to return and keep very mum about the contents. The company launches Dallas August 1.

My head is swimming. This could be a brilliant partner$hip move on the part of the DMN – what is Belo’s stock symbol again? (Dialing broker now.)  They know that 95% of all real estate searches begin on line and online is where real estate is headed. Traditional brokerage models are antiquated — the cost of doing business never goes anywhere but up.

But gosh, how would you like to be a broker who has paid bazillions to advertise in the DMN all these years and now come to find them a competitor colleague? (more…)

Belo Corp is Getting Into The Real Estate Business

At least that’s the message Pierce Allman sent in a voice mail to all 275 of his agents late this past week at Allie Beth Allman & Associates. Here’s what Pierce had to say:

You are going to see a press release from The Dallas Morning News any time now announcing that Belo Corporation has invested in SawbuckRealty.com. They are a Web-based residential brokerage based in Washington D.C. They are going to be opening next week in California. If you go to their Web site SawbuckRealty.com, they did an overview of their operation which is geared mostly to first-time buyers and a slightly lower price range. Belo has not stated any promotional plans, but the Sawbuck site will become the platform for the Dallas News real estate site, and it will have full access to NTREIS and MLS. So, the bottom line is the Dallas News has decided to enter the market as an online broker referring prospects to so called partner agents for a 30 percent fee off the top. Needless to say several brokers are meeting next week … And [we] will certainly update [you] with any implications and options. Have a good weekend.

Obviously, if this news is true then it could be a real game changer for local agencies because very few of them have the type of Web presence The Dallas Morning News does. It definitley looks like the company is trying to find a way to monetize their Web site traffic, and getting a 30 percent finder’s fee off the top could add up for them. To give you some background on Sawbuck here’s a press release they put out on Jan. 30, 2008, when they launched publicly. Keep your Web browsers tuned right here folks, because this story is definitely developing …

Just How Long Was 5323 Park Lane on The Market?

Today’s story on Preston Hollow’s biggest home sale in recent history — and what probably could amount to Dallas’ biggest sale — is perhaps in need of a little clarifying.

My source said the Lacerte Home at 5323 Park Lane was quietly marketed, but not on MLS, for 10 years.

Ralph Randall, the seller’s agent, writes in an e-mail message forwarded to me via Ebby Halliday Realtors public relations staff that the home was on the market for a shorter period of time:

The property made a private debut in October 2006. A marketing campaign
directed at high end real estate ensued at that time and continued through
December 2007. The campaign ceased for 14 months commencing January 2008
nonetheless the property was shown on a private basis 4 times.  In March
2009, efforts were scheduled to resume with Dave Perry Miller & Associates.
The present owner expressed an interest in the home immediately upon
notification of such.

Either way, the Lacertes could have gotten a significantly better offer if they hadn’t waited until a recession hit before selling the home.

Cantoni House — Free Lunch For Realtors

This is Cantoni’s new show home at 5903 Lakehurst , where listing broker Briggs Freeman is serving lunch today (Friday June 26) from twelve to two for Realtors. Agents get their first shot to tour the exquisite contemporary design – check out the master bath, master closet and upstairs media room. The home is open to the public on Sunday, June 28, from two to five p.m. Price tag, not including furnishings: $3,895,000.

Cantoni Celebrates 25 Years of Contemporary Design and The Bugatti Grand Sport

Well, now I’m really offended. I see that my colleague Kristiana Heap got to actually DRIVE the Bugatti Grand Sport , while when I asked to have a photo taken in it (just to give my husband apoplexy) I was told, no way. Please step away from the car. The $1.96 million dollar, 16-cylinder, 1001 horsepower (Jeeze Louise) auto was parked last evening in the pristinely beautiful garage of the new Cantoni show home at 5903 Lakehurst, another listing kudo for Briggs-Freeman, agent Linsey Barnes. Oh yes, I forgot: I write about homes and real estate; Kristiana, who is young, fun and beautiful, writes about fast cars. 

At it’s Metropolitan Home sponsored debut party Thursday night, the new Cantoni house cradled these puppies as eye candy. There was the newest Bugatti and a few Bentleys ranging in price from $135,000 (the cheapest) to $1.1 million, I think, my head was swimming once I saw a car priced for more than a million dollars.  Good thing I toured the contemporary masterpiece the previous day; the 7500 square foot home was bursting at the seams and loaded with every design/architectural Who’s Who in Dallas, from the 22 foot long counter connecting the bar with the kitchen to the exterior pool-side linear fire pit. I could see why they wanted the cars there — the Cantoni homes’ garage is like a piece of art, with clean lines, porcelain tile floor, and sliding glass doors. Perfect showplace for designer cars. The idea, which is so smart, is that you arrive home every night in your garage, you see this room every day, sometimes more than you’d like. Why not make it attractive? Or enjoy the same foyer your guests enjoy — the house is designed so that you enter the front foyer from the garage and walk into the most beautiful formal rooms first thing. The view from the garage is spectacular.

(more…)

Who Is Kelcy Warren?

He is the new owner of 5323 Park Lane. He is a very good looking bachelor — move over, Tim Headington– but may be snagged. He is mature, energetic, intelligent, has a couple of private jets, is selling his home on Inwood, and is building a home in Honduras, which is the new Costa Rica, which is the new Hawaii.

Stay tuned.

D Sale of the Week: Sergei’s Dallas Palace

3916 Marquette is the stunning home of Dallas Star’s ice hockey defenseman (and now free agent)  Sergei Alexandrovich Zubov, his wife Irina and two children. This Dallas palace was purchased in 2006 and the Zubov’s went to town decorating;  the perfectly finished-out interiors would make a Czar or Czarina give up the throne for good. There are five bedrooms, six and a half baths, a keeping room, wine cellar, den, study, media room, steam shower, outdoor covered loggia, dipping pool, kitchen. We know that Sergei is not a small man, hence the double shower in the master bath. With the family off home-hopping between their New York and Florida abodes, 3916 Marquette can be yours for a mere $4.1 million.

Agent: Jamie Adams, Prudential Fine Properties: 817.226.4920.

Selling Your Home: Spray On Reupholstery

So this article says you can now buy spray fabric paint to cover soiled, stained or boring upholstery. And while puff-paint in a can might be a fast fix before an open house, OCD here finds the notion of concealing stains, odors and germs just, well, icky.

Dallas Neighborhoods: University Terrace Now a Neighborhood Stabilization Overlay

Passed today, and from what I hear, the battle has not been pretty. Gotta confess here — I hate  Neighborhood Nazi Nimwits. We had our own issues in Hillcrest Estates a few years back, when a handful of neighbors who had been here in their ranch homes since the dawn of eternity decided they wanted to control what new people coming in were building. One of them filed an encumbrance on our properties limiting window views — this in a ‘hood with minimum one acre lots. Never mind that most of them had deed restriction violations on their own properties — that was OK because they had been here so long. But none of us coming in could deviate and in fact, they wanted us to abide by stricter controls. That experience and the ego rush I felt coming from folks who were not paying my mortgage or taxes just fried me. So I do apologize, I’m a little jaded.

The problem I have with bulldog HOA’s and NSO’s is how they pit neighbor against neighbor — to wit, this from University Terrace’s NSO Yes! blog:

“you know what tubby. I actually have a life. I have a family. I have better things to do than to bully people into decisions and impose on other peoples rights. But if you feel so good about it that you have to celebrate, then have a great time. It really shows to all the people that did not vote or voted no just how low class, and trashy you are.” 

Please read the blog entirely and tell me if you are not instantly transported back to eighth grade. But that’s why city councils shouldn’t let these overlays happen — let the city make the rules, enforce them, anyone else can battle it out in court where the prohibitive costs might make people act like adults for about five whole minutes.

Dallas Mayor Leppert Just Fishing For Real Estate?

They are not “actively marketing their home” nor hankering to move, and they don’t have their eyes set on another abode. But now that the kids are gone, Mayor Tom Leppert and his wife, Laura, are toying with the idea of selling their 10,106-square-foot home in the honeypot of Preston Hollow — a hop, skip and jump from the recent $30 million-ish sale of 5323 Park Lane.

They are toying with the idea so much that they have their home quietly listed with Keller Williams agent Nicky Sheets (how much they are not-actively-marketing it for, Sheets won’t say), and the home is not listed in the MLS. According to the mayor’s spokesperson, Chris Heinbaugh, the first couple of Dallas just want to let it be known that if someone is interested in buying a beautiful Granbury-stone home DCAD valued at just over $5 million, built in 2002, at a competitive price, well then they just might consider selling.

Of course, should the “not-active-marketing” result in a sale, the Lepperts would like to stay in the same area.

Dallas Home Price Performance

Today Steve Brown tells us that, even though our home values have taken about a 15% price hit from the highs of 2007, Dallas home prices are projected to remain constant over the next twelve months while they are expected to continue to decrease nationally by 6.6 percent, all this according to yet another home price consultant guru, North Carolina-based Local Price Monitor. At a real estate event last night — so fun,  commercial brokers had to dress up in tuxedos and serve the ladies wine — I heard tale upon tale of buyers coming in with low-ball offers. At least one agent said, if you don’t have to sell your house, why would you have it on the market now? Getting back to the North Carolina study: yesterday, Steve quoted the folks at Harvard, who I personally find morbidly doom and gloom in their reports, as saying our home values were back to 1990’s values.  (CNN says new home sales in May down a third from 2008 levels.) While today’s report seems to contradict that report, I guess this means it still is not as bad as the 1980’s.

How To Make Your Home Sell Faster

Nice little ditty here in the DMN offering sales tips, but I couldn’t disagree more with the advice on two counts:

1. Home warranties. Garbage, I say. Not worth the paper they are written on. These are like HMO’s (or any health insurance plan) that promises you everything, but in reality pays for as little as possible. Sometimes there are kickbacks to realtors involved: ERA Buyer Protection Plan — $240. Divide that $240 into four, $60 for national, $60 for regional, $60 for the agent, $60 to underwrite the actual insurance. Then you have a “co-pay” transaction fee, and if an item really needs replacing, the company reserves the right to repair it, cobble it together with duct-tape or whatever just to make it functional. If you want to replace your A/C compressor, for example, you will still have to fork over the dough rae mi. We had a home warranty on one of our homes, made a few claims, they dumped us as soon as they could and blacklisted us from re-joining their club for four years.

Full disclosure: one of my colleagues here says that the home warranty did save them big bucks when they bought their condo last year and the A/C broke right after they moved in. Of course, a year later, it’s broken again and we are praying the work is under warranty.

What do you think about Home Warranties?

2. “A lived-in, maintained home is easier for buyers to imagine themselves living in than a vacant foreclosure.” BS — given the chance, buyers want new sparkling clean homes (no scuffed baseboards, marred trim, cooking grease on the backsplash) if they can afford them. I think buyers can imagine themselves in new construction just fine, and almost any builder with a brain now stages the home.

Close Love Field and Move It South?

That is the development fantasy of Dallas real estate broker Randall Turner, and while my first thought was no way, Jose — everyone I know loves Southwest and prefers to fly Southwest whenever possible. Was in Panama City, Florida recently where they are building the first new international airport since 9/11 and those folks are drooling to land Southwest jets in Panama City. No, we don’t ever want to alienate Southwest. But then I started thinking about noise in Bluffview, Highland Park and Midway Hollow from Love Field and wonder — maybe Turner’s idea is not so crazy after all.

Building or Remodeling? Formals, Wine Cellars Are Out

Toured several new homes in Dallas yesterday, including a new, gorgeous $2.9 million spec home that has no formal living room. According to the architect/designer, Don Caperton, Caperton Johnson, two things are out: formal living rooms and wine cellars. The formal living rooms are considered a waste of space and building dollars. Unsaid but widely known: they also keep the Dallas Design District afloat and serve up to many a Dallas husband heart-attack-sized design bills. Wine rooms are also over-rated, costly to install, a legal nightmare if you have teenagers, and people never end up filling the cellar with all that wine.

They just drink it.

Next thing you know, people will be filling their swimming pools.

Real Estate Round-Up: Foreclosures Spreading, Dallas RE Values Revisit the 90’s?

USA Today quotes Realty Trac saying that foreclosures are spreading from the Big Four Bad Boys — California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona to other locales like North Carolina, Wisconsin (!) and even the land of potatoes, Idaho. Culprits: lost jobs, lay-offs. Steve Brown tells us that Dallas real estate values have re-visited the 1990’s when adjusted for inflation. The median price of a Dallas home in 2007 was $158,000  — today that same house can be picked up for $129,000. Just please don’t tell me that we are going to re-live the 90’s in decor: if the southwestern look returns, I’m outa here.

House Porn Extravaganza: The 100 Most Expensive Homes In Dallas, 2009

Get ready for major financial house porn: the D Magazine print product is out with the lowdown of who owns Dallas’ 100 most expensive homes. (I kind of gave you a tease about this a few months ago, suggesting we send these people thank-you notes for  paying the highest property taxes in Dallas County.) Well, as you can probably guess, that list is already outdated. Number four on the list, the $28,742,300 home of software titan Lawrence Lacerte at 5323 Park Lane, is wrong. Last Tuesday the home changed hands from Lacerte to Kelsey Warren… and that Dallas County appraisal is not too far off from the home’s confidential selling price. The buyer, Kelsey Warren, took out a $14,000,000 loan, paid cash for the rest.  On a $14,000,000 home mortgage, the monthly payments are about $103,000 per month, not counting taxes and insurance.

Can you just imagine writing a check that hefty?

For Sale, By Owner: How To Write A Real Estate Ad

You want to put your home on the market, but you’d like to test the waters and try to sell it yourself before giving up 6% of the sales profit to Realtors. You’ve done your research, think you’ve got the home staged and well-priced. Now how do you write the perfect real estate ad and should you advertise your home in the newspaper?

It seems that folks born prior to 1968 — the year of the Democratic convention in Chicago — have brain wiring programmed to think that everything you want to sell must be advertised in the newspaper. (I think this is the result of subliminal advertising.) People under age 40, however, have been wired differently. The fact that the dividing line seems to be those born during or after 1968 strikes me as ironic. Social networking such as Facebook, Linked In, Plaxo and Twitter are quickly becoming the marketing vehicles for younger agents and buyers. So, how to write a real estate ad for this hip generation and not ignore those who still read newspapers? Consider first the AGE of your buyers: Over 50, toss a few bucks on a Sunday classified. Under 50, you’d better have a presence on CraigsList, the web and Facebook.

Write with your customer in mind.Let’s say that you’re a lover of history, and you bought a historic house on Swiss Avenue. Who is your customer? Someone who also likes the grace and character of older homes. Keep that in mind when you write your ad copy — what does your historic home have that the run-of-the-mill McMansions don’t have, things like “original maple hand-bordered floors” or “Victorian tile fireplace surround”. Picture your buyer as you write, and think about what would appeal to them.

Describe the property, not the customer. Be careful not to run afoul of Fair Housing laws – phrases like “family-friendly” and “exclusive gated community” sound tantalizing but may discourage potential shoppers. Better to stick to absolute descriptions of your real estate like “four bedrooms”, “mature”, and “quiet ‘hood.” Never, never mention a target buyer’s race, color, or religion – that’s clearly against the law!

Name drop brand names and materials.Two of the top five real estate word/phrases words are “granite” and “Corian”? (Others: “state of the art”, “gourmet”, and a nod to our love of nature, “Maple” as in wood, not sirup.) Those words describe specific materials, and that says something valuable to the customer. Of course, you have to know what shoppers in your price point want and expect. If the preference at your price point is for a “Viking” range, you might not want to highlight your dependable “Sears” low-end stove. Descriptive words like “oak flooring,” “soapstone counter tops,” or “Miele dishwasher” – buzz them like the nuggets of a society column.

Look at the competition’s ads. Sounds simple, but you’d be amazed how many FSBOs never do this. Look for repeated phrases that might be evidence of what customers are interested in. Also look to see what differentiates your house. If the competition is a sea of typical North Dallas 1950’s ranches you have a mid-century modern, you might want to emphasize your “open floor plan” or “entertainment flow”.  Show you’ve got that extra pizzazz.

Be careful with code words. There are lots of real estate euphemisms – “fixer-upper” equals shack, ”cozy” equals  “small” – but customers sometimes over-correct for them as they go in and out of fashion.  “Motivated seller”  seems to be the catch-phrase of the day, don’t use it if you don’t plan to slice and dice your price. “Starter home” is another term that’s useful today to attract buyers pepped up with the $8000 first time home buyer credit.

Get ready to rewrite. Rewriting classifieds is one of the big agent secrets; if an ad doesn’t pull right, agents tweak and start over. It’s a good idea to tweak ads weekly and keep careful notes of what works best.

Father’s Day Vacation House Porn: Upper Canyon Road, Santa Fe

Dad has enough neckties. In fact, he probably needs more closet space just to house all those years of ties. Why not buy  him (instead) a little getaway in the most delicious part of Santa Fe — upper Canyon Road, above the gallery walk, an historic 1940’s pueblo-style adobe with more than 4000 square feet completely renovated, top-to-bottom. Dad will like everything about this home but he will love the Santa Fe River running through his new backyard: only $2,699,000 but I hear the Santa Fe real estate market is a bit soft right now so go ahead, make an offer!

Zillow Hearts Dallas’ Biggest Real Estate Deal

Yep, even those folks out west are impressed.

Home Builders Association of Greater Dallas Hearts Dallas Dirt

Fun times last week when I spoke to the Home Builders Association of Greater Dallas at their quarterly meeting — that’s me with Jeff Dworkin. Great group of builders and they didn’t even shoot me when I mentioned the TRCC. As I was describing the blog to the crowd, one builder asked me to explain  “House Porn” . Well, I told him, it’s basically looking at pictures of gorgeous homes — homes you will never be able to have, or ever own — and kind of dream, drool about them. Wish you could have them. You know,  just like guys look at regular “porn”.

The builder got all red in the face. I’m a deacon at my church, he told me, I don’t look at “porn”.

D Sale of the Week: 6202 Mimosa

Walk right in, tell the movers where you want everything to go, and just start living in an impeccably-designed, perfectly thought-out custom home built in 1999 by Joe Kain, designed by renown Dallas architect Robbie Fusch. 8,000 square feet well placed on this 112 by 150 foot Preston Hollow lot east of Preston Road, so you have just enough yard for pets plus this inviting infinity-edge pool. Five bedrooms, richly panelled study, mud room, wrapping room, home office, guest suite, hand-scraped hardwood floors, virtually all the latest and greatest. Great location, neighborhood security patrol, lock and go at your leisure. 

$2,450,000.

Agent: Ralph Randall, Dave Perry-Miller & Associates, an Ebby Halliday Company: 972.733.9613

5323 Park Lane: Who Is Kelcy Warren?

Energy transfer business. Like Tim says, lucrative field.