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Ebby Gets Out The Vote For Dallas Dirt:Five Days Left To Vote For Best Real Estate Blog In Texas!

Still time to vote for your favorite Texas real estate blog for The Real Estate Center at Texas A&M’s best real estate blog contest. The heat is on! Dallas Dirt has made it to the top eleven. (Yes! Thank you!) But we need your help and we need your votes. Please e-mail RECON’s Associate Editor Bryan Pope at bpope@mays.tamu.edu. Just tell him you vote for Dallas Dirt!

Four and a half days left to get your vote out!

And thanks to the folks at Ebby Halliday for the GREAT POSTER!

Dallas Real Estate Investor: The Bird Streets Are Really Taking Wing

Even so, the City Plan Commission denied permission to let the Simon David store on Inwood Road expand back onto Robin. Word is the neighbors, while happy with the store’s expansion plans, wanted to keep things within the original lot footprint. Basically, the neighbors did not want to take out Robin and told Randalls, the folks who own Simon David, come back with different plans, and let’s talk.

This area northwest of Inwood and Mockingbird lane is called the Bird Streets because of all the streets named after birds. I’ve been bullish on this ‘hood for years, and in fact would seriously consider an investment here. Here’s why: one year ago realtor Perry Guest sold 6806 Oriole on an 80 by 145 foot deep lot for about $155,000. Today, he’s got the 2000 square foot, womped-up house under contract for about $300,000. Guest loves the Bird Streets so much he lives there. “This is what Devonshire was six, eight years ago,” says Guest, and it’s right across from Greenway. It’s the last place close-in where you can buy a home on a great lot for a decent price, fix it up and flip it a year later, come out ahead.

Of course, Robert Shiller might tell you to wait five years.

Lots are treed, leafy, Park City-sized 80 by 150. They run under $150,000, maybe even less now. A few home builders have dabbled, none overly successful. This is the kind of place where you spruce up the existing 1940’s or 1950’s ranch, sit back and enjoy it while she appreciates as much as the current market conditions let her rip. Here’s one 2635 quare foot home reduced to sell listed for $429,000; another cutie pie down the street, owned by Briggs Freeman’s Meredith McKee, nets you 1320 square feet for only $225,000. McKee is quite hot on the Bird Streets and has renovated and sold a few nests there herself.

Northern Hills Trying For Conservation Overlay?

That’s the rumor I’ve heard — anyone?

Did You Know The Tax Laws Changed On Second Home Ownership?

Hello, where have I been? Apparently revenue hungry Congress has changed the rules on converting a second home from rental to full ownership so that some of your gain will be taxable if you convert your vacation home or rental unit to a primary residence after 2008.

The portion of the gain to be taxed is based on the ratio of non qualified use — the time the property is used as a vacation home or rental unit after 2008 — to the total amount of time you owned the property.Congress has changed the rules so that some of your gain will be taxable if you convert your vacation home or rental unit to a primary residence after 2008. God, how did this one slip by?

Dallas Real Estate: Embarrassed By Your Offer?

One real estate expert whispers — then you are probably over-paying for the property.

Here We Go Again: Disaster In Disney Streets Over Conservation Overlay

We’ve simply got to do something about those conservation overlays — my fingers are getting tired from writing about them! First it was Little Forest Hills, now the Disney Streets in north-west-ish Dallas (Royal west of Midway, east of Marsh) are embroiled in a neighborhood brou-haw over controlled building that is getting nastier and nastier, as they always do. I had heard (Bo) peeps out of there last summer but honestly thought things were chilling. Not so, I’m told. Cinderella’ got her wicked witch broom out and Pinocchio’s nose is about to be busted. I’m running a new Disney streets listing for D Sale of the Week next week. Doesn’t this neighborhood fighting hurt property values? So tell me, what’s happening. Anyone care to comment?

When Bob Shiller Speaks, Everyone Listens

It’s not clearly over yet, the animal spirits have been beaten down… people are not ready to spend again. But… there could be another real estate bubble? Yale University Economics professor Bob Shiller, creator of the Case-Shiller report talks and plugs his new book, Animal Spirits. In five years home prices will be no more than 4% higher than they were this May…. in other words, kind of flat. But in economics, who really knows? The real question: when will prosperity be restored?