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Dallas Real Estate: I Wouldn’t Come Near This House

What happens when that offer is too low.

Halloween When You Have A Really Big House, Ctd.

Halloween When You Have a Really Big House

When you super size the house, you have to super size the ghosts and spiders, as well. And nothing like a ghost made out of a quilted Frette bedsheet!

Dallas Real Estate: More Scary Houses

Halloween with a contemporary edge — the mummies have escaped but clearly prefer limestone over Granbury rock.

Dallas Real Estate: Halloween on Steroids, North Dallas

Dallas Real Estate: Really Scary Houses

The Butler has been replaced at this home on Audubon in Bluffview.

Dallas Real Estate News: I Had Lunch With Steve Brown!

It was so much fun: Steve Brown offered his words of wisdom to the Elite 20 Real Estate agents at Bent Tree Country Club Wednesday, and I got to be a fly on the wall. Steve was pretty positive, and said he thinks our market has bottomed out past the worst, which he says was last March, April and May. We could be at the bottom of an “L” pattern or, hopefully, a “V”. He was very encouraged by the Case Shiller report and hopes that by the end of next year we may see some plus signs on our values. Steve is not concerned by the glut in our condo market, either: says condos are now a lifestyle choice, unlike they were in the 80’s. (But those home association fees! Someone recently told him that when you buy a condo, you are buying the the “right” to rent something.) Here’s what concerns him — and me, too: foreclosures — 60,000 for the year. Job losses — 64,000 lost in Texas, and we will have to see if employers step up hiring come next quarter. Buyers are not paying retail, and are in fact treating sellers like their homes are the Dollar Store. This is true: one homeowner told me that a couple from New Jersey came in and offered 40 cents on the dollar for their home. People from other parts of the country are so used to the bargain basement mentality, they don’t get it that our market is not Phoenix. Real Estate bargain hunting is going to be a tough brand to shake. Believe it or not, we will have a dearth of new spec homes in the coming months. We need jumbo credit and we need it now! Oh, and Brad Edgar, who was also at the event, asked him about the DMN’s Sawbuck deal. Said Steve: I don’t think its an issue. All businesses have to diversity and seek incremental sources of revenue. If the real estate market picks up, he said, the DMN’s investment in Sawbuck will be the least of any one’s concerns.

Steve, you are a really great speaker! Sorry I had to rush back to class.

D Sale of the Week: Twin Posts (and Columns) on Twin Post

This is one of those lovely, lazy North Dallas ranches many seek to save from the ’dozer claws. It’s located in a great neighborhood east of Welch Road and north of Forest Lane, and it was built in 1965, when this area was developed. A generous lot—122 by 131—means you can have a pool and some yard. Not too far east and north are scads of builder homes, both spec and custom. Forget about the low ceilings; focus instead on the living, dining, kitchen, vaulted den, and four or five bedrooms—the fifth plus bath located off the kitchen as it is in so many homes of this era, ostensibly designed for household help or in-law visits. (If you put your in-laws near the kitchen, dinner may magically appear!) On the bedroom wing, there’s a Jack and Jill bath between two bedrooms, and one more bedroom has a private bath. Then there’s the master suite, which was designed by Ellen Amador. Set apart from the other sleeping rooms, it features not just a large bedroom but also a sitting room, huge remodeled master with tub and shower, and two walk-in closets. Plus—another reason why this house is so great for the money—there is a study or exercise room off the master that opens to a patio. I think there’s a lot of living packed into 3,679 square feet, and I’d love to see my kids in this home. I also think this might be a perfect empty-nester palace: one floor, with room for grandkids. The kitchen needs new counters, and I’m a big fan of two dishwashers, but the price ($625,000) ain’t too shabby. And just wait until those multiple trunk live oak limbs get TP’d by all the private school kids in the ’hood.

Ask Candy: How About A Preston Towers Condo for our Student Daughter?

Dear Candy,

My daughter is starting Baylor Nursing school in January and we are looking at places for her to live.  I am trying to decide whether to rent or buy.  In order for her to have a safe place to live, we will be paying what seems to me like a lot of rent, plus utilities.  So then I started to think about buying some place and I was considering Preston Towers. I know it is full of senior citizens, but it is really safe, really convenient, and I if I wish to sell when she finishes school, it seems that that Preston Hollow always has a built in base of people who simply do not want to leave the area for Turtle Creek or elsewhere and equally do not want to live in an assisted living situation, so they look at Preston Towers and The Athena.

I would jump at the new units on Bandera, but your post last week indicated that $215 might actually end up closer to $350, and I am not up for that kind of investment right now.  So if I bought something and re-did it I thought that might be a good plan, especially if we have a unit with a south view. Some friends in real estate do not like condo ownership, esp. older condos, because of the assessment issues with on going maintenance. I do believe P.T. is in that category of probably needing the owners to chip in on some items to update the place.  Other Realtors say “oh this is a great time to buy.” To which I say, when you’re a hammer, everything is a nail.

So what to do, what to do?

Gratzie,

Marisa

Happy Halloween Dallas: Send Me Front Yard Photos, Haunted Houses

So I’m out and about seeking homes that are way over-done for Halloween, like this one. Excuse me, did someone just throw up Halloween? Last week I saw a home in Highland Park where I swear they erected a spiked fence just for this holiday — somewhere near Dartmouth, anyone see that? I’ll be snapping the uber ghastly over done these next few days, you go ahead and snap any horror stories you see, too and we’ll post.

And then: know of any haunted houses on the market? I mean, besides these.

Mortgage Application Volume Down 12.3%

On the other hand, mortgage rates are also down there at just over 5%:

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First Time Homebuyer’s Update: Plan B Looks Good For Big D

Bloomberg is reporting that the Senate has another deal in mind to stimulate home-buying: a tax credit of up to $7290. (with income limitations, of course, which appear to be $250,000 for joint filers) for “step-up” buyers who have been in their home at least five years. Bloomberg says the price of the home will be capped at $800,000. That could be very beneficial for our Dallas market, because $800,000 buys a lot of home in Dallas. Stay tuned, I’m watching this one for you…

Homebuyer Tax Credit Likely To Be Phased Out

There are those who say the First Time Home Buyer’s Tax Credit has artificially boosted the market, that some in D.C. are afraid to pull the plug for fear of what may happen– an even softer market. Even more somber news: it appears that the the federal government is now securitizing 95% of U.S. home mortgages.

I’m torn. I think the credit was necessary, and not only do I think it should be extended, I think it should be expanded. Goldman Sachs, otherwise known as Government Sachs, has said it pushed up home prices by 5%. There are simply too many people who bought adjustable rate mortgages in the past few years, too many people who, if they have to sell their homes, will have to carry cash to closing. What if they don’t have it? I’ve heard that many banks are shelving some bad loans, others making deals as low as 2% interest rates just to keep folks in the home, the property off the courthouse steps.

Almost makes you want to stop paying your mortgage. But then, who said life was fair?

The housing market is a vital component of our economy, and when people move and buy homes, they tend to spend money — movers, hardware, paint, soft goods, hard goods.

As for the government propping up an industry, I have this to say: Amtrack.

Dallas Real Estate: Grand Prairie Is Smokin’, Everyone Else “Less Bad”

Case-Shiller tells us that Dallas home prices fell at the annual rate of 1.2 % between August ‘08 and August ‘09, which is a smidgen compared to the rest of the world — double digit declines almost everywhere. Only Dallas and Denver are edging closer to positive numbers, our decline at 1.2%, Denver’s 1.9%.

Then ZipRealty (Emeryville, CA) tossed out it’s third quarter report to find this quirk:  Grand Prairie, Texas emerged as one of the top ten “hot” markets in the U.S., a hot market being one where accepted offers come in higher than list price. I had no idea this was happening in Grand Prairie. Further, Texas is a non-disclosure state so I am just baffled and have emailed the company for an explanation.

Help if you are from Grand Prairie — we need a clue!

Dallas Real Estate: Condo Auctions Netting Good Deals?

I told you two weeks ago about the upcoming auction that Drexel Development has cooked up for some Drexel Park Hollow condo units. Well, I just found this little tidbit from Curbed about another condo auction that recently took place in Boston. Industry experts tell me we are going to see a lot of real estate auctions in the next couple years, and it looks like some folks in Boston got themselves a fair deal, nothing extraordinary. (Or maybe these units just sell at more realistic prices, which makes you wonder why the developers don’t just slash and reduce.) But remember, the developer usually reserves the right to a “reserve” price, a bottom line threshold. As one agent told me, the nice thing about auctions for the developer is they get all pre-qualified buyers, so no tire kickers wasting anyone’s time.

Dallas Real Estate: More Beer, Less Cheer for Dallas Homebuilders?

The housing news was so darn depressing all day I almost didn’t want to post, but alas, I’ve got to tell it like it is: I’m losing hope that we will see much new home activity in 2010. So are some Wall Street analysts – who are bouncing around this number — 2011. Well, at least it will make for a nice slogan: Oh Thank Heaven for 2011. Washington is mulling extension of the First Time Homebuyer credit, which ends November 30, which some say has artificially propped housing. (Personally, I have nothing against pain medication and had my epidural ready and waiting when in labor.) Was in the Hill Country this weekend where agents told me that moderate sales are quite brisk, what with first time home buyers and retirees buying modest homes. Which is just what the WSJ says: even the largest home builders are now churning out smaller homes for both home virgins and retirees. Here’s a few lines any real estate investor ought to memorize:

“When the market does start to pick up, the NAHB sees that happening two years from now, the landscape will be changed, literally. After a long run-up in median new home size, peaking at 2,309 square feet in 2007,home sizes shrank to 2,091 square feet in 2009. “It’s the largest decline ever seen,” said NAHB’s chief economist David Crowe. Since first-time buyers and their parents, the empty-nesters, will be the dominant demographic groups over the next decade, builders will cater to those groups more modest needs.“

Modest needs: does this mean the end of keeping rooms and industrial refrigerators, uber high end appliances? Might not be a bad time to invest in some 2/1’s or other starter homes IF there is any financing out there.

Tomorrow I’m meeting someone from Phoenix who says he’ll make me feel better after we talk: one in every 7 homes in Phoenix is in foreclosure. And here’s one place I found where you don’t need to be on Happy Pills if you are in real estate: Boerne, Texas.

Dallas Real Estate: Extend First Time Homebuyer’s Credit?

If you lower prices, homes will sell, especially if you give out tax credits and other gimmicks.

Question: Should the government extend the first-time home buyer’s $8,000 credit? Tell us what you think?

Trick or Treat for Ebby’s Young Professionals at House of Blues

It’s trick or treat with Candy and Dallas Dirt in just one hour at the House of Blues where I’ll be interviewing Ebby Halliday on social networking… come on down. I’m out the door…..

Dallas Real Estate/Bankruptcy Update: Creditors Getting More Negotiable

Dallas foreclosures are up again, according to Roddy’s Foreclosure Listing Service, Inc: more than 6,000 posted for October, more than 5,000 posted for November, with the estimated total for 2009 a whopping 60,000 — about the size of a town. But local creditors must be taking Happy Pills or getting smarter, says one bright young Dallas attorney. They are frantically working out deals with homeowners on debt to avoid all-out bankruptcy.

Say your home gets foreclosed on. What then? Your options are to file for bankruptcy or pay off the deficiency balance, which is the amount you are liable for on the note after the foreclosure sale. But what many people don’t know — in fact, I learned this just at dinner last night — that figure can usually be reduced to pennies on the dollar outside of filing bankruptcy IF you hire an attorney to negotiate with the mortgage company. And the mortgage companies are getting so bankruptcy weary, they are in a more negotiating mood, says Jacob A. Decker, an attorney with Allmand & Lee.

“The large five mortgage companies are really talking turkey now, ” says Decker. “Last week, I settled one deficiency balance of $65,000 for less than $5,000.”

The trick, he says,  is to work with a bankruptcy law firm that deals with the creditors on a daily basis in a bankruptcy context. That way, the lenders know that if they do not settle for a  pennies on the dollar, the next step will be a bankruptcy filing where they will likely get zilch. A couple thousand versus zero? Decker says the lenders will almost always take the money.

Toss in cash-strapped tenants who are filing to wriggle free of long-term leases, bankruptcy attorneys are busier than they have ever been, says Decker. He’s also seen a significant increase in creditors’ willingness to settle other debt — renegotiate auto, student loan and even credit card debt. Bankruptcy attorneys are raking it in. Full disclosure: I have first-hand knowledge of how hard they’re working and am not complaining one bit: Decker is my new son-in-law!

Breaking: Dallas-Based PlainsCapital Offers First U.S. Bank IPO in Two Years

Further proof of how Texas is an island of stability in this recession: PlainsCapital Corp. is going public, to not only re-pay its government loans, but to increase revenue — though the Dallas-based bank and mortgage holding company has done extremely well with revenues increasing 30% over the last five years. PlainsCapital is the parent to PrimeLending, a local residential mortgage company with offices nationwide.

Maybe there’s hope for jumbos after all.

Ask Candy: What Should I Do About Selling My House?

DallasDirt wants to help buyers and sellers of properties. Home not selling? Should you buy now and can you afford that new home? Questions about a certain ‘hood? Ask Candy and we will enlist the help of an entire city of real estate experts!

Dear Candy:

My house has been on the market now for 95 days with about 30 showings. It’s a sprawling North Dallas ranch, great neighborhood, large lot near Inwood and Royal. I’m told this is a “highly sought after” area. We are considering lowering the asking price from $999,500. Do you think we should? By how much? My husband says we should take it off the market and wait until spring. Do you think this market is going to get any better?

Here’s the feedback we have received: not big enough; too big; yard not visible enough; too much of a “project” at this time, buyers need to sell their Uptown home first, buyers want new construction and less yard, buyers want quarters for their parents, buyers wonder why the walls are so big, buyers want a contemporary, open and updated kitchen. (Does no one remodel homes anymore? We didn’t thinking buyers would want to make their own statement.) Jeesh.

I just don’t know what to do, can you help?

Love, Amy

Dear Amy: Wow, you have had a busy last few months there, that’s a lot of showings. I know your area and it is hot, but this is a buyer’s market. It’s like the ultimate Last Call. In a market like this, buyers can afford to be picky picky and when they do make offers, they are coming in 20% to 40% below asking. Plus there’s still lots of inventory, so if they want new, they can find spec inventory from a builder who’s willing to let go. The biggest problem, I hear, is the out of towners who do not yet understand that our tongues are not hanging out like the sellers in New York, Florida, Phoenix and Nevada. (California is seeing a blip of euphoria, ha!)

Have you staged your home? Offered a remodeling credit for those who have no vision or inclination to redo that kitchen? Home warranty? Maybe fill the counters with ideas of what they could do. Most buyers today want turn-key — they are too busy to mess with a remodel. I’m the exception — I prefer to do it myself.

Take a cue from what you are hearing? Can you make the yard, which is one of your huge plusses, more visible? Can you draw people out there with furniture? Can you offer any perks with purchase — a face-lift for the new owner?

Just kidding.

As for lowering the price, the buyers will probably do that for you — sorry. The problem is this: the experts think interest rates are going to go up, and that kind of noise always gets the buyers off the pot, so to speak. But I am also hearing worries of inflation, which means all our homes will be worth more. Wish I had a crystal ball. Maybe hang in there ’till spring, or let her go for whatever you can without wanting to kill yourself. This administration had better get the credit market for jumbos — $417,000 and above — un-constipated real fast. After all, we bailed them out, right?

Keep us posted…

xo

Dallas Real Estate: Contain Yourself In a Max Levy Green High Rise

As SweetCharity tells it, the Turtle Creek Association sure knows how to hold a home association meeting. We are not talking casseroles and cookies from Sam’s; try the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek and every Who’s Who in town. Then the man who has brought us more hangers, cubicles and containers than we really know what to do with speaks. That would be Garrett Boone,co-founder and chairman emeritus of The Container Store. Boone was talking about clean air, which we all love and want dearly, but most vitally for us, he also talked real estate. Thanks to Glenn Hunter, I got  notes.

I had heard that Garrett and Cecelia, who are the best neighbors folks could ever have, were going high-rise and moving to The Centrum. Boone said he’d hoped to be an official Turtle Creek “neighbor” by now, but a “six-month construction delay” has kept them out of their unit at the Centrum Tower and in their sprawling ranch home not too far from yours truly. (Boone’s co-founder, William “Kip” Tindell, also lives nearby since he bought Caroline Minnis’s $ 5 millionish sleek contemporary home on Northaven at Ricks Circle.) The Boones have a penthouse on the 14th floor of the Centrum, which he said they love because of the unique, sleek architectural component of the building, the spectacular views and yet still neighborhood-y feel.

But here’s what’s really cool: The Boones have hired architect Max Levy to create a contemporary but uber green showcase home up there. To wit, three sides will be made of sustainable, recycled glass; hidden LED lights mean no more lightbulbs; a complete rainwater recapturing system even way up there, and native, not-so-thirsty Buffalo grasses on the terrace. The Boones say they will be one of the the first Platinum LEED certified penthouses in Dallas.

Despite the delays, Boone says he’s sure to be moving into the new space by April 2010; a palm reader in New York told him so, saying, “You will have a big move in your life in April of 2010.”

“In terms of construction timing,” says Boone, ” a palm reader is as good as anyone!”

No kidding!

Dallas Real Estate: Housework Before a Showing Means More Sex?

Apparently so, according to a study by the Journal of Family Issues I found posted by Amanda Salinas on the 33 News Blog. Anyone who has ever had a home on the market knows what a nightmare it is to keep a house clean 24/7, ready for that showing any minute. So I got to thinking, if he helps out with this really important housework chore, does he get “lucky” more often than not?

(Should he? Or she?)

We had to show one of our homes when everyone was sick, including me; one of my children had just thrown up. Let me sing the praises of (A) Tylenol and (B) Pine Sol. I gracefully tossed a bath towel over the mess (ewww) and poured Pine Sol in the bathtub as the doorbell rang after stashing papers under sofa cushions, toys under the sofa. And guess what: they ended up buying the house in a huge hurry — 30 days — for their daughter’s wedding in the late 80’s!

So let me take this one step further: if your spouse helps you clean house for a showing or open house, does that translate into sex more often? I invite the NAR to commission a study.

Dallas Real Estate: Barclays May End Up With Some Morgan Stanley Props

I told you last week that Morgan Stanley was going to have to do some talkin’ on nearly $2 billion in loans from Barclays Capital by November 2 — now Steve Brown tells us that one option may be turning over stake in some of the buildings they owe money on to Barclays outright.

Damn, Steve, you are so good. Can you imagine what would happen if we were a couple?

U.S. Mortgage Applications Fall 14%

This is not good news, as we are nearing the end of the first-time homebuyer credit November 30. Actually, we might as well say that credit is over NOW, since few who buy a property in the next week or so will be able to close by November 30, what with all the lending and appraisal hoops to jump. So it is NOT good news for the housing industry nationally that mortgage apps are down. Apparently even Christopher Dodd is now calling for an extension…