Alas, there is more nature coming across the street: a granite store, Gage’s Granite, has moved into the space vacated by the fancy pants garage store, near the old Fishburns, the name of which escapes me even though I bought some garage organizers there. Nicest people owned the place.

Now when I read the story, I too had my doubts, for this reason: if the reports CoreLogic used included HELOCS — home equity lines of credit — why would 30% of Dallas mortgages be underwater? In Texas we are limited to 80% loan to value home equity ratios. That would mean that if someone maxed out their HELOC in Texas, they’d have to have lost 20% of the value of their BRAND NEW 100% FINANCED home and then some to be underwater. Or maybe they’d be flat. Whatever, I thought, as I usually do, who am I to question the brainpower and computers of these geniuses in California? God, we are all so bad!

Well, Gwen questioned them. She did what I should have done and picked up the phone and said, you know, this just doesn’t look right. Artkansas never had a housing bubble. Neither did Texas. She did some research on CoreLogic’s methodology and found out — hold the presses!!! — the company’s numbers may be biased on the HIGH SIDE . In other words, giving us facts that are worse than they really are.

Most of the mortgages used in the study are less than six years old — really? Did the whole world re-finance in the last six years? When she called CoreLogic, Gwen got them to admit actually 85% are less than six years old.

The study assumes that the borrower owes the balance of the mortgage when they took out the loan — in other words, it does not take into account monthly mortgage payments made against that balance. Why? Because of the way CoreLogic gets it’s information — it aggregates information from lenders, matching total mortgaged amounts in geographic chunks, like how much was loaned in a specific area or zip code. Then the computers whiz out numbers against property values. (Obviously I over-simplify.) They get this proprietary info from the lenders and use original loan amounts from public data records. But they base it on the original loan amount — they never get to come into our file cabinets and see how much money we’ve actually paid down on that mortgage or home equity LOC.

See where I’m going with this?

Gwen also found out the study includes the HELOCs but again, uses only the maximum credit figures since that is all the information that is available. So it looks like every one’s HELOC is at the max. Don’t know about you, but I have to pay down on mine every month and in fact, ours is almost paid off.

So if you are using figures that assume homeowners still owe every penny in debt they ever took out on a loan, figures that give no credit to what homeowners have in fact paid, then Gwen asks, maybe that study could over-estimate the number of folks whose mortgages are underwater.

“It’s biased to the high side,” says Gwen. “We need to be a little more skeptical of these studies.”

No kidding.

(Note: Thanks to Gwen Moritz for not only questioning the CoreLogic report but notifying the Alliance of Area Business Publishers of her query via email, which Glenn Hunter, editor of award-winning DCEO, then forwarded to me.)

Yesterday, she learned that all three mortgage checks had been cashed, her mortgage now pre-paid,  and her checking account severely overdrawn. Not only that, she was hit with $350 in bank fees. Her bank officer called her — (“I didn’t even know I had a bank officer,” says she) and said gosh, this is so weird, your account has never been overdrawn in 15 years!

I am researching her recourse on the bank’s actions. They have refunded half the fees. But they would not reverse the payments. My lawyer daughter tells me to always, always write your bank account number on the back of a check or else, if the bank credits it to another account accidentally, they may not be liable. But I wonder how far the instructions on a check go — future dating — and sticky notes? My son (financial advisor) says banks cannot cash checks bearing future dates. But for best results, I have advised getting that mortgage set up on an auto-draft because Texas is a non-judicial foreclosure state.

Which leads me to a theory — would love your opinion on this. When you pay a creditor on an auto-draft, you significantly decrease any collection expenses they may encounter. In fact, you all but eliminate them. I think that banks and mortgage companies should give us a discount if we sign up for auto-draft. Or at least go back to handing out free toaster ovens! Calling Sheila Bair…..

That’s right, we are getting delirious over one-half percent.

Like the caboose of a train, a little behind everyone else, I think our Dallas market peaked in 2007/early 2008.  I was in California last January when evidence of the bust was already showing.  Of course, our prices never ballooned the way the hot markets like California, Nevada, Phoenix and New York poofed up, one reason why our contraction has been much less painful.

But I am not drinking Moet just yet. Homes are selling because sellers are slashing prices — DFW home prices today more closely resemble those in the years 2003/2004. Except for buyers with large cash reserves (flush from pre-bust sales) and near perfect credit scores, loans are not flowing. Credit is still constipated. Stringent new appraisal laws are blowing many real estate deals at a time when we need them most The first time home buyers are leading most of this upturn, but the $8,000 stimulus ends January 1 — Congress would be smart to extend it one more year. Not to be Debbie Downer, but spring is like Christmas for the real estate industry. Most people who need to buy or move do so in spring and early summer, usually families who want to get settled as soon as the kids are out of school.

I think the real test will be in the fall. Autumn is when the bottom feeders come out and swoop up the bargains, especially towards the end of the year when third-quarter reports yield more depressing news and property taxes are coming due. Commercial real estate is like a Jenga tower, and my sources tell me we are in for a tsunami of commercial foreclosures. Oh and get this: commercial loans were also securitized by the Ivy League geniuses on Wall Street. (Question while I’m on the rampage: where was McKinsey & Co., that powerhouse of knowledge, when subprime etc. hit the fan?) Unemployment still haunts, despite what Al Coker told Steve Brown.  Sweeping health care legislation could sweep out even more jobs, which is the number one reason now for home foreclosures: people losing jobs cannot pay mortgages. And foreclosures — if not in Park Cities or Preston Hollow — will further erode home prices even more in areas like Duncanville, Frisco, and Little Elm.

Which could, of course, bring out even more fire-sale buyers. IF they can get mortgages. Some experts out there are saying that the Fed is keeping us from knowing the awful, ugly truth – that a whole lot of the big banks are as wobbly as the soils in Farmers Branch. I would still like to know why more TARP funds have not trickled down to the consumers for home loans.  And consumers, well, they are not really letting loose. I was at Neimans Last Call this weekend and when the 65% markdowns came on, a few bought. One clerk told me the mall was crowded with more lookers than buyers.

My most trusted financial advisors are calling it bottom. Mortgage companies are starting to work with delinquent borrowers, finding it economically more advantageous to make a deal and keep them in the house rather than add to their burgeoning inventory. (Besides, it is so hot on the courthouse steps.) Builders are slashing as much as half a million off prices and every new home start I see has an owner — the spec home is dead. We might as well carry a casket like the Hippies did at Haight-Ashbury at the end of the 60′s. I remember Della Lively telling me in 2007 that Dallas builders were living on Moet, it was really running in the streets of Park Cities and Preston Hollow. Even the teenagers were drinking it.

Now, she says, they’re all drinking beer. 

This week I’m going to ask several Dallas real estate experts if they think we have seen the bottom and when they think the upward climb will begin. Comments are open, what do you think: has the Dallas housing market hit bottom from the Great Recession of 2008?

Or will we — gasp — get even lower? Bottoms up!

This is not new: the tradition at Romanian weddings was to pin money on the bride (a tradition I’d like to revive), that money going to help the couple buy their first home. There are also many ways parents can help their children buy a home without giving them a chunk of cash. For example, we let my daughter and her fiance live with us while they saved up for a down payment. You can also cover the cost of property improvements on the new home once they move in.

Call me Debbie Divorce Downer, but I am a member of the 50% divorce rate generation: what do you do if the marriage doesn’t last? Let’s say you “gift” Johnny and Susie $20,000 for a down payment on a cute M Streets cottage. They split after two years. Texas is a community property state, home is to be sold and equity split. My take: you have just gifted your son-in-law $10,000. Am I correct?

This time, however, the marketing campaign at Briggs will be far less slick.

“We’re going to keep it simple,” says Robbie Briggs, “marketing it through the internet and ingenuity. The buyer for this property will be a rare person, likely international.”

Or a consortium looking to turn the Dream manse into a spa or resort/surgery center where,  for example, celebs could jet into Dallas (D/FW is only 30 minutes) get nipped, tucked,  have fat removed or replenished,  and recoup at Champs D’ Or in 35,000 French-inspired square feet, meander up to the Hall of Mirrors-inspired ballroom and check out your eye-lift,  sip healing tea in the Tavern-On-The-Green inspired tea room, sit under the hair dryer in the salon off the Chanel closet and master bedroom where, for top dollar, you can sleep off the Vicodan.

Goldfield has more than $36 million in the house. At least one sharp agent told him years ago to dump the whole place for under $30 million. But no. 

“I think the timing is right,” says Robbie, “We can’t fix a man’s dream, we cannot transport this home to a different location.”

Not to Beverly Drive, because then buyers would not be getting quite such a bargain: at $27 million, the buyer will be getting 2/3rds of the home, and all 25 acres, for free.

Such a deal!

At a private celebratory party last night, Ray Washburne was crowned the King of Highland Park Village at his Mi Cocina’s, the second floor so crowded a June Bug couldn’t fit in. HPV passes from one illustriou$ family to another. Breathe a sigh of relief: Ray Washburne tells the DMN that HPV is in good hands with its new owners, all locals who care deeply about the historical shopping center. Vince is coming — no word on rumors that Apple and Lela Rose or other new vendors will be nipping close behind. Stay tuned.