In northwest Dallas, where I used to take my daughter to row crew at Bachman Lake with mace in hand,  498 thousand square feet of low income housing was cleared and now may be a new Sam’s or Costco warehouse club, reports Robert Wilonsky. Not only did we carry mace, but one time while buying the girls Slurpies at 7-11, this in my car pool days, to get in the store we stepped over a handcuffed criminal who was laying gorked on the cement. One time practice was cut short due to hearing gunshots. I thought then, and I think now, is it asking too much to have Bachman Lake be the beautiful neighborhood it once was? With the park, water and rowers it has so much potential! The girls used to find needles and condoms floating in the water. Ick.

I’m not sure we need a warehouse club in this location, for several reasons. If it’s a Costco, that is just closer for my husband, who has a true Costco addiction. I have to lie to him about store hours, not kidding. Secondly, if the area ends up looking like the Park Lane and Greenville Sam’s, double ick.  Why not build some residential units you SELL, to inspire home ownership and pride in the neighborhood. Or a pretty designer outlet mall –Todd’s, Burberry. I’m afraid a warehouse store will just inspire — more ick.

I know what you are thinking: why you mean, snotty woman, where are these poor people going to live? Easy. Frisco.

But according to a study over at American Express, where most of my purchases would likely be charged, 62% of American homeowners plan to spend $6,000 0r less on home improvements this year.  That’s good news for Loews and Home Depot . See, 85% of the homeowners surveyed consider their home their biggest asset — mine sure is, after my family. And we want to keep that asset in tip top shape “so we can sell it”. Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies also reports the home remodeling will increase this year. Most of us will do something on the interior, although I read somewhere recently that everyone is still quite hot over those outside rooms complete with kitchens and TV’s. Not me. Give me screens from bugs and pollen. Which reminds me: I also want to screen in my porch.

Are you planning any remodeling this spring, besides adding a boxing dummy for us to kick called DCAD!

This very scenario is happening in California right now, as the California Association of Realtors is in talks with Pomona-based Multi-Regional Multiple Listing Service, Inc. The marriage would create a single MLS for 33,000 Realtors and 22 Realtor associations.

North Texas Real Estate Information Systems has 25,000 MLS members and provides real estate information to them — homes for sale, comps, pricing and trends.

So what are the odds of a merger like this happening in Texas?

Which leads me to the question of how a great home is branded. Should a home’s creator or initial owner be the brand? The Beck house is no longer owned by the Becks, but they created it — with Philip Johnson. The Lacerte home at 5323 Park Lane is now owned by Kelcy Warren but I always think of it as “The Lacerte home”. Chateau De Triumph burned to the ground but that’s the name I’ll always call those acres while remembering it was George and Dominique Perrin who commissioned it … and Park Lane is Dick and Jinger Heath’s Dallas palace forever. Don’t we always call Tom Hicks home The Crespi Estate? Mt. Vernon is Ray Hunt’s mother’s home.

Does a home ever shed its lineage and separate from its creators, or are the two intertwined forever?

I am not going to delve into whether the spanking has curbed another little teenage problem called pregnancy, Temple being the sweet spot of the Bible Belt. Bell County once boasted one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the state.  (Every ten minutes a teen in Texas gets pregnant.) But it is interesting to think about spanking kids as a driver for real estate values.  I called Temple Realtor Danny Dunn, who will soon be a member of the Temple City Council, and asked how the real estate market is. Fabulous, he told me.

“Our area is the second fastest growing area in the country besides New Orleans,” he said. “We have one of the strongest economies in the state with manufacturing and medicine and remained fairly insulated against the recession.”

As for the Washington Post piece, he says everyone was all excited that Temple was getting national recognition until they realized it was for spanking kids.  A lot was taken out of context, he said. (Oh. My. God.) The intent was for corporal punishment, making kids run or do push-ups instead of sitting in time-out, the district was looking for creative ways to solve behavior problems. Besides, there is some red tape: families have to sign a consent form before their kid can be disciplined. After they read the article, Danny and the president of the school board were chuckling and wondered where the places are in Temple that folks sit on well worn rockers on front porches (the property pictured here is commercial), as depicted by the Washington Post. Temple has it’s agrarian element, but median home prices are $140,000, the same as or more since before the recession, and Temple has a population of  60,000 and growing.

So, would you buy a home in a school district that approved of spanking your children?

Update: A teacher in River Oaks has been suspended for boxing with students in school, which was caught on YouTube, as depicted in this report from KXAS. Now I raised a boy who wrestled and played football and really, I think the teacher was just goofing around. Maybe they should have gone to the gym?

“Dan Sparks and two underlings, Josh Birnbaum and Michael “Swenny” Swenson, placed what were in effect giant bets against the US mortgage market at the start of the year and watched their winnings tick higher and higher as the rising numbers of mortgage defaults spiralled into a worldwide financial crisis. Throughout the year, they battled with more cautious bosses who feared the bets were too big and too dangerous, but in part because of their success Goldman Sachs will post record profits next week. In doing so, the firm will stand alone on Wall Street, where rivals have suffered huge losses from the credit market meltdown.”

Sparks, who seems like a really nice guy, was honored last year by the Mays Business School for merit and  service at its annual Outstanding Alumni Awards dinner. According to a Mays publication:

“Sparks has been a guest lecturer in the classroom, as well as a member of the finance department advisory board. He is an active supporter of the 12th Man Foundation and serves on its board of trustees.”

Sparks lives with his family in New Canaan, CT in a relatively modest home (pictured here) for a millionaire:  a 4616 square foot clapboard ranch with 10 rooms built in 1951, appraised at about $1.6 million. 

He is quoted in the Mays Business School program as saying : “There’s going to be great opportunity when we get through all of this [financial turmoil]…what a great time to learn.”

According to the complaint, Goldman created Abacus 2007-AC1 in February 2007, at the request of John A. Paulson, a prominent hedge fund manager who earned an estimated $3.7 billion in 2007 by correctly wagering that the housing bubble would burst.

“Goldman let Mr. Paulson select mortgage bonds that he wanted to bet against — the ones he believed were most likely to lose value — and packaged those bonds into Abacus 2007-AC1, according to the S.E.C. complaint. Goldman then sold the Abacus deal to investors like foreign banks, pension funds, insurance companies and other hedge funds.

But the deck was stacked against the Abacus investors, the complaint contends, because the investment was filled with bonds chosen by Mr. Paulson as likely to default. Goldman told investors in Abacus marketing materials reviewed by The Times that the bonds would be chosen by an independent manager.

Mr. Paulson is not being named in the lawsuit.”

Of course, one could argue, where was the S.E.C. when all this was going down?

Confusing.

Of course the group started as a networking group back when social networking meant coffee klastches. But soon, through friendship and support, the Elite Twenty, started by founding member Joy Nees, began a tradition of touring each others listings and actually hand-writing critical reports. Reports which were then read, discussed, distributed, collected and put under lock and key. In other words, they critiqued each others listings. No holds barred,  this group was tough.

“We are all competent, competitive agents,” says Virginia Cook agent Jo Pressly. “When a seller adopts the recommendations in the written report, the likelihood of a sale increases dramatically. It’s like he’s got a panel of experts rather than a solo agent. In real estate, 80% of the sales are made by 5% of the agents and our high sales volume in the group is proof of how honest criticism works.”

The Twenty represent six different brokerage firms, and members have worked deals against each other across the table. They act as a 24/7 resource group for each other. There is also the Elite Twenty “hotline”, a voice message system that can be instantly forwarded to all members, like a private Twitter account. Each month, eight members’ listings are toured, scrutinized, all but navel-cleansed by the Elite Twenty. Pinky promise: no hurt feelings.

I’d like to be a fly on the wall: I think it would be great  fun to grab a video camera during their next tour: let’s see what the pros say to each other, not just to us the customer or behind people’s backs!

Texas agents in the first quarter were not nearly as pessimistic about home values as were their colleagues in other states. Quarter 2, Texas Realtors still called our market stable and improving. But come quarter 3, some sort of gloomy reality must have set in. Texas Realtors have reduced their valuation expectations and the effect is rubbing off on homeowners. 73% of Texas homeowners now believe their home is worth what their agent says it is, give or take ten percent higher or lower.

Don’t think agents are not taking that into pricing consideration.

But here’s the cheery note: 43% of Texas Realtors think home values or prices in Texas will increase over the next few months. That’s almost double the 24% who thought prices would increase last quarter. Hang on, we just may be skidding into the finish line here, I hope.

BTW: This survey is from HomeGain.