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It’s OK, Just Walk (or Run) Away From Your Mortgage

Last week I told you that First American CoreLogic reported one out of every four U.S. mortgages is underwater — numbers not quite that high in Texas because our values never insanely spiked. I am concerned that I am beginning to read more and more articles empowering people to walk on their mortgages if they are underwater — that is, owe more on the mortgage than the house is worth — because living in the home, trying to make ends meet, is just getting them in deeper and deeper debt doo doo. Like OMG here’s the Wall Street Journal saying that if you live in a non-recourse state, and Texas is a non-recourse state, and you are more than 25% underwater (like, say, the note on your home is for $100K but the value of the home is $75K or less) maybe you ought to see an attorney, cut your losses and go. The article kind of instructs homeowners to think like banks, and says that filing bankruptcy is as American as apple pie.

As much as folks were bragging about their private jet “wheels up” trips a few years ago, I predict that everyone will be soon playing a game of my bankruptcy lawyer’s better than yours:

“My lawyer got my $60,000 credit Citibank bill down to $5,000.”

“Yeah, well we threw $150K in medical expenses on our Chase card and guess what, we didn’t pay one penny of it.”

By the way, non-recourse means that the lenders cannot come after your other assets for what you owe. So your lender gets the property but that’s it. Seems like our era of “free credit” is going to bring us an era of “no credit”.

However, the White House is mulling requiring ALL foreclosure candidates to  get into the HAMP program, the Home Affordable Modification Program that has thus far helped only 116,297 underwater homeowners in a year, before filing any foreclosure.

Maybe we can just bury all the unpaid debt like we do toxic waste?

The Master Bedroom at 3415 Beverly

If this room isn’t inspirational, then I truly don’t know what is. Lovely way to start out March — like a lion!

Hank Paulson: the Economic Models Were Worthless

I’m reading an interview with Hank Paulson in the March/April Dartmouth Alumni Magazine by ABC’s Jake Tapper ‘91 you just have to read. ( I’m trying to get a link.) But you have to read this quote after Tapper asked Paulson, ” Was there any class or professor at Dartmouth that you’ve carried with you and served as a source of comfort or inspiration during the (worst financial) crisis?” (Tapper was hoping maybe Paulson would name an inspirational economics prof.)

Paulson: “Basically I found economics pretty much worthless during this thing. Now that’s an overstatement — Bernanke’s skill as an economist and practical skill and knowledge of economic history was incredibly valuable. But the economic models were worthless. The economist’s ability to predict what was going to happen when we were in the middle of a crisis was just…”

Tapper: “Very few of them saw it coming.

Paulson: Yeah.

It reminded me of last week’s crazy real estate headlines:

Home sales plunge 7.2% lowest since  June 2009

Dallas home prices up 3% in December.

Housing Continues Weak

Dallas/Fort Worth Foreclosures at Lowest Levels in Three Years

Northeast Home Sales Up 7% From Year Ago Levels, Prices Up 9%

My Love Affair With 3415 Beverly, Continued

Looking down the Loggia, pool is on the right, that’s the dining room on the left. God I hope they never serve red wine for dinner.

Tip My Dallas Realtor In Place of Paying a Commission?

While mulling Dallas real estate, I found this piece in the New York Times from one man who is sick and tired of the way in which bartenders and waitresses — and their bosses — have come to expect consumers to supplement their (measly) incomes with tips. (His point: tips are a 70% premium.) Well, doctors (and nurses) accept tremendous discounts from  insurance companies despite the fact you pay through the nose for your coverage, IF you can even afford insurance. (Only one-third of every dollar you pay for health care premiums actually gets  to your care-giver.) So do we tip doctors like we tip bartenders and waitresses? For that matter, do we tip any other service industry occupation like, say real estate bloggers? Hey, this stuff you read is free, gratuity not included!

Maybe… I am saying MAYBE… we should eliminate the traditional Realtor commission split, charge a flat fee for services, and let home sellers and buyers tip agents for spectacular service? (Could those tips maybe be in the form of cash, too!)

I heard from an agent last week who made a spectacular presentation, and the home owners actually asked if he would market their home for free.

A past post on whether Real Estate agents might become extinct in a few years, due to technology, spiked a ton of interest. So, I’m just asking…

Make a Million:How to Acquire One Hundred Properties Without Paying for Them

Take a lesson from the book of former real estate broker Norris Lynn Fisher, a Tarrant County man, who trolled for vacant and abandoned properties, forged deeds to sell the property to fictitious owners, and eventually to  himself through one of his companies. Fisher netted more than one million in the process. Sometimes he filed affidavits listing a fictitious person as the heir of a property owner who had recently died. That “heir” could then sell the property to another fictitious person. I men, how did he keep tract of who was selling to whom?

I wonder, if he had done this just once, could he have gotten away with it?

House Porn and Estate Envy: Why I’d Kill To Live On Beverly Drive

I have coveted this house now for three years, from the first time I went through it in muddied boots while it was under construction. 3415 Beverly is just a masterpiece. Built by a small, but uber perfectionist husband-wife home building team, Ventura Custom Home builders, 3415 has grace and flow and everything that makes it more than your usual ten million dollar mansion. Did I say ten? Well, that’s because Ellen Terry had it listed for $9.750 million in 2008, so I just rounded off in my head to ten million and still think of the house that way. (At this point, $250K is pocket change.) I mean, 3500 Beverly is across the street at what, $15 million now?

But guess what. Now it’s listed by Erin Mathews at Allie Beth Allman and significantly reduced to — are you sitting down? $6.9 million. That’s like getting the swimming pool, safe room and all the wine in the wine cellar for free. And something very interesting has happened. The builders/owners have moved in, and the home looks even better full of her tasteful furnishings than it did empty. Sometimes these vacuous homes look downright cold and sterile before they are filled, and the owners have enriched 3415 with furnishings that complete the vision they set out to create. That plus Erin’s sharp eyes — she helped them place furnishings in such a way that they would point to the home’s many attributes, kind of like showing off the best side of your face. This is really a new must to sell these mansions — I mean, look at anything Ann Schooler has staged, you are ready to sell your first-born to sign on the dotted. This home has china in the kitchen, books in the library, sofas and rugs, a massage table in the massage room complete with sheets and towel — I was ready to climb on! And the whole point is that Mrs. $6 million buyer will see that, speed dial Helga on her i-phone and say, darling, get those strong hands of yours over here stat.

They can visualize the lifestyle.

The details in this house would fill this blog for a year, so let me direct you to the very first story I wrote on this 11,274 square foot love pad. Gosh, it’s rather like getting together with a former lover…

Is Oak Cliff The Future Cool Dallas?

True story: we moved to Dallas back in the early 1980’s, from New York City. My fiance was doing his residency at Parkland. Back in those days, to get to know a city, we used these things called maps, and if you needed a map for a city other than the one you lived in, you went to the map store or the library. I pulled maps of Dallas, Texas from the Columbia University library, read Dallas Texas newspapers, and zeroed on a place to live with the prettiest name I had ever heard: Oak Cliff. (I grew up near Oak Park, Illinois so figured they might be twins.) Logistically, it was close to Parkland and downtown Dallas, so bingo. Then I flew to Dallas to find the perfect apartment, and when I asked about that hilly neighborhood with the pretty name, every single realtor shook their head.

“No honey, you would not last a minute down there.”

Buy north, they told me, buy north.

And so here we are, 30 years later, and I am still reading about how Oak Cliff has an identity crisis — it’s the kid who could never get a date, says Jim Schutze. (Is he a geeky kid, Jim? Because I hear Bill Gates didn’t exactly have a lot of early dates, either.)

Let me tell you why I think that is going to change in the next 30 years.

Politics are changing in Dallas. Maybe my glasses are too rosy, but I think we work together a whole lot better than we did 30 years ago when everyone who lived north of downtown was “responsible” for the ills of everyone who lived south of downtown.

The people moving into Dallas really like urban life. They are more likely to live downtown and even south of downtown than they are to buy a 2000 square foot ranch in the suburbs and drive like their parents did.

Young buyers, the millennials, are more into renting than home ownership, because they have been frightened by the market’s downturn. If they buy, it is likely to be a vacation home.

The Realtors are no longer saying, honey, you don’t want to live there. In fact, the Realtors themselves are living there. David Griffin tells me he just completed his home in Kessler Woods and I am dying to see it. In go the Realtors, they get listings next door and down the street and they sell them by promoting the area.

Let me tell you the hottest commodity to have right now if you are a Real Estate broker in Dallas: an office in Uptown. Keller Williams has one, Dave Perry-Miller has one, and I know of at least two major brokers sniffing to put their mark on the area.

All we need is a movie theatre in Oak Cliff. I recall a lecture I heard by a development expert who said that movie theaters were the final centralizing factor in a community — you always get the restaurants and shops, but movie theaters are the last to come. Once they are in, the residents really don’t have to leave for entertainment.

Of course, that may have been back in the days before U-Tube, back when we had to carry maps.

Update: Of course I mean YouTube. Was confusing it with U-Haul!

Frisco Doesn’t Want Section 8 Housing, so Does Dallas Want to Shelter the Homeless?

We’ll find out. Tonight.

Calling DallasDirt Readers: Is the Dallas Real Estate Market Getting Better, Healthier

Maybe it’s the Z-Pack in me, but I have been feeling a BIT more bullish lately on the Dallas Real Estate market. Here’s what I’m hearing: Dallas homeowners are chopping prices like a Blue Light Special at K Mart. Home up on Bellbrook in Addison, on the market for just over a million, sold in the high $800k’s for a cash deal. The multi-million dollar HP, PC, PH mansions have to chop off 10 to 20% if they even dream of getting sold. (Sorry agents, I tell it like it is.) First time home buyers are swarming everywhere for that tax credit — I swear, you can sway consumers to do anything if you offer a tax credit — but we are  nowhere near Miller Time yet. New report out today: First American Core Logic says the number of “underwater” loans is rising, from 10.7 million in Q3 to 11.3 million in Q4 or 24 percent of all borrowers, up from from 23 percent.We are financially frozen in a vicious cycle, the big banks not really lending, two steps forward, three steps backwards. Met a Wachovia banker here who told me, not knowing I was a reporter, that all he used to do was make real estate loans for the bank. Now what’s he doing? No more loans, they told him. Find customers to get credit cards (to generate lots of juicy fees) and depositors, that’s your new job description. Well, how can he do that when people are pulling back on credit card use and losing jobs, so there’s no deposits to put in the bank?

Let’s look at the indicators.

Commerce Department’s January New Home Sales report was flat out terrible this morning: down more than 11 percent from the prior month, significantly worse than the 3.5 percent RISE economists had expected. New home sales, as I told you yesterday, at the lowest levels on record since 1963, when many of you weren’t even yet around!

This despite extending the homebuyer tax credit.

I know Case-Shiller said San Francisco, Dallas and San Diego area home pricing (existing homes, no condos) was up 2.7%, but honestly, really? Please tell me if you have sold a home recently for more than it was listed for last year. Commerce Department also reported that  median home prices for new homes last month fell 5.6 percent from December.

And good old Commerce Department telling us the brutal truth: contrary to hopes of getting supply levels down further, inventory levels of new homes have been slowly creeping up to a  9.1 months supply in January, up from 8.0 months in December and 7.8 months in November. That’s national, and way below the record high level of 12.4 months back in January 2009. Locally, Collin County reported 69 days on the market Q4 of 2009, down from 71 in Q4 of 2008, Dallas County 81 days on market versus 77 in Q4 2008.

See how much better off we are?

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports that applications for home mortgages have fallen and notes weakness in mortgage applications for purchasing homes. Applications for purchases of homes fell 7.3 percent to its lowest level in nearly 13 years. (MBA blamed it on the weather, OK.) But the Association also admitted that it’s “another indication that housing demand remains relatively weak.”

And I’m looking at another press release from the MBA announcing a new program to allow qualified homeowners/borrowers who have lost their jobs to stay in their homes while they seek employment. Loan servicers would reduce the borrower’s mortgage payment to an affordable amount (based on household income) for up to nine months while they job hunt. Wow – -when have you heard of mortgage bankers being this touchy-feely? Once employed, the borrower would be evaluated for a loan mod under the Obama administration’s HAMP program. (And then it gets tacked on to the life of the mortgage but hey, better than losing your home.)

But here’s what sends the biggest chill down my spine: mortgage rates. I cringe when I think of April Fools Day, when the Fed ends its program of purchasing mortgage securities in March. Several mortgage brokers have said that anyone looking to buy or refinance might do better to get it done before April 1.

Are the drugs making me euphoric? Tell me what you think?

Saint Stoneleigh: Meet the Man Who Bought the Stoneleigh Residences out of Bankruptcy, Already Sold the Penthouse

All hail the Stoneleigh Savior!  Mehrdad Moayedi is the man who bought the Dallas Stoneleigh Residences out of bankruptcy for $4.55 million. Mehrdad is the president of a large real estate development group headquartered in Carrollton, Centurion American. Talk about a great Dallas real estate story: as soon as I heard he was the man who saved the Stoneleigh, I had to head my car up I-35 to find him, and hope he’d offer Persian food.

He didn’t have to. I like Mehrdad, he’s a sharp businessman (to say the least) and forthright. I’m told he does business with the folks at Hillwood. When I asked if he would be hiring an interior designer to market the residences and the marketing center and bring a unifying flow to the building, he looked at me like I was nuts. No, he said, everyone gets to finish out their own unit exactly the way they want. You go to New York City and find a great brownstone or condo, there is not one decorator doing it all one way. Everyone decorates it their way.

The undertone: we are not going to waste money on BS.

His company has long dreamed of building lots in the sky, but first this man does his homework: three years ago Centurion bought land at Akard and McKinney, did some studies, found it too risky, sold the land to another developer. My favorite story was when his company bought land for a development in San Francisco, a state notorious for giving developers Redwood-tree sized hurdles when it comes to entitlements. Centurion somehow got the entitlements done in one year — in CA!! — and ended up selling the property  for a big profit before one nail was hammered.

But developing a high rise has long been on Centurion’s radar screen. Centurion has a building company, Crescent Estates, as a subsidiary and Crescent will be one of two builders to finish out the units once Gerald Hines completes the shell. (The other home builder is a highly regarded, well-known name but since papers have not yet been signed, I’m keeping mum. Crescent is finishing a home in The Creeks of Preston Hollow, and a DCAD perusal indicates that Mehrdad has two gigantic homes under his belt, a 10,000 square footer on Hathaway, and a smaller one on Brookview.) Mehrdad is quick to praise the Stoneleigh’s former developers, Prescott.

“Prescott has been nothing but first class to work with,” he says. “They really want to make sure the project is completed and finished perfectly.”

Prescott, says Mehrdad, had a great plan but got caught up in the bad timing of the economy. We had great savings, he says; we stepped in and unfortunately took advantage of someone else’s misfortune, but we will now pass that savings along to the buyers.

Some of that savings: a lot of construction products had been made for the Stoneleigh but delivery was never taken, like windows, mechanicals (air conditioning, heating units, cooling tower) and steel fabrication. Mehrdad’s buying that stuff up at a discount because one, the vendors would probably like to get paid something and two, where else would it be used? He’s working with Gromatsky-Dupree, the original architects, with whom he’s been busy tweaking the original floorplan.

“We’re making the units larger,” says Mehrdad. “We’re coming down from 119 units to 80 or 100.”

And those units will be bigger, more square footage. Get real, he says: folks leaving large estate homes in Preston Hollow or Park Cities are not going to squeeze into a 1700 square foot unit with anorexic closets.

Before, there were two floors of penthouses, now there’s three. Mehrdad nixed the Constellation Club, an exclusive,  gathering ballroom for owners, on the top floor and instead turned it into a penthouse which he has already sold to… (Sorry, I have to keep mum on this one, too.) In fact, this is what tickles my real-estate loving heart: Mehrdad knew he had the penthouse sold when he out bid Jonas Woods et al on the bankruptcy sale.

So the three top floors will be penthouses, the top one one large unit, the others configured as they are purchased. Every unit also gets a generous storage unit and two to three parking spots depending on the size of the place they own. Again, this man is on track and knows his buyers: they have cars, plural. Private elevators will open into each unit for maximum privacy, what I like to call Mistress Elevators. The balcony’s will be larger.

“Most of these condos out there are glorified apartments that are high-priced,” says Mehrdad.

Every unit will be a different design, with a clean, conservative, classic look — not contemporary. The look/feel he’s aiming for: The Mansion on Turtle Creek. He will have two models on site as sales centers, one from each of the two builders doing the finish out. Crescent will finish out the first floor.

Now for the goodies. Though he nixed the Constellation Club, he is building out the health club facilities with pool, steam room, etc. There will also be a fitness center, business center, a theatre and he’s considering a wine storage area and tasting room. Guests can still walk to the Stoneleigh Hotel on the street or underground, but he wants total separation from the hotel guests.

“The best thing about the Stoneleigh is its location,” says Mehrdad. “It’s not in an area where they will be building/construction for the next five to seven years, it’s not on a highway. It has a real neighborhood where residents can walk for a hamburger, or walk their dogs.”

If you walk your dog at The Ritz, he says, you’d better have a short leash.

Now the part you’ve waited for: how much? $300 to $700 per air conditioned square foot, depending on how elaborate the owner wants to get. Thanks to his shrewd buy, Mehrdad says the new Stoneleigh buyer will get the very best condo deal in town: before, he’d pay $1.2 for a unit not even 2000 square feet. Now, for $1.2 he’ll get 3000 square feet and the parking spaces and all the other extras.

Yep, build it right and they will come. Of course, having a lot of cash on hand when the market goes to hell sure helps.

Update: alert reader (thanks!) pointed me to this article in today’s Fort Worth Star Telegram, which may give us an indication of where some of the Stoneleigh dough came from. What is interesting is Centurion’s choice to develop in-town, not out in the boonies, though I’m told we are going to see a ton of mid-level housing starts near term.

D Sale of the Week: Love Is Blue

Our D Home Sale of the Week will definitely chase away those  mid-winter blues. Those of you who have $399,000 pennies saved up — or can find a bank who might ever so generously loan back some of those TARP funds — 6319 Crestmont Dr. is a Dallas real estate dream come true. And you won’t believe what you’ re getting for your money, honey: three bedrooms, two and a half baths, formals, den, two-car attached garage, and a yard to boot just north of Lover’s Lane off Abrams. (Hello, Central Market and Party Place is within walking distance!) Like most of the ‘hood, this 2103 square foot home was built in 1964 but  taken down to the studs and completely renovated in 2008, replacing or adding a new roof, double paned windows, new wide-plank hardwood floors, gourmet kitchen — granite, check, stainless, check–  new bathrooms featuring  Carrera marble, subway tiles and built-ins, double crown molding, water heater, designer lighting with dimmers throughout, luxury window treatments and outdoor living with custom designed, horizontal-board fence.  In fact, about the only thing left from the original house is the original exterior brick painted a cool blue. The interiors are so crisp and clean, and that den with the Austin-stone gas log fireplace will make you think you are in the Hill Country. Glassy French doors lead to the grassy yard with custom-designed fence and landscaping. A thoroughly refreshing home that has been on the marketust  jthree weeks. My guess: this choice piece of Dallas real estate sells for close to near asking by Monday.

Dallas Dirt Gives You Today’s Real Estate News Last Week

Or rather, gave you. Remember when we asked what was going on with the old Mary Shiels Hospital on Central at Lemmon Ave., and a reader told us that a new four story hospital would be built there? Steve Brown has more details today. (It’s three stories, not four.) I am just so excited to think there will be 60,000 more square feet in that convenient location devoted to beautifying the citizens of Dallas, and making “things” bigger and better!

Case-Shiller Puts Dallas Home Prices UP by 2.7%

Yet another reason to thank God we live in Texas, particularly Dallas. Remember, Case-Shiller does not tally condo or townhome sales, and no new construction — this is re-sales of existing homes only, which I think we need to keep in mind. But glory hallelujah, we are the third city to see prices peeping up, behind San Francisco (4.8%, my sources there tell me sales are brisk) and tied with San Diego, also 2.7%.

But I hate it when they come out with this stuff just as the county gets ready to appraise our homes for 2010 property taxes, don’t you?

Update: New home sales not so great — U.S. sales of new homes down 11.2%, largest drop since 1963, the year they first started keeping records. I wish someone would put all this info together in one easy package — new home sales, existing home sales — then collateralize it!

Estate Envy: $1.5 Million Really Just The Dallas Dirt

Turns out the office of Mona Biskamp, who I spoke of interviewing in my last post, has this listing on “pretty street”, or Belmead as it is called: $1.5 million for an acre and they are calling the house a tear-down or major remodel. In any case, as long as Preston Hollow dirt is still commanding $1.5 per acre, our market is not too shabby. Of course, that is asking price.

Drama at Tate Lecture Series Reminds me of Dallas Realtor Mona Biskamp

A little bit of drama at last night’s Tate Lecture Series brought back vivid memories of the time I was interviewing Dallas Realtor extraordinaire Mona Biskamp for a D Magazine story on top Dallas real estate power brokers. We were listening to a fascinating lecture by Dr. Jill Taylor Bolte, a well-known neuroanatomist and one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People in the World. Basically Dr. Bolte was showing us pictures and kind of making us fall in love with our brains and understand how the two sides work together. What makes her an even better speaker is the fact that she had a rare arterio-venous malformation (AVM) brain stroke herself in 1996, then major brain surgery. She recovered, rebuilt her brain, and found that while pressure from the stroke had hurt her left brain, her right brain functions actually flourished. Anyhow, she had just told us about her stroke when several people in the audience yelled out for help because someone in the second balcony had apparently passed out. Calls went out for any doctors in the house, and at least fifteen made their way up. Thankfully, it was not a stroke but someone who had passed out from the oppressive heat. As Dr. Bolte (who handled the incident beautifully)  told us about recognizing the signs of stroke, I vividly recalled interviewing Coldwell Banker agent Mona Biskamp, truly a grand dame of Dallas real estate, one sunny Saturday afternoon at Preston Center in 2004. (She was the Dave Perry Miller/Doris Jacobs/Erin Mathews of her time, counting President Jimmy Carter’s sister Ruth Stapleton as one of her many high profile clients.) We were talking homes and Dallas real estate when her speech became funny — she began talking about soldiers in Mexico and beach vacations, totally off the subject. What am I saying, she asked, then started it again. It was as if one distinct part of her brain was in control. I called for her husband, who took her right to the hospital where they found out she had actually suffered a small stroke during our interview.

Snowmageddon: Are Dallas Roofs Able To Handle More Snow?

So the forecast says snow, and we know what that could mean: another 11.2 inches. Hopefully, Dallas won’t make any more weather history in the next couple days, but when we were covered with it two weeks ago, I got curious: are Texas roofs built to withstand a heavy snowfall? The national standards vary from region to region, of course, and I’m told the minimum snow load for the Dallas, TX area is 5 lbs. of snow weight per every square foot of roof.   Ten to 12 inches of fresh/new snow equals about five pounds per square foot of roof space.

So I’m wondering: did our record snowfall push the envelope on those roof loads? In the Mid Atlantic states, according to the Institute for Business and Home Safety, most roof designs can support at least 20 pounds per square foot. However, design loads can range from 10 pounds to 20 pounds per square foot in Mid-Atlantic states, and between 40 pounds and 70 pounds per square foot in New England.

So is it time to up the design loads for Dallas? And is that yet another question to ask when you buy a house?

Dallas House Porn: Affordable Traditional South of LBJ

I know Mardi Gras was last week, but I’m feeling like I’d like to be in New Orleans today, especially after I found this French-quarter style number in the Meadows of Preston Hollow for just $599,000. Lots of bang for the buck, here’s what you get:  a whopping 3549 square feet, four bedrooms and get this — the master is down (three are upstairs), four baths, formals, circular staircase,vamped-up master bath suite, remodeled kitchen — yes, Virginia, there’s granite — even a little beverage bar off the Morning (not Mourning) room, which makes for great entertainment.  I like the wood floors in the kitchen; brick floors in the den really need to go and date the place but if you have dogs and kids, nothing will hold up better. I like the new thermo windows and decor because this place is ready to move into, let the good times roll and love, baby, love.

Update: See that MacKenzie Childs checkerboard teapot in the kitchen? This homeowner has excellent taste!

Freeloading Bot Flies: Thinking Twice About a Second Home in the Tropics

This video on a tropical parasitic fly that bummed a trip to the U.S. inside a woman’s head made me think twice about all those vacation homes developers were pushing during the real estate boom. So I looked up botflies — hairy flies whose larvae live as parasites within mammals, Dermatobia hominis the only botfly species to use humans as a larvae nursery  –  and found a number of places I will check off my second home list for good now, including, surprisingly, Minnesota.

Oh and one more great thing about Texas: not known for botflies. Roaches and scorpions don’t go freeloading inside a girl’s head! Of course, I guess that poor bug was just seeking its own vacation home, in a way.

(Warning, video not for the easily grossed out.)

Frisco Doesn’t Want Section 8 Housing In Their Backyards

But of course Frisco, Texas IS going to get Section 8 housing, the decision coming from a four to one city council vote . This story hit a nerve with many Frisco readers. If you listen, here’s what they are saying: I worked hard and made a careful choice to move to Frisco to give my family the best and ensconce them in safety. Now comes the federal government bringing in everything I ran away from.

These are earnest feelings and fears. Will it be Armageddon in Frisco once those units open up? I doubt it. But I also hear your concerns. So I’m asking: what can I do to open up this story for you, the reader? Who would you like me to interview in Frisco? What aspects of this story have not yet been told and need to be told?

I know I’ll have to cross LBJ, but I’m happy to dig into this further because I have a feeling what is happening in Frisco, Texas is just the beginning…  keep the conversation going.

“This Old House” Rates Dallas Neighborhood Junius Heights Best for Families

Well, what do you know. Dallas real estate goes national from the east side of Central Expressway. “This Old House” blog/website rated our own Junius Heights as the best neighborhood for families. I was kind of tickled by what they had to say:

“Junius Heights is home to some of the city’s most interesting residents, including artists, reporters for The Dallas Morning News, and about half the lawyers in town. And it’s turning into a haven for families looking to eschew traditional suburban living. That’s thanks in part to Woodrow Wilson High School, “one of the best examples of an inner-city high school in the country,” according to one resident (and Newsweek magazine).”

This is the problem when these national sites try to go all warm and local without boots on the ground in town. Actually, the Dallas Morning News reporter has left for Philly, Bill Williams’ wife Sue is listing Rod Dreher’s house, there are some artists, but most Dallas lawyers live in Lakewood or Little Forest Hills.  (OK, so maybe there are more Dallas Morning News reporters living in Junius Heights.) That part about eschewing suburban living sounds really familiar.

Just goes to prove you cannot believe everything you read.

Former Dallas Home of Eleanor and Nicky Sheets Auctioned by the IRS

5844 Lakehurst, the former Dallas home of Eleanor Mowery and Nicky Sheets, was auctioned off Wednesday morning by the Department of the Treasury at a starting bid of $1,400,000 for the  4800 square foot home where Nicky and Eleanor Sheets lived. Treasury described the digs like this:

“A two story house containing 4,860 square feet located in the beautiful and prestigious Lakes of Preston Hollow, which is one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Dallas, TX. The house has a casual French design with a slate roof, a three-car garage, and a dining room view of gardens and a waterfall that cascades into the pool. Additionally there is a gourmet kitchen. The master suite has a wood-burning fireplace in the sitting room. There is a handsome library with custom bookshelves. Three bedrooms are located upstairs with a bath for each. The house has 2 wet bars and 5 fireplaces.”

Virginia Cook agent Kyle Rovinsky was at the sale, which was held in the home just west of Preston Road in Preston Hollow. Kyle tells me he walked into the freezing cold, empty house (which recently sustained gutter damage from last week’s snowstorm) to find two federal marshalls, a licensed real estate agent representing the Department of Justice, and representatives from two banks each with a lien on the property.

In fact, when Kyle walked in, one of the agents asked if he was Nicky Sheets.

So did the house, which Ellen Terry had listed for $1.75 million in October of 2008, sell?

Nope. Not one bid. In fact, says Kyle,  the U.S. marshalls said they didn’t expect to have any bids today.

So it’s back to the bank and the lien holders and the U.S. government to sharpen those pencils, whittle down those liens, figure out what they will settle for, and try again.

D Sale of the Week: After That Storm, We’re Off to the Cape

Here’s the thing about homes built in the 1920s: they had high ceilings and transoms that allowed for greater airflow, which kept the houses cooler in the summers. Welcome to 6224 Tremont St., an adorable three-bedroom, two-bath, Cape Cod-style home built in the ’20s with 21st-century upgrades and the high ceilings every 2010 buyer covets. This being a vintage home, of course there are original hardwoods throughout its 1,858 square feet. (Side note: hardwood floors are among the most durable floors ever. Just refinish, seal, and go.) The gourmet kitchen is about as far away from the ’20s as you can get, with stainless-steel appliances, green granite, Italian tile back splash, gas cooktop, and warming drawer. The baths are also something to shout about, with Carrera marble and frameless glass. Another bonus: recessed lighting and a newly added family room off the kitchen with walls of glass affording views of the almost quarter-acre yard. Asking price for this one: $459,900.

Is the Palomar a Love Nest for Park Cities?

Get this: so I was at The Palomar yesterday, and the people I was visiting tell me that the unit next to their home, which is gorgeous by the way, is a one-bedroom, one-bath owned by a Highland Park family who use it to “get away from the kids.”

I think that “quality couples time” is great, but wouldn’t a hotel room be a whole lot cheaper? Unless they thought it was a good investment or something…

We Love Trees in Dallas, Just Not in the House

Snow damage to one home by an oak tree that got too heavy with snow.