Fort Worth Real Estate

• 27Mar

  Let’s Talk Fort Worth

  Commercial, Historic, Local Stuff, Residential No Comments
  Before Obama made it cool, the City of Fort Worth held their own town hall meeting with questions and concerns submitted by citizens. After a month of submitting comments by phone, web, and snail mail the Let’s Talk Fort Worth initiative culminated on September 25th with residents meeting in Will Rogers.

  Some of the more prevalent concerns to arise were:

  • Well maintained roads. 
  • Better Public Transportation
  • Economic Development

  I can certainly point out many under-maintained roads in Fort Worth. And these are not all necessarily less used roads. Camp Bowie, for instance, has an abundant share of issues arising mostly from the brick pavement. And it’s not all just pot holes, but also the incredible amount of water pipe break I see all over the city. It seems to often that there are streams of water bubbling from pavement, with a city water truck near by. 

  Of course public transportation is a hot item as well. There is no doubt that Fort Worth lacks adequate transportation. Kevin at Fort Worthology has been pushing for a public street car system for some time. This absolutely could be a complete game changer for this city. It is necessary. It is timely. It is exactly what we need. But as much as we need to focus on intra-city travel, we cannot forget about metroplex and statewide infrastructure as well. 

  Perhaps most relevant here is in economic development. While this can mean a great many things, including trolley systems, the comments seem geared towards commercial developments. The people clearly want “nice” retail and restaurant space. I assume by nice they mean “upscale”. My argument would be that there is enough. Perhaps we should begin to define “nice” as smart usage of space in relation to surrounding residences. More intriguing are the ideas that we do not need further commercial developments like strip malls. These we have enough of. True that many spaces may be vacant, but how intelligently are those spaces currently being used? 

  Let’s Talk first appeared in Fort Worth in 1963. Almost a half century later we need to begin to redefine ourselves and what we want from a sustainable city. It is time to grasp the fact that we must begin to change our ideas of community structure. Not only economically, but especially in infrastructure, land use, and social capital.

• 26Mar

  Truth in Taxes

  Commercial, Residential No Comments
  Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, filed a bill in the State House which seeks to ward off what she calls “aggressive appraisals”. Generally promoting a cap on taxable property valuations, she is seeking to assist property owners in keeping appraisal increases to a minimum. The bill would also serve in assist those who challege their appraisal amounts. Currently a challenge to shifts in appraisal values is a lot like swimming upstream. It may be worth it to try, but its probably not going to happen. 

  I personally get concerned with the secondary effects we may begin to see from all the developments within Fort Worth realty. How far up can some of the commercial developments push our appraised values? Would the government slow increases to match the limited growth of the economy? I doubt it. 

  Appraisal districts play a large role in your annual tax bill, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that they do not set the tax rates. Rate increases can easily outstrip a 5% annual increase in appraisal values. Personally, because of the way Texas taxes are structured, I have always felt it most prudent to live well below your means when it comes to purchasing a home. We have no state income tax so our property taxes compensate. If you are living in a home that costs about twice as much as your annual income, you are doing great on a relative scale. 

  I can certainly always applaud an effort to lower taxation on the masses, but at some point it really does come down to decisions made on at an individual level.

• 25Mar

  Cresson Crossroads

  Commercial, Developments, Residential 2 Comments

  I ran across this silly piece of self promotion, a press release for Cresson Crossroads. The City of Cresson claims that it has had to turn away a great number of businesses looking to relocate to their community. Being surrounded by ranches, they say, there was simply no more room to grow. I can almost hear the buzzards as they introduce this new 744 acre “master-planned new town”. Their article quotes Ward Miller who just happens to be the contact person for StarHill Properties, who just happens to be the company promoting Cresson Crossroads. (Who just so happens to need a majore website overhaul).

  Cresson seems hot on the fact that they are smack-dab in the middle of Barnett Shale. Strategically located even. They’re pretty dern proud of their new Devon building. It’s a “regional office”, which is code for “thats where the operations engineers and pumpers eat breakfast burrito’s”. And, being 20 miles southwest of Fort Worth, you can even see downtown on a “clear, sunny day”. I imagine you may be able to catch a glimpse of it.. 

  See  Fort Worth over there? 

  Where?

  Right there; just left of the trees.

  Oh. Yeah, I can kinda see it now.

  Drumrolllll…. And, Shameless Promotional Video:

  
  

• 25Mar

  Cowtown’s Glass is Half Full

  Residential No Comments

  One thing seems to be agreed upon lately, home sales are on the rise and at 5% growth they are setting a six year record. The FWBusiness Press was a little gloomy about it though, pointing out that overall prices have come down about 11.6 percent. The bright side of that news item is that Texas has managed almost a 2 percent increase in prices. 

  The press article notes Texas as the fifth best market in the nation, but ends by saying a price recovery may not shape up until 2010. Reuters ran an article with a little bit more optimism to it however. The article highlights a real estate agent in Cleburne who has only seen business dry up since he started his new career a year ago. The transactions are starting to turn for him though, and apparently others around the country are seeing it as well. It should be noted however that almost half of the new sales are arising from foreclosures. People are looking for deals, and now certainly seems to be the time to find one. No doubt about one thing though, Texas sure seems to be a good place to be a homeowner.

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