Fort Worth Real Estate

• 24Jun

  Inconsistent Journalism

  Local Stuff, Residential 5 Comments
  Here’s a lesson in inconsistency from the Dallas Morning News. Within a 24 hour period the Newspaper seems to have taken the stance that the local real estate market is doing both very poorly, and very well.

  The titles to the two articles?:

  1. Dallas Area Ranks High in Home Price Performance Report.
  2. Harvard Study finds Dallas-Fort Worth home Prices at 1990’s levels.

  I mean, if it were two different publications I could potentially understand. But the same newspaper? Wait, it gets better. Both articles were written BY THE SAME AUTHOR!!!

  The author, Steve Brown, even goes against a quote he uses from a housing economist. The economist is quoted as saying “no adjustment in prices has been necessary”, which Brown follows up with his own commentary in saying “actually, home prices are down more than 15%”

  In a third article on the matter, Falling Home Prices Have Reset Dallas Fort Worth Values to 1990’s Levels, Brown indicates an 18% drop in values.

  In one article he attributes our value falters to the fact that DFW didn’t have large price gains in recent years. And in another article, 24 hours later, he uses the same lack in price gains logic as a reasoning for our price stability. I give you direct quotes from the articles:

  “These are markets that did not have a large boost in home prices over the last few years and therefore, even though the economy is doing poorly, no adjustment in prices has been necessary,” housing economist Ingo Winzer said in the report.

  Since the D-FW area didn’t participate early in the nationwide home prices boom, recent declines have wiped out a big chunk of the value gains the area saw in the early and mid-2000s.

  It is such a convoluted mess I am starting to confuse myself. It is, of course, evident that Mr. Brown was confused all along (or at least without serious personal conviction one way or another). Perhaps we could just hire out persuasive essay’s from local middle schools and replace career journalists altogether. I know that when I wrote persuasive essays in school I never bothered to be truly convinced of one side or another, I just needed enough content with ample support and I considered my project complete. I could manipulate the data in ways that upheld my argument, and I typically did well in writing.

  Something tells me that is what we are getting from the Dallas Morning News also.

  For the time being, I will trust the economists perspective, and not the journalistic commentary which is contradictory to its own recent publishings.

• 23Jun

  DFW Home Values Tumble

  Local Stuff, Residential 1 Comment
  I suppose I was a little bit off in estimating that the financial crises has taken property values back a year or so. The Dallas Morning News says that it actually may have taken us back to the 1990’s. A scary proposition.

  The article suggests that without adjusting for inflation property values are down to about 2002 levels. Relative to inflation, however, we have time traveled back to about the late 1990’s. So about an 18% loss in pure numbers, and about a decade in real values over time.

  Still, having seen recent comps, I find this assessment hard to believe. The overall trends seem to suggest only about a 4% loss. I admit thought that my own knowledge may be limited to particular market sectors. Higher end homes are not moving quickly these days for instance, and neighborhoods typical to risky loans may not be moving at all. (I would like to insert here that it is hard to pin down a risky loan neighborhood, I would imagine some of those middle class Dallas area’s are occupied by some with very risky credit).

  Any way you cut it, when we start talking in terms of lost decades… It aint good.

• 22Jun

  Shrinkage

  Residential 2 Comments

  Here’s an interesting concept. Tearing down entire subdivisions so that a municipality may carry on. It’s not some crazy concept that may or may not occur, but in fact is happening in places like Flint Michigan.

  Flint, of course, is dying economically. And while we may begin to see rotting neighborhoods in other areas, in the near future it may be a side effect of dying suburbia. Not necessarily from economic hardship, but perhaps from energy realities.

  There has always been the concept that re-urbanization would occur with any energy pandemic even slightly more moderate than what we have seen in recent years. No doubt that people simply would not be able to afford to continue living lives ever outward. So much so that the suburban areas may become a rotting peripher, as opposed to inner urban turmoil we have seen in the last few decades.

  Luckily this is not yet widespread. I think there would inevitably be some property rights issues at hand. Still, it is interesting to think that these are things which are occurring, and not some distant probability.

• 19Jun

  LMRA Selling Playground

  Commercial No Comments

  Lockheed Martin Recreation is selling a good portion of their property on the Trinity River. This has quitely been up for grabs since about the November time frame. The property was offered to the Edwards as a bolt on, but I think they have plenty to handle as it is.

  I don’t know how much they are asking for, but I know that the objective is to fund their daycare. It sure seems like a short term solution to me. What will they do once they run through their proceeds their? They would be better off to get creative about revenue generation from the existing property. That’s just me though.

  This all came about when the new LMRA cheif showed up. I personally think they are making a terrible decision.

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