Dallas-Fort Worth Home Sales, Prices Rise

Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

After three months of declines, homes sales in North Texas were up 11 percent in March, according to the Texas A&M Real Estate Center.

Moreover, the median home price rose 6 percent, the largest increase in several months, the figures show.

Locally, Kennedale and central area Fort Worth apartments saw big sales increases of 100 percent and 107 percent, respectively. Those cities were followed closely by Euless, Hurst and Trophy Club/Westlake, all with sales increases of more than 50 percent.

Texas A&M compiles numbers from a 24-county North Texas region for its report.

In March, 6,036 homes were sold in the region. Sales last increased in November, when they jumped 31 percent on the strength of a surge of people returning to the market to take advantage of low interest rates as well as the first-time homebuyer tax credit. Sales numbers then fell in December, January and February.

The median sales price in March was $144,900, a 6 percent increase from a year ago. Median sales prices had only been increasing about 1 percent for the past few months.

Year-to-date, 13,466 homes have sold in the region, a 1 percent increase from the same period a year ago.

April sales numbers are also expected to be high as the second round of the tax credit expires at month’s end.

Ross Perot Jr. Selected to Real Estate Hall of Fame

The Dallas News

Dallas businessman Ross Perot Jr. and real estate investor James Sowell are getting top honors from the North Texas commercial property industry.

Perot and Sowell next month will be inducted into the North Texas Commercial Real Estate Hall of Fame.

The award is sponsored by the North Texas Commercial Association of Realtors and Real Estate Professionals and will be presented on May 13 in Dallas.

Perot’s Hillwood companies have developed landmark North Texas real estate projects including the Alliance apartments in Fort Worth and Dallas’ Victory Park development.

Sowell’s investment firm, Sowell and Co., has built residential communities such as Dallas apartments and in other Texas markets.

The new hall of fame members will join a group that includes the likes of Trammell Crow, Henry S. Miller Jr. and Roger Staubach. More than 70 past and present real estate players have been honored with this industry accolade.

Along with the awards to Perot and Sowell, a lifetime achievement award will be given to Dallas brothers Jerry and John Bradley, who’ve worked as commercial real estate agents here since 1970. 

Raytheon Shopping for Big Texas Office Space

The Dallas News

A high-profile office tenant is shopping for a big block of space in Dallas' northern suburbs.

International defense and high-tech conglomerate Raytheon Corp. is looking for potential locations for consolidating its Dallas-area offices, real estate brokers say.

The deal would encompass several hundred thousand square feet of space and would be one of the largest in the Dallas area in the last year.

Raytheon already looked at moving into part of the former headquarters of Electronic Data Systems, which is now a unit of Hewlett-Packard. But a transaction to take over a large portion of the EDS headquarters building in the Legacy business park fell through, real estate agents familiar with the deal said.

Raytheon is now considering office locations in the Telecom Corridor, including Nortel's buildings along U.S. Highway 75 near Campbell Road.

Officials with Massachusetts-based Raytheon wouldn't confirm that the company is hunting for office space. But they didn't rule it out.

"We stay abreast of opportunities in the market," Raytheon spokesman Keith Little said. "We don't discuss specific properties that we may be considering."

Real estate brokers say the EDS headquarters and Nortel buildings are logical choices for a company that needs a big office in Dallas' northern suburbs.

Both companies have reduced the amount of space they use in the Dallas area in recent years, and Nortel is in bankruptcy.

"Yes, we have been talking to companies about the Richardson space," said Nortel spokesperson Jamie Moody. "And, just like we're selling off all our businesses, we are also selling our assets, including real estate, so that we can recover the greatest value in the interest of our creditors."

Despite a real estate downturn that has left acres of North Texas' office space sitting empty, there are few prime vacant offices as big as Raytheon would need.

"For spaces 200,000 and up, your options are fairly limited," said Greg Biggs of Cushman & Wakefield of Texas. "We are working on a transaction in North Dallas that's fairly sizable, and the amount of existing space available is fairly limited in big blocks."

Raytheon has operations in several Dallas-area locations, including on U.S. Highway 75 north of LBJ Freeway, farther north in McKinney and on Lemmon Avenue in Dallas.

Unlike in previous economic downturns, the area isn't awash in vacant Dallas apartments or office space. That's why some companies – including Pizza Hut – have recently chosen to build.

"We don't have all the see-through [empty] buildings we had here in the early 1990s," said Greg Langston, managing principal in CresaPartners' Dallas office. "One thing we didn't do is overbuild this time."

Austin is Highest Rental Market in TX

Austin Business Journal

Austin is the most expensive city in Texas for paying rent and buying a home, according to a study released this week by Washington D.C.-based Center for Housing Policy.

The study “Paycheck to Paycheck" compares and ranks costs in more than 200 metro areas in the United States and ultimately concludes homeownership is still unaffordable for many workers despite low interest rates and steep drops in home prices.

Austin ranks as the 65th most expensive U.S. rental market and the 73rd most expensive homeownership market of all metro areas studied. The center studied data provided by the National Association of Home Builders, the National Association of Realtors and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Austin’s median home price is $176,000, unchanged from 2008, the study found. However, Austin’s ranking rose to No. 73 for 2009 compared with No. 84 in 2008.

The markets with the highest median home prices were in California: with San Francisco and San Jose leading the way, followed by Honolulu in third place, and then back to California in Santa Ana and Santa Cruz in fourth and fifth place respectively.

The typical rent for a two-bedroom home rose in 89 percent of the markets studied, with Austin’s price hitting $954 in 2009 from $912 in 2008, although Austin did fall in rankings down to 65 from 59. Once again, San Francisco was the most expensive city at $1,760.

Despite some perceptions it’s a renter’s market in the U.S., the study found that in the vast majority of metropolitan's fair market rents have held steady or increased, even occasionally surpassing monthly mortgage payments for a median-priced home.

The study also found that some occupations are more prone to being priced out of renting. Specifically, retail salespeople continue to be priced out of renting a two-bedroom apartment in every market studied. Janitors fare almost the same, being able to afford a two-bedroom apartment in only one of the 210 rental markets studied. Licensed practical nurses are unable to rent a two-bedroom apartment in 55, police officers in 12, and elementary school teachers in 11, of the markets studied.

“We must develop the common sense, cost-effective policy solutions at the state and local levels that will help ensure long-term affordability for homes and Austin apartments,” said Center for Housing Policy Chair John K. McIlwain, senior resident fellow and the J. Ronald Terwilliger chair for housing at the Urban Land Institute.

“Otherwise, our workforce will face longer commutes and higher transportation costs, leading to increased traffic congestion and adverse environmental impacts."

Gables Residential Sells Dallas Apartments to California Investor

Dallas News

A California real estate investor has made its first push into the North Texas apartment market.

CIM Group's purchase includes two properties in the popular West Village neighborhood in Dallas' Uptown district: the 103-unit 3636 McKinney apartments and the 75-unit West Village apartments, at 3839 McKinney Ave. CIM also purchased the 334-unit Knoxbridge apartments, near the corner of Knox and Travis streets.

The investor, which specializes in urban-style real estate projects, bought the rental units from Gables Residential, which owns or manages more than two dozen apartment communities in the Dallas-Fort Worth apartments area.

The West Village properties were built in 2005 and are on top of retail space. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the units are valued for taxes at almost $22 million.

The Knoxbridge, constructed in 1993 and 1995 at 4649 Cole, is listed on the tax rolls at more than $27 million.

As part of the deal, CIM also bought a Gables project in Houston apartments.

Gables will continue to manage all the Texas properties, which total 820 units.

Gables senior vice president Doug Chesnut said the developer decided to sell the properties because it was "overweighted" with Dallas-area apartments and had more in the works.

"We took the opportunity to move assets," Chesnut said.

CIM said in a statement that the apartments it bought are all in "districts positioned for economic expansion."

The investor also owns a mixed-use development called Penn Field in Austin.

CIM is a real estate fund manager that makes both private equity and debt investments in urban communities across North America. It has offices in Los Angeles, Oakland, Calif., and Bethesda, Md.

The Gables Dallas apartments sale is the second recent transaction involving high-end North Texas rental properties.

In December, Nebraska-based Slosburg Cos. purchased the five-story Delante Las Colinas apartments.

Forecasters Improving at Tornado Prognostication

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

For all their fury, thunderstorms are fragile things, dependent on a delicate balance of wind, water and heat.

Too much wind at a certain altitude can scatter storm clouds before they form. A storm's own rain can smother the columns of rising air that give the storm its strength.

Even rarer are storms that spin off a tornado. And it's rarer still for a tornado to hit a populated area and kill people.

It's happened only once in Fort Worth -- a decade ago. The storm killed two people, ripped houses from their foundations and pummeled several downtown high-rises.

The chance to spot a tornado -- and sound the warning early enough to save lives -- has spawned a corps of volunteer storm chasers who work with the National Weather Service every spring. And they're getting better at what they do.

Advances in radar and computer mapping have helped forecasters get a better idea of how severe storms work. For instance, forecasters originally thought that the storm that struck Fort Worth on March 28, 2000, was going to hit close to North Loop 820. They quickly adjusted their warning, Fox said. But today, the weather service would have a more accurate picture of the storm before it spawned a tornado.

Still, the weather service relied on a corps of more than 3,000 volunteer storm spotters.

"Even with all those technological advances, the electronic tools still don't show us all that's going on with a storm," said Gary Woodall, chief of the weather service's Phoenix bureau.

The idea of using volunteers started in Dallas-Fort Worth, the biggest metropolitan area in Tornado Alley, which stretches from Texas to Iowa, said Martin Lisius, chairman of the Texas Severe Storm Association and a storm tracker since 1987. During a typical storm, 20 to 40 volunteers take to the streets, communicating with ham radios. They provide crucial on-the-ground information to the weather service.

"You don't see them; they're sort of like unsung heroes, but they're out there," Lisius said.

About 450 storm spotters, Red Cross volunteers, students and other enthusiasts attended a storm association conference Saturday in Colleyville.

Most of the conference dealt with technical issues: wind shear, cold pools, rear flank downdrafts.

What most worries the spotters is the theoretical big one -- a severe tornado hitting a populated area.

Three years ago, an F-5 tornado, the top category on the Fujita scale, struck Greensburg, Kan., laying waste to 99.8 square miles. Eleven people were killed and more than 60 injured. By comparison, the 2000 Fort Worth twister had a footprint of 0.5 square mile.

But Greensburg is a small town. If the same storm struck, say, the Arlington entertainment district on a busy night, it could be devastating. Scott Rae, a planner with the North Central Texas Council of Governments, overlaid a map of the Metroplex on maps of the Greensburg storm to estimate that such a storm would affect 265,000 people in 111,000 Fort Worth apartments and houses.

Lisius projects that if it hit on a Friday night in April -- with crowds arriving for Good Friday church services and a Texas Rangers game -- hundreds or thousands of people could die. The roads would be too jammed for people to escape, and things would only get worse if drivers tried to take shelter under freeway overpasses, which is common during storms.

"A lot of them are not going to be able to get out of the path of the storm," Lisius said.

The upside is that the warning system is getting better. In 1986, 30 to 40 percent of the weather service's tornado warnings had no lead time, said Mark Fox, the warning coordination meteorologist at the service's Fort Worth office. By 2009, 80 percent of the warnings had lead time -- usually 10 to 12 minutes.

"Our average last year was about 12 minutes," he said.

Fox says the lead time could eventually reach 30 minutes. At that point, he said, the problem would become one of education: "Making sure people know what to do and making sure they believe the warning when they hear it."

Census Undercount Could Cost Texas Money, Political Clout

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Think of it as the equivalent of tabulating Texas and forgetting Arlington.

An estimated 373,567 people in Texas were uncounted in the 2000 Census, second only to the 522,796 that were missed in California.

The undercount cost Texas about $1 billion in lost federal funds, according to a PriceWaterhouseCooper report on the census. Fort Worth, where the undercount was pegged at 24,661, lost $62.3 million in federal funds, the report said.

As the U.S. Census begins mailing its national questionnaire this week, it pays to be counted because power and money are at stake, says Gabriel Sanchez, regional census director for Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

The once-a-decade head count determines congressional reapportionment, and State Demographer Karl Eschbach believes that Texas, which has been the big gainer in U.S. population in recent years, will be the overall winner in added political clout. He predicts that Texas will add four seats in the U.S. House.

A new report illustrates the fiscal power of the count.

In 2008, $447 billion in federal funds were distributed based on the 2000 Census and later updates, according to the Brookings Institute, a nonprofit that examines U.S. public policy.

A Brookings study shows that 80 percent of the money tied to the census goes to state governments, many of which, like Texas, are struggling with budget shortfalls, said Andrew Reamer, who wrote the report.

In Texas, Reamer said, nearly $1,000 in Medicaid funds will be returned to the state for every person counted. "The key point here is that census participation means more money locally," he said.

Hard to count

Multiple factors make Fort Worth and Texas tough to tally, Sanchez said.

"Obviously, you have a lot of Hispanics and a lot of recently arrived immigrants. There has also been a lot of growth, and those people aren't as tied to the community as a family that has been here 25 years. You also have a lot of young children," who, historically, have been missed more often than people in any other age group, Sanchez said. "People forget about the baby."

The state also has 80 percent of the U.S.-Mexico border, which presents a different set of problems, he said.

"You have a lot of interaction back and forth across the border. And how those border communities feel about the federal government and how they interact with it -- they have to be approached in a different way," Sanchez said. "There are also large number of immigrants from Mexico that aren't as integrated as one would hope, and that leads to language barriers and cultural barriers."Another factor is Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike, which destroyed vast tracts of housing in Texas and Louisiana, Sanchez said.

"We send forms to housing units and Fort Worth apartments, and if they've been destroyed we have problems. You might have one address with three trailers parked in the back," he said. "So we're hand-delivering questionnaires in the areas that have been hit by hurricanes."

Not to be discounted is the "true Texas independent spirit, which makes it a great place to live but a hard place to try to get a form back from everybody," Sanchez said.