My Dallas Real Estate blogs

There is no such thing as a ‘universal trend’ when it comes to residential real estate: a quick look through the current Dallas listings will confirm that. At the highest end, the most luxurious features will always attract some homebuyers, just as in the great majority of listings, practical val...

    Those of us who focus professionally on our Dallas real estate trends can vouch for it: outdoor living sells! And depending on what life phase their family is in, homebuyers’ choices tend to follow similar lines. When potential homebuyers come to me, some of the features highest on their “mu...

In the Age of the Internet (that’s what we’re in the middle of, I’m pretty sure) it is widely held that everything you want to buy is merely a mouse click or two away. It’s sort of like“Alice’s Restaurant”: ‘you can get anything that you want’ – only better, because you don’t even have to ‘walk r...

We have all heard horror stories about what can happen when people hire the wrong contractor. “It took three times as long as it should have!” “They wound up charging me half again what they said it would cost!” “They never even called me back!”  Those kinds of tales can be enough to keep you fro...

According to the National Association of Realtors®, first quarter statistics again point to better home sales figures. This time it was the prices of single family homes that rose in half of the major cities in the United States. Because of the wide differences between regional and state conditio...

For quite a while now, bargain hunters have been able to take their time combing through Dallas local  foreclosure listings. They’ve been looking for the kind of terrific real estate bargains that the last few years have provided -- and there have been plenty. But recent signs show that it may be...

When the Dallas real estate market undergoes the kind of wide changes we’ve seen recently, you would expect changes in how prospective buyers approach their choices. No surprise there. With lending tight and larger deposits often being sought by lenders, many of this summers Dallas homebuyers are...

Figuring out home values when the market is in flux is truly a job for experts. We have seen the national real estate market begin to rebound, and expect Dallas home values to soon start to reflect movement as well. Most local homeowners are in the habit of keeping an eye on area home values. Bu...

Anyone interested in buying a house in the Dallas area today has heard that they should expect to find tougher mortgage lending requirements. Sometimes that can seem arbitrary -- or just plain unfair. But unfair or not, the new lending reality is probably here to stay for a while, and the causes ...

Surprises can be a lot of fun. Being blindsided when friends throw you a surprise birthday party is a fine example. Getting an unexpectedly large tax return is another. But when you're about to close escrow on a new Dallas home, surprises are the last thing you need. One of the most important ser...