GE Invests $18M in Two Apartment Complexes

ALLEN, TX-GE Real Estate of Norwalk, CT has made an equity investment of $17.8 million with partner BH Equities to acquire two adjacent Class A multifamily assets located in this newly developed community 12 miles north of North Dallas. These new North Dallas real estate properties are Benton Pointe, a 456-unit, three-story garden apartment complex at 425 Benton Dr., and Lansbrook at Twin Creek, a 288-unit, two-story garden apartment complex at 505 Benton Dr.

Builder Features Fixed-rate Financing

Ryland Homes is offering savings on select homes throughout the metroplex such as the Northeast Dallas real estate market . Buyers who purchase a home ready for quick move-in will save, in addition to receiving a 5.25 percent interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate financing, says marketing manager Melissa Finley. This special financing is available only to qualified buyers who purchase one of Ryland's select quick move-in homes in the month of March and finance with Ryland Mortgage, she says.

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Sealy's $150M-Plus Plan Ready to Get Under Way

Sealy & Grant LP will be under way by month's end on infrastructure for 55 of its 82 acres in far north Dallas. The plan is to break ground in August on the first of three 180,000-sf value-office buildings for Palomino Crossing, a $150-million to $200-million development of "green" office and retail.

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Valley View Center Mall Has Shot at Renewal after Macy's Closing

Changes are in store for Dallas' venerable Valley View Center, which opened 35 years ago at Preston Road and LBJ Freeway and this weekend saw the closing of its Macy's anchor store.

Like Valley View, malls across America are being redeveloped and reimagined amid a wave of department store closings. Macy's has closed more than 75 stores since its 2005 acquisition of its biggest competitor, May Department Stores.

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Foreclosure Bus Tour Gives Homebuyers a Different View of Shaky Real Estate Market

The half-day tour includes stops at eight or nine homes reclaimed by banks during the recent wave of North Texas foreclosures. The homes range from extreme fixer-uppers to spotless new abodes with granite countertops and media rooms.

"It gives you a different perception of the foreclosures," Demetria Newkirk, a Carrollton city employee, said Saturday after viewing an elegant two-story North Dallas home recently marked down from $1.1 million to $795,000.

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In Dallas-Fort Worth Market, No Flood of Homes for Sale

"Unlike many other areas of the country, the North Texas home market hasn't seen a flood of properties for sale in recent months.

In February, the number of homes offered through the Realtors' multiple listing services dropped 1 percent from a year ago. And the number of listings added to inventory last month was down 7 percent from last year, the North Texas Real Estate Information Service reported Friday." The Dallas Morning News(March 07, 2008)

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If you need a home in Dallas and the surrounding areas, go to DFW Homes for Sale.

Commercial Sales Fell in 2007, Too

Local home sales weren't the only area of decline in 2007. Sales of commercial properties fell in Dallas and Tarrant counties, according to a research by Addison-based Roddy Information Service.

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North Texas Irish Festival - Feb 29 to Mar 2

The North Texas Irish Festival is owned and produced exclusively by the Southwest Celtic Music Association, a Texas 501(c)3 corporation, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is the second oldest Irish festival in the United States and largest in the southwest.

Schedule of Festivities

For those who seek rental services in the North Texas area for the event as well as for relocation purposes, visit Dallas Real Estate.

North Dallas News Sources

Al Dia - Hispanic News Paper
Daily Campus - Southern Methodist University Newspaper
Daily Commercial Record - Dallas Business Newspaper
Dallas Business Journal
Dallas Chinese Times
Dallas Examiner - Dallas African - American Newspaper
Dallas Globe - Dallas Online News
Dallas Morning News
Dallas News Daily - Online News Source for Dallas
Dallas Observer
Dallas Voice
Dallas Weekly - Dallas African American Newspaper
El Hispano News - Hispanic Newspaper
El Sol de Texas - Hispanic Newspaper
KDAF - CW 33
KDFW - FOX 4
KTVT - CBS 11
KUVN - UNI 23
KXAS - NBC 5
KXTX - TM 39
Moreover Dallas Fort Worth - Online News Source
MSNBC KXAS - Cable
Quick
Texas Jewish Post
WFAA - ABC 8

Man killed while trying to cross the Dallas North Toll Road

Dallas News - Jan. 9, 2007 - Man killed while trying to cross the Dallas North Toll Road near Wycliff. A woman in his car said they were from Romania and were fighting about his ex-wife when he got out of the car and took off over the median where he was struck by one car and then fell into another lane and was struck by two more cars.

Dallas Texas

North Dallas Chamber Breakfast for 2008

Full Story at Dallas News
Jan. 4, 2008

The North Dallas Chamber of Commerce will host a breakfast forum from 7:30 to 9 a.m. Tuesday that will focus on the 2008 Economic Outlook. The conference at the Westin Park Central Hotel, 12720 Merit Drive, will feature a panel of experts discussing the impact of interest rates, tumultuous stock prices and implications of recession on the region and national economies.

North Dallas Real Estate

Woman Finds Dog, Tells Owner in Dallas that she's keeping it

Jan. 4, 2007 - Dallas Morning News

Woman finds cute pug that escaped the back yard under a fence. The dog napper gives the dog to her daughter for Christmas and sends an anonymous note to the owner with a $20 bill saying the dog has a new name and sleeps with her daughter every night.

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Dallas Real Estate

Dallas Cost of Living

Find out about the average costs in Dallas here:

• Dallas Cost of Living - Gives basic cost of living for Dallas. Tells items like insurance cost, gallon of milk, gas price, average home price, etc...
  
• Dallas Average House Prices - Extensive data about average home prices in Dallas by House Almanac.
  
• Dallas Average Salaries - PayScale offers detailed report about average salaries in Dallas, Texas, including breakdown by career and years in field.
  
• Cost of Living Comparison Calculator - PayScale offers cost of living comparison calculator.

Post sponsored by Dallas Real Estate.

Dallas School Districts

Cedar Hill ISD
Carrollton ISD
Coppell ISD
Dallas County ISD
DeSoto ISD
Duncanville ISD
Farmers Branch ISD
Forney ISD
Garland ISD
Grand Prairie ISD
Irving ISD
Highland Park ISD
Red Oak ISD
Midlothian ISD

Trends in Home Home Decor

Buying a brand new homes? If you're both lucky and rich your walls will be bathed in rich hues that make family and friends sit and stay a spell. If you're really blessed you have the gobs of faux finish spattered about with a burnt umber gloss for the aged plaster patina. If you're like the rest of us, sometimes lucky and rich in spirit, you're starring at those white walls wondering how to make winter white look wow. Brrrrr

Brand new homes sometimes come with pretty colors, but for the most part it's more economical to paint after your house is built. If you're not an interior designer, what can you do to assure your walls welcome you and yours? Here's a few tips from someone just like you--me. Only I have taken the time to write down my wall ponders for your benefit. This is not the decorator's gospel... it's just a normal gal's guide to making her four walls pop.

1. Choose warm colors. If I've learned anything in my life, it's that you want a warm and inviting feeling in a house, unless you are an ultra modern condo dweller. Warm colors with hints of red, orange and yellow remind us of warm sunlight as opposed to cold colors that make you think of being freezing...(who wants that at home?) Neutral colors are just that--neutral, boring, plain and are good for walls as a type of visual relief.

Paint colors for 2007

Lower preowned home sales

DALLAS (Dallas Morning News) – December was the seventh consecutive month of lower preowned home sales and the fourth consecutive month that home prices were down from the previous year. Sales were down 5 percent from a year earlier, and prices were 2 percent lower, according to statistics released by the North Texas Real Estate Information System.

At year’s end, nearly 41,600 preowned single-family homes were listed in North Texas, 9 percent more than a year earlier, yet less than a six-month supply, which is considered healthy. The average of 76 days on market was up slightly from 2005.

Some of the largest sales declines in 2006 were in homes priced under $150,000, where buyers were affected more by higher mortgage rates. However, median sales prices, hovering around $150,000, were up about 2 percent during the year.

The number of homes sold for $1 million or more increased 18 percent.

Industry analysts say it is too early to tell whether 2007 will be a better year for the housing market.

"January and February will probably still have some decline — normal cyclicality," said Jim Gaines, research economist with the Real Estate Center. "By March and April, expect an uptick. If not, Dallas may have a rough 2007, but I don't think it will."

D/FW third busiest airport

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is still the nation's third busiest airport. It retained its rating as the nation's third busiest airport with 702,713 flights, according to statistics from the Federal Aviation Administration. That's a 2.2 percent decrease from 2005. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport remained the nation's busiest airport with a total of 976,307 flights in 2006, down 0.4 percent from 2005. Chicago O'Hare, ranked the second-busiest airport, had 958,643 flights in 2006, which was down 1.4 percent from 2005. One reason for the overall decline in the number of flights is that the nation's legacy carriers have been reducing their number and capacity of their flights to trim expenses and to fly routes with fuller planes.

[Dallas Business Journal]

D-FW builders scale back home starts

Single-family home starts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area dropped more than 17 percent during the fourth quarter, according to statistics released by Residential Strategies Inc. With 9,629 units, it was the weakest quarter for housing starts in two years, the Dallas-based research firm reported. Sales of new homes in the fourth quarter also dropped about 4 percent compared to a year earlier. Builders sold 10,956 homes. But with almost 12,000 unsold new houses on the market in North Texas, there may be further declines in construction, said Residential Strategies' Ted Wilson. Early spring is normally a boom time for residential builders. "Things are not gloomy in the Dallas-Fort Worth area," Wilson said. But there are "adjustments that need to take place over the next six months." Even with the recent cutbacks, builders managed to start a record 48,035 homes in the D-FW area last year. Sales totaled just over 46,000 units, an increase of about 5 percent. At the end of 2006, about a three-month supply of unsold new homes was on the market in North Texas. The fourth-quarter decline in new home sales mirrors the fall-off in sales of preowned homes in North Texas. Earlier this week, the North Texas Real Estate Information System reported that preowned home sales in December were down 5 percent from a year earlier.

[Dallas Morning News]

TI to cut 500 jobs in Dallas area

Texas Instruments Inc. said that it will cut about 500 jobs in the Dallas area by the end of 2007. Weaker demand for high-end cellphones is pinching the world's largest maker of chips for mobile phones. The cuts will mostly come from the company's research staff, and some of that research will now be done by the semiconductor foundries that build chips for TI. A TI spokesman said the Dallas-based firm currently has about 10,500 employees in the area, and will probably have about 10,000 by the end of the year. Worldwide, Texas Instruments has about 31,000 workers.

[Dallas Morning News]

In slowdown, a boom for high-priced homes

While overall residential sales in North Texas were down slightly in 2006, sales of high-priced homes continued to soar. Sales of houses priced $1 million and more jumped 18 percent last year. And the number of pre-owned houses priced from $800,000 to $900,000 that changed hands was up 23 percent from 2005, according to statistics from the North Texas Real Estate Information System. Indeed, houses sold in the Park Cities, North Texas' most expensive residential enclave, sold at an average of 97 percent of list price in 2006. Not a lot of price cutting going on there. And it's eye-opening to see that a record 786 homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area priced $1 million or moretraded in 2006, a year when most of the headlines were about the U.S. housing slump. Million-dollar home sales have more than doubled in the area since 2000. In December alone, traditionally one of the slowest months for home sales, 55 houses priced in the millions were sold the D-FW area. That's about 1 percent of the total market.

[Dallas Morning News]