Flower Mound home values and zillow.com
Have you seen zillow.com? It's one of the most useful real estate tools I've come across on the internet, and it's fun to use. You type in an address, and Zillow will map it for you. You then see the value for that home, and all the neighboring homes, on a single screen.
I've owned 5 homes in my life -- two in Texas, one in Oklahoma City and two in Connecticut. Here's what I've learned from Zillow: I'm a lousy real estate investor. Our home values in Flower Mound have been stagnant for several years now -- my home has appreciated perhaps 10% in 5 years. But the home in Connecticut I sold in 1994 is now worth double its value, and the Connecticut condo I sold just five years ago is now worth three times what I sold it for.
Anyone know how/when our home values will take off? It's frustrating to see our home prices stagnating, particularly when other nearby areas are faring much better. I think our best chance for growth in home values will come when we can build a better commercial base for the Town. Here's hoping we fill in Lakeside and Silveron soon. High-paying jobs from corporate offices in our southern sector will create additional demand for our local housing. But we're not there yet, are we?
posted by Chip Mahaney @ 7:39 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
First let me say that the Hines resort hotel (Lakeside) and the Stryker headquarters relo (Silveron)represent a major turning point for the district. The hotel will start construction this summer and Stryker will grow from 80,000 s.f. to almost 1/2 million within five years.
The entire district is 1,500 acres with half planned for industrial and half planned for office. Industrial typically leads the economy out of a recession and this half is doing very well. The office half is more of a challenge because the DFW vacancy rate is still just below 25% and much of this is Class-A contiguous space. This means a corporate relo or cosolidation can find 100-300K s.f. of existing space for a fraction of what it would cost to build new.
The answer is not to abandon the intended commercial use and start building thousands of condos and apartments as developers are currently requesting (email: masterplan@flower-mound.com). Instead we should establish a high-tech business incubator similiar to Startech Early Ventures in the telecom corridor, www.startechev.com.
I know first-hand how fast these companies can grow and require new commercial space. Funding this with a quarter-cent sales tax will allow us to invest new shopping dollars from residents of other cities into our own future commercial tax base and keep the residential tax burden to a minimum.
The current mayor thinks I "crossed a fine line" by suggesting a sales tax, but I firmly believe that we should never allow political fear to stand in the way of meaningful progress. Also, she apparently thinks that such a tax would be okay if we used it to plant flowers instead.
I'm not kidding, this is in her News Connection announcement article posted on my website; right below the part where she brags about getting rid of all the "dead wood" personnel at the town. And yes, this attitude has a lot to do with why the turnover rate has doubled to 20% under her administration.
Check out the website www.texas-quality.org to see what I believe we are capable of achieving. Past public-sector recipients include Richland College, Arlington Parks Department, and the Texas Comptrollers Office. We can do it, but leadership and teamwork must start at the top.
Jim Lang
214-797-5511
www.jimlang.com
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