Decade-long streak of growing home prices ends in DFW
DFW: For Sale: Four-Tower Corporate Office Complex. More than 2 million square feet of mixed-use development on a busy North Texas corridor. Nearly 100% leased. The property: The towers at CityLine, located at the Bush Turnpike and Plano Road. The last time they sold to a partnership between a South Korean investment fund and Transwestern Investment Group of Houston the price tag was $800 million. At the time of the sale in 2016, it was one of the biggest transactions in North Texas. State Farm Insurance has more than 10,000 employees in the towers, which are the anchors for a 180-acre, billion-dollar development of other offices, shops, apartments, a hotel and a campus for Raytheon Co. When finished, the development will have more than 5 million square feet of office space, and close to 4,000 apartments, townhomes and other residential units.
DFW: A rental investor is picking up thousands of homes from the country’s largest homebuilder. The reported deal between Pretium Partners and D.R. Horton of Arlington includes finished and unfinished homes with a value of $1.5 billion. Pretium has been on a spending spree in recent years, acquiring homes from homeowners, investors and builders even as construction of new homes has stalled due to higher financing costs. Meanwhile, Henry S. Miller is getting into rental communities, too. The Dallas developer plans to build a 200-unit rental project south of Dallas in Ferris. The $35 million development will be called Casitas Shaw Creek and will encompass six, three-story buildings. They will be built on an 11-acre site between FM 664 and FM 893, west of Interstate 45, in Ellis County. The project is expected to start next year and will be completed sometime in 2026.
DFW: Another residential tower is coming to Uptown Dallas. Alamo Manhattan Corp. is planning to build a 31-story high- rise to be named Fairmount Tower. The $31 million luxury apartment development will be at Fairmount and Wolf Streets and will include street-level retail. The developer plans to start the project later this year. It has another project underway south of the Trinity River at Davis Street and Zang Boulevard. That development, a 210-unit apartment complex valued at $43 million, is expected to open next year. In Uptown, it will join several other high-rise apartment projects already under construction.
DFW: Billingsley Co. has its sights set on the start of a new massive development along U.S. Highway 75 in Collin County. Over the past several years, the Dallas developer has purchased and gained control of roughly 500 acres in Allen and Fairview at the southwest and southeast corners of U.S. 75 and State Highway 121. Its plans for a mixed-use project to be called Sloan Corners—named so because Sloan Creek flows through the property—include a first phase of apartments and offices that would open in 2026. The development will eventually be linked by a new bridge across U.S.75. When completed, the development will include more than 6,000 apartments, more than 200,000 square feet of retail and upwards of 10 million square feet of office space, parks and walking trails with a total value of more than $3 billion. To gauge its size, the Sloan Corners development site is twice as large as the Legacy West development in West Plano at State Highway 121 and the Dallas North Tollway. Billingsley Co. continues to work on other existing projects in North Texas, including Cypress Waters off LBJ Freeway and Belt Line Road and the International Business Park on Plano Parkway and the Dallas North Tollway.
DFW: Competition remains for single-family homes in sought-after North Texas neighborhoods, but for the first time in 11 years, DFW has seen a price dip year-over-year. The latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index report shows that North Texas’ home prices dropped 1.2% in March, compared to March 2022. This is not necessarily a surprise, as home prices have been dipping steadily since their peak about a year ago. Much of the decline has been tied to higher mortgage interest rates, low inventory and high home prices. Still, this was the region’s first year-to-year price drop since February 2012. Another report from Realtor groups says that the median price of a single-family home in the area dropped 5% in April, compared to April 2022, to around $404,450.
DFW: Grand Prairie city officials hope a planned development along Interstate 30 could be its answer to Plano’s Legacy West. And it will start with a Cricket stadium. The Gateway at Grand Prairie will be a 160-acre mixed-used development at I-30 and South Belt Line Road, south of Lone Star Park. A 7,500-seat Major League Cricket stadium, the former home of the Texas AirHogs minor league baseball time, will be finished in the next few weeks on the interstate’s north side. The matches are expected to draw thousands of visitors for games next month, culminating in a championship on July 30. On the other side of the highway, mid-rise apartment buildings with more than 300 units have gotten the green light for construction on about six acres. City officials hope that future development will attract more retail, residential and restaurants to the area.
BIG APPLE: Movin’ Out! The Piano Man is finally making good on one of his hits and is saying goodbye to his large estate on Long Island. Billy Joel is asking $49 million for his 26-acre estate on Oyster Bay Harbor that he cobbled together over the years and is known as Middlesea. The centerpiece of the property is a five-bedroom, six-bath, 20,000-square-foot home. It has a spa and hair salon, a wine cellar and a bowling alley. There’s also an indoor swimming pool that doubles as a music studio. There are tons of other amenities inside, including renovations that are still underway. The house also has a three-bedroom beach house, plus a three-bedroom guest apartment and a four-bedroom gatehouse. The estate also has 2,000 feet of frontage on Centre Island. There’s also a floating dock, a boat ramp, two outdoor pools, and a helicopter pad. Wow! That’s what the new owner will get for their money! And even though Joel owns another Empire State estate, he won’t be taking Mama Leone’s advice and moving out to the country—or Hackensack. Seems the rocker and his wife Alexis Roderick and their two children are spending more time in the Sunshine State where he bought a place for $22 million in 2015.