DFW Home Prices Dip, But Still Up from Pandemic Levels
DFW: Home prices in North Texas continue to try to find a steady path but remain up nearly 50% from the start of the pandemic. Home prices peaked at the start of last summer before dropping steadily through the end of the year because of rising mortgage rates. They began to climb at the start of the year. North Texas Real Estate Information Systems and the Texas Real Estate and Research Center at Texas A&M University says in a new report that median single- family home prices dipped about 2% from July to August. Even so, that $406,000 median price is 44% higher than the median home price in March 2020. In fact, the median price for a home in North Texas has risen from about $270,000 in the first quarter of 2020 to $435,000 at the end of May last year, a 60% spike. Inventory continues to remain low, less than half of what analysts say is a balanced market.
DFW: Sherman will have mammoth semiconductor chip sites in the near future and Wilmer soon will have a solar panel manufacturing plant. Trina Solar, a Chinese-based company with U.S. headquarters in California, will build a plant that will encompass more than 1 million square feet in Wilmer, about 45 miles south of Dallas. The company is planning to begin production of Vertex modules using polysilicon from various parts of the world. The company says it is its first U.S. plant and is investing more than $200 million in the project. It has asked for more than $1 million in grants, plus tax abatement. It says it will create 1,500 jobs. It won’t be the only such plant south or east of Dallas. Canadian Solar, based in Toronto, plans to spend $250 million to renovate an industrial complex located on a 100-acre site on Town East Boulevard near U.S. Highway 80 to manufacture solar panels. It also said that this is the company’s first plant in the U.S. and plans to hire as many as 1,500 people.
DFW: Industrial projects continue to move forward throughout North Texas. Two new projects in Mesquite will encompass nearly 1 million square feet. That includes a $42 million, 750,000 square-foot project at Skyline Drive near Interstate 635. It plans to open in the fourth quarter of next year. Another warehouse on Interstate 635 northeast of U.S. Highway 80 will span more than 200,000 square feet and cost more than $15 million to construct. Cities east of Dallas have seen expansion of warehouse developments in the past several years, including more than 12 million square feet areas under construction through the end of the second quarter. Even so, areas north and south of Fort Worth have also seen a boom in industrial and warehouse developments. In Everman, south of Fort Worth, a $70 million, 1 million-square-foot industrial project has started at Everman Parkway and Interstate 35. Several years ago, the same developer for that project, TCRG Opportunity VII, completed a 1 million- square-foot warehouse in Synergy Crossing on Golden Triangle Boulevard and Harmon Road.
DFW: Add an office building near Brook Hollow Golf Club in Dallas to the list of Dallas high-rises and mid-rises converting some of their space into apartments. Owners of Viceroy, an eight- story building built in 1983 near Dallas Love Field, are the latest to announce plans to turn workspace into living quarters. Beginning later this year, half of the building’s 250,000 square feet will be converted into apartments. Owners of numerous Dallas downtown high-rises, among others across the country, have converted or are converting vacant office space into apartments. Among the largest conversions in downtown Dallas will be at the 40-story Bryan Tower, which will have 400 apartments.
FLORIDA: Lionel Messi was not messing around when it came to finding the right place to hang his feet in South Florida. The soccer superstar has been the talk and the toast of Major League Soccer after signing with Inter Miami FC in July. Record crowds have filled stadiums over the past two months, with fans hoping to get a glimpse of perhaps the sport’s greatest player., To get away from all the fanfare, Messi found the perfect place in a private community called Bay Colony in Fort Lauderdale. He paid $10.8 million for the luxe eight-bedroom, 10,400-square- foot waterfront compound that has two docks. That’s probably not a stretch for Messi, whose net worth is in the $600 million range. The sun-splashed home has large and bright living spaces, a modern chef’s kitchen, spacious bedrooms that look out onto the water and a heated swimming pool. There’s an office, a fitness room and an entertainment lounge. The 36-year-old soccer phenom played 17 seasons with FC Barcelona and led his home country of Argentina to a World Cup win last year before joining Inter Miami FC.