WINE ME, DINE ME, BUY ME A SHALLOW WIDE
While the rest of the nation is biting fingernails over too much inventory and sub-prime mortgages, Dallas real estate remains in the pink since housing prices haven’t been on steroids for five years like everywhere else. Erin Mathews and David Nichols sold Phil Romano’s 4645 Meadowood Rd. home for $6,200,000, but the original listing price was $8,995,000. The buyer’s agent is Minnette Murray of Pinnacle Real Estate Group.
North of LBJ, builders are trying to move inventory with gifts. At least one major national builder has decided that a basket of delectable cheeses, fabulous wines, and bottle openers might perk more sales than a party. As that builder put it: “Agents at parties aren’t out selling homes.”
The folks at Avignon Windhaven, a European resort-style development of zero-lot line mansion-ettes in Plano, might disagree. They went completely crazy feting licensed brokers and mortgage VIPs on April 12. Four lucky attendees won trips to a castle in Avignon.
The Windhaven Partners development of 3,000- to 5,000-square-foot courtyard homes built on “shallow-wide” home sites, each about 6,000 square feet. The “shallow-wide” concept, says Windhaven Partner’s Monty Thomason, is more wide than deep, to give broader, more magnificent curb appeal. This eliminates the “garage front” look of so many courtyard developments. Everyone is buying, Thomason says, from empty nesters, single professionals, two-career families, and seniors to jocks. They’ve got everything: concierge service, Palais clubhouse equipped with a ballroom, pool, six fountains, outdoor living area, vineyard, and a life-sized garden chessboard so large we’ve heard it will be certified in the Guinness Book of World Records.
