THE HOUSING MARKET may never return to those salad days of the early Seventies, when, thanks to the double-edged sword of inflation, a house appreciated in value before its new owner had pulled the “sold” sign out of the front yard. But things are getting better once again for home-buyers, with interest rates dropping and prices leveling off. This seems the right time to ask a blunt question: just what, pray tell, does the buyer get for X dollars in the Dallas housing market? Let X represent a figure around $250,000. and the answers become multiple choice in a hurry, How about a 1,200-square-foot high-rise condo? No? How about a 4,000-square-foot castle lording it over some picturesque country lane? As we learned from a far-from-scientitic search of Dallas County, our-okay, your $250,000 will buy a home on either end of that range, or dozens of others in between the kingly and the cramped. We scouted out ten houses in the mid-200s, with listed prices from $210,000 to $259,000. (The 200-grand range exists because the “list” price of a house is not often the final sales price.) Obviously, you’ll have to balance factors like popularity of the area, age of the home, proximity to downtown and other employment centers, and quality of local schools. Happy hunting.
LAKEWOOD
Lakewood isn’t exactly the “hot” area it was just a few years ago, but homes here still hold their value well. It doesn’t take too long to sell a Lakewood home either-an average of eighty days. The average-priced home is listed at a mere $155,000 at asking time and the “shrinkage” at selling time is a mere 5 percent, so lengthy haggling may not pay off much here.
City: Dallas
Agent: Whiteside Associates
Address: 2507 Hillside
Square footage: approx 1,900
Description: brick and stone, 3 bdrm, 2 bath, 2-car detached garage
Age: 60 years
Price: $239,000
Charm is what you buy in Lakewood. This cottage has the peaked roof and the stained-glass windows that are the area’s greatest hallmarks. But it is sixty years old. No matter how many renovations and remodelings you do, a sixty-year-old home still has the creaks and groans that go with age. The square footage would make a tight fit for a tribe of kids, but it’s the perfect starter home for a young family. The yard here is also a plus. It doesn’t offer the geometrically perfect landscaping one finds in newer areas, but time has sculpted the trees and yard into a comfortable environment.
NEAR PARK CITIES
This area probably had an official name long ago. but the moniker is forgotten. Bounded on the south by Lovers Lane, on the east by the Toll way, and on the north by Northwest Highway (its western boundary is fuzzy), this is one of the hottest new yuppie areas in town, with rapidly escalating property values. These homes are within easy walking distance of the high-end retail along Lovers and some very good eating places. The Toll way whisks residents north or south to downtown in minutes. Good spot for dependable appreciation.
City: Dallas
Address: 5614 W. Amherst
Agent: Ben Briggs Company
Square footage: approx 1,400
Description: red brick, 2 bdrm, 2 bath, dining, living room, detached, 1-car garage
Age: 36 years
Price: $210.000
This particular model has some exceedingly pleasant landscaping in front, with a deck and hot tub nestled under tall shade trees in back. From kitchen to bathrooms, everything has been updated. The house is a youngish thirty-six, so the floors don’t yield as many groans per square foot, but the place does have that lived-in feel. Although quite small, the rearranged walls and attentive decorating make this house feel oddly spacious.
PERSTON HOLLOW
Preston Hollow runs from about Northwest Highway to LBJ between Hillcrest and, say, Midway. Most of the homes here were built in the early Fifties. The average price is about $300,000 with a shrinkage factor of about 7 percent. Expect around five months from time of listing to day of sale. Values have gone nowhere but up over the past ten years. The area is well manicured, but somewhat plain; the charm comes from the verdant splendor of fully grown trees, which ring these charming structures like doting grandfathers around a crib.
City: Dallas
Address: 6510 Woodland
Agent: Ebby Halliday Realtors
Square footage: approx 1,700
Description: red brick. 2 bdrm. 2 bath, dining/living combo, 3-car detached garage
Age: 34 years
Price: $259,000
If you like lots of light, hardwood floors, and pink tiled bathrooms, you’ll love this one. It’s pure Fifties, hardly a distinguished period for architecture of any type. Yet the construction of the day was solid, and the fenced lot here is roomy. A fireplace at the front of a long living/dining combo just cries out for marshmallows and hot cider on a chilly winter’s night. This home would do nicely for a young couple but it has the feel of a house for an older couple whose kids have hit the road but who just can’t handle that closed-in feel of a condo.
UNIVERSITY PARK
Yes, it is possible to buy a home-as opposed to a lot-in University Park for a mere $250,000. But you’ll need to look sharp for such a bargain, which is some $246,000 below the $496,000 average price of a Park Cities home. Bad news: selling your home will take around eighty days. Worse news: you may see your asking price melt like an ice cube in a frying pan. Expect to come down a whopping 19 percent on resale. Still, while nobody would mistake University Park for Alice’s Restaurant, you really can get anything you want in this part of town, from modest quarter-million homes to Marcos-style mansions selling for close to $10 million. This may be the only part of Dallas where the sale of a house at $250,000 brings cries of “there goes the neighborhood.”
Address: 4404 Hyer
Agent: Ellen Terry Realtors
Square footage: approx 1,800
Description: cream brick and stone, 3 bdrm, 2 bath, dining, living, 2-car detached garage
Age: 46 years
Price: $249,000
You know about judging a book by its cover? This house is a first edition of Madame Bovary wrapped in a cover of Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs. The lot is fairly small; the exterior certainly doesn’t seem worth the price; the architecture is decidedly nondescript even for the Forties. But oh, the interior! You couldn’t do a better job with what is available. A truly remarkable use of light and color lend a lulling sense of space and openness. The gleaming hardwood floors would warm the heart of a barracks sergeant. They offer a pleasant juxtaposition to the deep, cushy carpets.
LAS COLINAS
Las Colinas, while known far and wide as Dallas’ second downtown, is not particularly known for having an abundance of residential housing of any type. Actually, the average price of a single-family home within the confines of Las Colinas is nearly $350,000. But $250,000 still buys you an enormous amount of home.
City: Irving
Address: 2629 Brookside-Hackberry Creek Village
Developer: Westwind Properties
Square footage: approx 2,60
Description: brick, 3 bdrm, 2 bath, 2-car garage, fireplace, wet bar
Age: New Price: $247,500
Landscaping here doesn’t mean what it does in Lakewood. You get grass, you get shrubs, you get saplings-and you get a very reasonable amount of brand-new, fully carpeted home with a covered terrace. This is not a modern mansion, but you do get space and quality for your money. This particular model would make a family of four very happy. Since residential sites are still in limited development here, prices may be a bit higher than for a similar home elsewhere, but the area is attractive and values hold up well.
FAR NORTH DALLAS/PLANO
Here, especially on the Piano side, is The Land Where All Is New; if your home was built before 1976, chances are it’s a historical monument now, If you got to town early, before double-digit interest rates and a land rush that sent values soaring, you could have a home now worth the $175,000 average Piano price without having paid a penny over $75,000. If you arrived later, you may be paying the full price for a home you don’t think quite measures up.
City: Dallas
Address: 7422 Hidden Creek
Builder: Gagewood Homes .
Square footage: approx 2,800
Description: brick, 4 bdrm, 3 baths, 2 living, 2 fireplaces, 2 wet bars
Age: New
Price: $244,500
Located on a creek, fully landscaped, with a good-sized lot, this place is great for those who enjoy entertaining a laughing gaggle of friends and those solitary types who don’t like to bump into family members too often. The fireplaces are large enough to handle full-sized logs and would perhaps accommo-date a small ox, if that is not an oxymoron, roasting on a spit. The formal areas have picture-frame molding.
TROPHY CLUB
Like the country? This is the area for you. No. you won’t be shooting varmints in the back yard; your greatest problem may be dodging stray golf balls. But the pastoral simplicity of Trophy Club, some fifteen minutes west of the American Airlines terminal at D/FW, may soon go the way of the twenty-cent stamp. Soon, IBM will begin constructing its giant training facility just down 114 and the Trophy Club can be expected to boom. The development offers a variety of activities from riding to tennis. Our $249,000 home is exactly on average.
City: Roanoke
Address: #8 Crestwood
Developer: Independent American
Square footage: approx 3,000
Description: brick, 5 bdrm. 3.5 baths, covered patio, 2-car garage, formal area, family room, 2 fireplaces
Age: New
Price: $249,000
On a par with North Dallas/Piano in terms of quality and quantity, but with a pleasant, bucolic sense of room to stretch your legs. Look one way and you see the irresistible inroads made by developers; look another, and you’re staring at the same trees that greeted settlers a century ago.
CEDAR HILL
Myths: everything south of the Trinity River is cheap. DeSoto. Duncanville, and Lancaster are low-income suburbs. Cedar Hill is way out in the country where all of the TV station transmitting towers are located. Facts: these high-growth southern towns are located in some of the most beautiful areas of North Texas, amid green hills and trees, trees, trees. The average price for a gorgeous Cedar Hill home is about $95,000; the homes found in our mid-$200,000 range are some of the best buys around.
City: Cedar Hill
Address: 1041 Nottingham
Developer: John Bass
Square footage: approx 3,196
Description: brick, 4 bdrm, 3.5 baths, formal living, den, 2-car garage, 2 fireplaces
Age: New
Price: $249,000
This home probably offers the largest lot for the house of any we surveyed: that’s because land values are still relatively low in the south, in spite of its recent growth. However, higher-end homes are in increasing demand and in limited supply, so prices are going up. This particular model is not much different from similar homes in newer areas of town. Its floor plan is standard, but its finish-out is pure quality.
OAK CLIFF
Perhaps the most attractive part of Dallas lies south of the Trinity River in Oak Cliff, However, Oak Cliff isn’t one monolithic sameness. In its northern part, Kessler Park, large expensive homes are nestled just south of the old Dallas/Fort Worth turnpike, South of Kessler Park, the neighborhoods are undergoing change as they become the latest target of “urban pioneers,” while Far South Oak Cliff sports modern subdivisions.
City: Dallas
Address: 1136 Turner
Agent: Judge Fike Company
Square footage: 4,570
Description: white brick, 4 bdrm, 3 bath formal living, den, game room. 3-car garage plus carport, fireplace, terraced back yard
Age: 30 years
Price: $250,000
A truly fascinating property. From the outside this rather plain brick Fifties home looks almost like a motel, but look closer, and you might want to check in fora lifetime. It’s set a bit closer to the street than one might really prefer, but the back yard is roomy and well shaded. The interior is truly outstanding, with large bedrooms and a marvelous game room.
GARLAND
As with other suburban cities, there are many Garlands within the larger whole. The early Garland boasted few upper-end properties. Most later developments have been under the $200,000 level. But in both north and south Garland there have been some homes that are going for $250,000 and up. City: Garland
Address: 2209 Club Creek Circle
Developer: Club Creek Development, Inc.
Square footage: approx 3,100
Description: mottled brick, 2-story, 4 bdrm, 3 baths, fireplace, game room, formal living, 2-car garage
Age: New
Price: $259,000
This is a truly elegant home. Indeed, it is one of the more impressive buys around. It is also one of the tew two-stories we looked at. The massive family room with its two-story vaulted ceiling is certainly the focus of the house. The master bedroom, with its bay window and sitting area, provides a wonderful retreat. The two-up. two-down arrangement of the bedrooms also offers the adults a little more privacy.
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