LUXURY HOMES

JUST HOW EXPENSIVE IS IT TO get oui of Dodge these days? The question was raised by a tempting photo: a pecan orchard leading the way to an 11-stall show bam. White pipe fencing. Open spaces. But the price was unbelievable-only $295,000. This 19-acre horse farm, only 22 miles south of downtown Dallas, complete with show barn, hay barn and ranch home, could be had for less than a Highland Park tear-down. The farm, listed with Hoffman International Properties, had originally been priced at $325,000, and has since been reduced to $275,000, yet the fencing and facilities alone would cost more than $500,000 to build.

This sounded too good to be true. Maybe the problem was the listing agent, who didn’t return our phone calls after repeated tries over two months.

Emily Ferrier, a city girl from a fourth-generation ranching family who sells ranch property for Briggs-Freeman, says many Dallas families are interested in ranches, boosting a market that had been slow since the early 1980s.

’This is definitely an up time,” Ferrier says. “Starting last fall, things picked up. Where it took a year and a half to sell ranch properties, now it’s taking six months or less.”

Ferrier says that about five years ago. when she began to specialize in ranch properties located within an hour and a half of Dallas, she imagined her clients would primarily be Dallas residents looking for investment property. She’s found that’s not always true.

She sold an 800-acre ranch in Bosque County for $850,000 two years ago to a man who lives in Greece. And currently she’s selling a605-acre ranch in Athens, Texas, listed at $800,000, for a client who lives in Egypt.

“The market now is families looking for weekend properties to get their kids out of the city, and people who can operate their businesses from a comput-er and a fax at home,” Ferrier says. For the ranch-office clientele, proximity to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is key.

Other buyers are looking for hunting property. Larry Davis and his wife, Billie Sue, fit into that category. Davis, 46, a principle with Davis-Poston & Associates, a specialty insurance company serving apartment complex managers and owners, and a grandfather, says his recently purchased 200 acres “two hours and five minutes southwest of Dallas” near Clifton is the perfect retreat.

“My wife and I purchased it because we enjoy the country. I’m a bow hunter and the place has deer and lots of other wildlife. We enjoy getting out and just seeing nature,” Davis says. For $700 an acre, the Davises got plenty of hunting space, three big tanks, oaks and pecan trees, a house to fix up, and peace of mind.

Athens, which has been a Dallas retreat for 20 years, is still among the more popular ranch locales. Property there goes for between $800 and $950 an acre. North of Dallas, prime horse ranches will sell upwards of $ 1,200 an acre, and near Kaufman, prices range from approximately $550 to $800 an acre.

Improvements, ranch homes and barns on properties vary widely and account for the differences in price per acre. There are still some ultra-grand, 7,000-square-foot ranch homes out there left over from the 1980s, but more typical would be a brick ranch-style home that was built in the 1960s or 1970s.

For those who don’t want to operate a working ranch, but do want the elbow room, $300,000 can get you 100 acres and a nice house, Ferrier says. And all just an hour from the city.