Are you searching for a new home in McKinney, TX to buy this year? You couldn’t have picked a better location. This North Dallas suburb with the small-town feel is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. Before you start your new home search, here are a few tips to keep in mind to help you prepare:
1. Review your finances. It would be very frustrating if you found a home to buy, and then realized you couldn’t afford it. Avoid that scenario by reviewing your income and debt, and then meet with your bank or other financial expert to determine what your ideal mortgage payment would be.
2. Be aware of all costs. An existing home may cost less than a new home, but the upkeep and unexpected repairs could cost you much more in the long run. A brand new home in McKinney, TX built by Landon Homes includes many energy efficient features that can save you money on your utility bills.
3. Gather search tools. When you’re out for a drive, carry a mobile phone – preferably one with a camera and Internet access – so you can use it to take pictures and notes about neighborhoods and new home builders. You can search online for information about schools in the area, for instance, and other amenities you may be interested in.
4. Review and study areas. Choosing a neighborhood to live in affects many aspects of your life, including your work commute, where your children go to school, where you shop, etc. As you whittle down your possibilities, study the areas for traffic and activity. You might even talk with your potential neighbors to see how they like living there, and what type of experience they’ve had with the home builder.
The more prepared you are to buy a new home in McKinney, TX, the happier and more secure you’ll feel when you sign the contracts. Visit the Landon Homes website to see the different new home models that are available in McKinney. If you have any questions, you can conduct a live chat online with our Internet Sales Manager Tanya Smith or call 800-898-3603.
North Texas apartment renters are going to have to dig a little deeper to keep a roof over their heads.
Average apartment rents in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are up about 4 percent from a year ago and are headed even higher, industry analysts say.
Local apartment rents are now rising at the greatest rate since the 1990s, analysts with MPF Research said Wednesday.
Rent growth in the D-FW apartments “has accelerated quite a bit” during the last year, said MPF vice president Greg Willett.
Monthly rents in projects built since the 1990s are up more than 5 percent from 2010 — if you can find any units available.
“Substantial rent growth at the top of the market reflects that vacancies in that product category are few and far between,” Willett said.
The average D-FW apartment now goes for a record $802 a month. And tenants in newer buildings will pay an average of $1,063 a month.
Average rents have gone up by more than $20 a month since midyear.
MPF Research predicts that apartment rents will rise 4.4 percent during the next year.
“The substantial rent growth occurring in the North Texas apartment market looks sustainable over the near term,” Willett said.
Tenants leased an additional 2,370 D-FW apartments during the third quarter, MPF Research said. That brings the annual leasing total up to almost 13,000 units.
But developers have added only 5,189 new apartments since last September and only 1,673 in the third quarter.
Builders are rushing to catch up with demand. There are more than 7,200 apartments being built in the D-FW area — more than in any market in the country.
“In a quarter or two, we could have 10,000 units under construction easily,” Willett said. “There is virtually nothing left to rent at the top end.”
Apartment occupancy in North Texas is now just under 93 percent — up by more than a percentage point from a year ago.
While local rent increases are high by recent measures, other U.S. apartment markets are seeing much bigger rate hikes.
Rents in Northern California are up in the third quarter by more than 13 percent from a year ago.
In Austin, apartment rents are almost 9 percent higher than in the third quarter of 2010, MPF Research said.
Low mortgage rates and high rental prices are two reasons why it’s a good time to buy a new home. If this will be your first home purchase, you’ll find an excellent selection of affordable and energy-efficient homes for sale in Frisco, TX. Before you start shopping, here are a few tips to keep in mind to ease your way through the home buying process.
#1 – Determine how much house you can afford. There’s nothing worse than finding your dream home, only to realize you can’t afford to pay for it! Landon Homes website has a mortgage calculator you can use to determine your monthly payment. Remember to factor taxes and insurance into your total housing cost.
#2 – Evaluate neighborhoods. As you look at homes for sale in Frisco, TX, take note of the surrounding community. Are there stores and schools nearby? Drive through the area at different times of the day and night to check noise levels. Finally, talk to your prospective neighbors to see what they think of the community.
#3 – Evaluate home builders. If you choose to buy a brand new home, it’s important to check the home builder’s track record. Find out if his projects have been completed on time. Take a walk through a home under construction as well as the finished model. Ask questions about materials used, and whether you’ll be able to tour the home site during various phases of construction.
#4 – Get financing in place. Before you make an offer on one of the homes for sale in Frisco, TX, take the time to get pre-approved for a home loan. Your closing process will go more smoothly when you already have your financing together.
One of the home builders to consider during your search in Frisco is Landon Homes. Rated among the best home builders in north Dallas, Landon has a variety of affordable green homes ready for you in premier Frisco neighborhoods. Contact us today to find out how you can join the ranks of satisfied Landon homeowners.
Looking at homes for sale in Frisco, TX? This North Dallas suburb has it all. Excellent schools, arts, recreation, affordable housing and job opportunities. In fact, the Dallas/Fort Worth area has a lot to crow about when it comes to job growth. The area created nearly 59,000 jobs in the 12 month period ending May 2011, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. That’s a strong 2.05 percent job growth rate.
In fact, Dallas-Fort Worth remains the No. 1 job growth market in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In addition, Dallas recently ranked 10th on Forbes magazine’s list of the best places for business and careers. The magazine cited the area’s low-cost, pro-business regulatory environment, as well as its past and projected job growth, income growth, cultural and recreational opportunities and educational attainment.
Many people decide to purchase one of the available homes for sale in Frisco, TX rather than in Dallas because of the town’s family-friendly atmosphere. Frisco offers a wide variety of award-winning hotels, shopping, concerts and events, 4 professional sports teams and over 150 pieces of art on public display.
The homes for sale in Frisco, TX are also affordably priced. Whether you’re raising a family or an empty nester, you’ll find the perfect home to suit your needs. Landon Homes offers the best new homes for sale in Frisco, TX. As one of the state’s premier home builders, Landon is committed to delivering a new home that is both beautiful and eco-friendly.
Landon has built homes in three Frisco communities: Grayhawk Estates, Austin Ridge at Lonestar Ranch and The Villages at Willow Bay. These homes feature a variety of energy-saving features such as radiant heat barrier, tankless water heaters and high-efficiency appliances that meet or exceed Energy Star requirements.
Visit the Landon Homes website for more information on the homes for sale in Frisco, TX or call our Internet Sales Manager, Tanya Smith at 214-707-0347.
Texas became the USA’s second-largest economy during the past decade — displacing New York and perhaps heading one day toward challenging California — in one of the biggest economic shifts in the past half-century.
The dramatic realignment of the nation’s economy was illustrated by North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia all overtaking one-time industrial powerhouse Michigan in economic size from 2000 to 2010. The economic winners of the last decade are states that focus on raw materials, government and senior citizens. The big losers are places that make things — industrial states and even California.USA TODAY examined each state’s gross domestic product to determine how the country’s economic output has shifted within its borders. The data, recently released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, reflect both population growth and income increases — in short, the economic weight of each state.Texas notched one of the biggest increases in size in a half-century, surpassing $1 trillion in annual economic output. The state gained nearly a full percentage point in its share of the U.S. economy during the decade, reaching 8.3% in 2010. This growth in economic clout has been matched only twice in the past 50 years — by California in the 1980s and Texas itself during the 1970s oil boom.”We’re growing faster than everyone else, and this trend should last a good while,” says economic forecaster Raymond Berryhill of Waco, Texas. His state enjoyed “good fortune and good planning” from having natural resources, immigration and successful technology businesses while avoiding the real estate bubble, he says.
Florida’s share of the national economy grew more than any state except Texas as seniors took their wealth south. But it was the long-booming state’s smallest growth of any decade since the government began keeping track in the 1960s.Other ups and downs:•California. The state’s share of the national economy peaked in 1990 but shrank faster than all but three states from 2000 to 2010. It’s hard for a large economy — at $1.9 trillion, the nation’s largest — to keep growing fast, especially when hit by a housing downturn, says Stephen Levy of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy. •Virginia. The federal government-fueled suburbs of Washington, D.C., led this state and neighboring Maryland to a decade of prosperity.•Michigan. Michigan and Ohio were the only states to end the decade economically smaller than when it began. “Michigan was the place that created the 20th-century middle class — the well-paying factory job,” says Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, an economic research group. “It ended so quickly we fell off the cliff.”
Dallas Business Journal – by Candace Carlisle, Staff Writer
Date: Thursday, March 31, 2011, 10:10am CDT – Last Modified: Thursday, March 31, 2011, 10:26am CDT
Dallas-based home builder Landon Homes has purchased 506 acres of land in Frisco’s Texas 121 corridor.
The land is located between Coit Road and Independence Parkway, north of Texas 121.
John Landon, president of Landon Homes, says he’ll build up to 1,600 homes on the site and could have models open the first part of 2012. Landon Homes specializes in single-family homes that typically cost from $300,000 to $700,000.
Landon purchased the property from H. Roger Lawler, who also sold another 300 acres of land at Rolater Road in Frisco to Warren Clark Development Inc., according to reports.
The financial details of the land sales were not disclosed. Mike Neitzel of Neitzel Real Estate Co. brokered the transaction.
“This property represents the largest single tract of undeveloped land in Frisco,” said Landon, in a written release. “With such close proximity to the new Sam Rayburn Tollway and the Dallas North Tollway, I consider this property to be one of the finest locations in the Metroplex and am committed to seeing it become an extraordinary neighborhood.”
Are you in the market for a new home? You might consider moving to the Dallas metropolitan area. Last year, Dallas ranked among the top 20 healthiest housing markets according to Builder magazine. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics dubbed the metro area a “rebounding economy” due to its addition of 50,800 non-farm jobs last year, a 1.8% increase in employment.
Strong employment prospects and affordable housing have been attracting people to Dallas for several years now. The median price of a home in the area rose just 1.2% in 2010. And the Dallas Economic Development Council recently announced plans to revitalize the city’s downtown to cater to young professionals.
Builder magazine says home builders remain bullish on the area’s prospects – pulling 19,500 single-family permits last year, 33% more than in 2009. One of the premier home builders in North Dallas is Landon Homes. Headed by John Landon, a leading force in homebuilding and development since the 1980s, Landon Homes has quickly become a dominant player in the Texas housing industry.
Landon Homes has raised the standard among home builders in North Dallas in the area of energy efficiency – becoming one of the first to use 2×6 exterior wall construction, instead of 2×4. The thicker walls hold 57% more insulation, reducing unwanted heat loss or gain. That lower demand for energy translates into lower utility bills for Landon customers.
Landon Homes builds affordable, eco-friendly homes in Frisco, Little Elm, McKinney, and North Dallas, TX. Visit our website to see the variety of floor plans and options available to create the home of your dreams.
Forget stocks. Don’t bet on gold. After four years of plunging home prices, the most attractive asset class in America is housing.
A home under construction in Austin. The number of new homes in the pipeline nationwide is quite low.
From his wide-rimmed cowboy hat to his roper boots, Mike Castleman fits moviedom’s image of the lanky Texas rancher. On a recent March evening, Castleman is feeding cattle biscuits to his two pet longhorn steers, Big Buddy and Little Buddy, on his 460-acre Bar Ten Creek Ranch in Dripping Springs, a hamlet outside Austin in the Texas Hill Country. The spread is a medley of meandering streams, craggy cliffs, and centuries-old oaks. But even in this pastoral setting, his mind keeps returning to a subject he knows as well as any expert around: the housing market. “I’m a dirt-road economist who sees what’s happening on the ground, and in 35 years I’ve never seen a shortage of new construction like the one I’m seeing today,” declares Castleman, 70, now offering a biscuit to his miniature donkey Thumper. “The talking heads who are down on real estate will hate to hear this, but America needs to build a lot more houses. And in most markets the price of new homes is fixin’ to rise, not fall.”
Castleman is in a unique position to know. As the founder and CEO of a company called Metrostudy, he’s spent more than three decades tracking real-time data on the country’s inventory of new homes. Each quarter he dispatches 500 inspectors to literally drive through 45,000 subdivisions from Baltimore to Sacramento. The inspectors examine 5 million finished lots, one at a time, and record whether they contain a house that’s under construction, one that’s finished and for sale, or a home that’s sold. Metrostudy covers 19 states, or around 65% of the U.S. housing market, including all the ones hardest hit by the crash: Florida, California, Arizona, and Nevada. The company’s client list includes virtually every major homebuilder and bank — from Pulte (PHM) and KB Home (KBH) to Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC).
The key figures that Metrostudy collects, and that those clients prize, are the number of homes that are vacant and for sale in each city, and the number of months it takes to sell all of them. Together those figures measure inventory — the key metric in determining whether a market has a surplus or a shortage of new housing.
Today Castleman is witnessing an extraordinary reversal of the new-home glut that helped sink prices just a few years ago. In the 41 cities Metrostudy covers, a total of 78,000 houses are now either vacant and for sale, or under construction. That’s less than one-fourth of the 343,000 units in those two categories at the peak of the frenzy in mid-2006, and well below the level of a decade ago. “If we had anything like normal levels of buying, those houses would sell in 2½ months,” says Castleman. “We’d see an incredible shortage. And that’s where we’re heading.”
If all the noise you’re hearing about housing has you totally confused, join the crowd. One day you’ll read that owning a home has never been more affordable. The next day you’ll see news that housing starts have plunged to nearly their lowest level in half a century, as headlines announced in March. After four years of falling prices and surging foreclosures, it’s hard to know what to think. Even Robert Shiller and Karl Case can’t agree. The two economists, who together created the widely followed S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price indices, are right now offering sharply contrasting views of housing’s future. Shiller recently warned that the chances were high for a further double-digit drop in U.S. home prices. But in an interview with Fortune, Case took a far brighter view: “The lack of new home building is a huge help that a lot of people are ignoring,” says Case. “People think I’m crazy to be optimistic, but housing is looking like the little engine that could.”
To see where real estate is truly headed, it’s critical to keep your eye firmly on the fundamentals that, over time, always determine the course of prices and construction. During the last decade’s historic run-up in prices, Fortune repeatedly warned that things were moving too fast. In a cover story titled “Is the Housing Boom Over?,” this writer’s analysis found that the basic forces that govern the market — the cost of owning vs. renting and the level of new construction — were in bubble territory. Eventually reality set in, and prices plummeted. Our current view focuses on those same fundamentals — only now they’re pointing in the opposite direction.
So let’s state it simply and forcibly: Housing is back.
Two basic factors are laying the foundation for dramatic recovery in residential real estate. The first is the historic drop in new construction that so amazes Castleman. The second is a steep decline in prices, on the order of 30% nationwide since 2006, and as much as 55% in the hardest-hit markets. The story of this downturn has been an astonishing flight from the traditional American approach of buying new houses to an embrace of renting. But the new affordability will gradually lure Americans back to buying homes. And the return of the homeowner will start raising prices in many markets this year.
Drumming up sales
Of course, home prices are low and home construction is weak for a reason: incredibly low demand. For our scenario to play out, America will need a decent economy, with job creation and consumer confidence continuing to claw their way back to normal.
One big fear is that today’s tight credit standards will chill the market. But we’re really returning to the standards that prevailed before the craze, and those requirements didn’t stop prices and homebuilding from rising in a good economy. “The credit standards are now at about historical levels, excluding the bubble period,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. “We saw prices rising with fundamentals in those periods, and it will happen again.”
To see why, let’s examine the remarkable shift in home affordability. A new study by Deutsche Bank measures affordability in two ways: first, the share of income Americans are paying to own a home. And second, the cost of owning vs. renting. On the first metric, the analysis finds that homeowners now pay just 9.8% of their income in after-tax mortgage, tax, and insurance payments. That’s down from 17.2% at the bubble’s peak in 2007, and by far the lowest number in the Deutsche Bank database, going back to 1999. The second measure, the cost of owning compared with renting, should also inspire potential buyers. In 28 out of 54 major markets, it’s now cheaper to pay a mortgage and other major costs than to rent the same house. What’s most compelling is that in all of the distressed markets, owning now wins by a wide margin — a stunning reversal from four years ago. It now costs 34% less than renting in Atlanta. In Miami the average rent is now $1,031 a month, vs. the $856 it costs to carry a ranch house or stucco cottage as an owner. (For more, see The top 10 cities for home buyers)
Not all markets will bounce back equally, of course. Housing resembles the weather: The exact conditions are different in every city. But in general the big U.S. markets fall into two different climate zones right now. We’ll call them the “nondistressed markets” and the “foreclosure markets.” A more detailed look shows why the forecast for both is favorable.
Nondistressed markets: Ready for launch
No cities went untouched by the collapse in prices over the past few years. But markets such as Northern Virginia, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, San Diego, the San Francisco suburbs, and virtually all of Texas held up reasonably well. In those areas prices spiked far less than in bubble cities — the foreclosure markets we’ll get to shortly — chiefly because they didn’t get nearly as many speculators who thought they could flip the homes or rent them to snowbirds.
The nondistressed markets will be able to get prices rising and construction growing far faster than the harder-hit areas for a simple reason: Although some of these markets are still suffering from foreclosures, they don’t need to work through the big overhang haunting a Las Vegas or a Phoenix. The number of new homes for sale or in the pipeline is extraordinarily low in nondistressed markets. San Diego is typical. It has just 921 freestanding homes for sale or under construction, compared with 4,425 in late 2005. The challenge for these cities is to generate enough demand to reduce inventories of existing, or resale, homes. In the entire country the resale supply stands at 3.5 million houses and condos. That’s a fairly high number, since it would take more than eight months to sell those properties; seven months or below is the threshold for a strong market.
But in the nondistressed cities, the existing home inventory is lower, closer to seven months on average. So a modest increase in demand will translate into strong gains in both prices and new construction. That should happen quickly, because most of those markets — including Silicon Valley, Northern Virginia, and Texas — are now showing good job growth.
Zandi of Moody’s Analytics expects that prices will rise three to four points faster than inflation for the next few years in virtually all of the nondistressed markets. His view is that prices will increase in line with rents, which are now growing briskly because apartments are in short supply. Those higher rents will encourage buyers to cross the street from an apartment to a home of their own.
In Northern Virginia, Chris Bratz, an engineer, and his wife, Amy DiElsi, a publicist, are planning to leave their rental apartment and become homeowners for the first time. The main reason? Buying has simply become a far better deal than renting. “The market got completely inflated, then it crashed, so prices are coming back to where they should be,” says Chris. As the couple have watched prices fall, they have also watched the rent on their apartment spiral upward, reaching $2,700 a month. They calculate that they should be able to purchase a townhouse for between $400,000 and $500,000 and pay less per month for a mortgage.
The nondistressed markets will also lead the way in construction. Zandi predicts that for the nation as a whole, single-family housing “starts” — measured when a builder pours a foundation for a new home — will rise from 470,000 in 2010 to as much as 700,000 this year. A large portion of that activity will happen in nondistressed markets where a tightening supply of resale houses will start making new homes look like a good deal. “Our main competition is from resales,” says Jeff Mezger, CEO of KB Home. “The prices of those homes have stayed so low, because of low demand, that it’s hampered the ability of builders to sell new houses.”
But many would-be buyers simply prefer a brand-new house. Eventually they’ll move from renters to buyers, and the trend will accelerate now that prices are no longer dropping. In Minneapolis, Yuan Qu and her husband, Xiang Chen, a researcher at the University of Minnesota, just moved from a two-bedroom rental to a new light-blue four-bedroom ranch with a chocolate-colored roof on a spacious corner lot. They paid $400,000, a bargain price compared with a few years ago. The couple, both in their early thirties, moved to Minnesota from China six years ago. “We wanted to buy a house, and we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting,” says Qu. “The prices went down for so long, we finally thought they couldn’t keep falling.” For Qu the only choice was new construction. “We’re not very handy people,” she admits.
Foreclosure markets: The outlook is brightening
A home off the market in Mesa, Ariz.
The true disaster areas for housing since the bubble burst have been Sunbelt cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Miami — places that boasted great job and population growth in the mid-2000s, only to suffer a housing crash that swamped them with empty homes and condos and crushed their economies. But people always want to live in those sunny locales, and their job markets are starting to recover, albeit slowly. In foreclosure markets the inventory problem is far greater because it includes not just traditional resale homes but millions of distressed properties. Fortunately those houses are now such a screaming deal that investors, including lots of mom-and-pop buyers, are purchasing them at a rapid pace. To be sure, some foreclosure markets won’t rebound for years because they’re both vastly overbuilt and far from big job centers; a prime example is California’s Inland Empire, a real estate disaster zone 80 miles east of Los Angeles.
But the outlook is brightening for Phoenix, Las Vegas, Miami, and parts of Northern California. A big positive is the tiny supply of new homes entering the market. Phoenix, for example, has a total of just 8,100 new homes that are either for sale or under construction, down from 53,000 in mid-2006. The big test in these cities is absorbing the steady stream of distressed properties. The foreclosures put downward pressure on the market far out of proportion to their numbers because of markdown pricing. “We had levels of inventory even higher than this in 1990 and 1991,” says MIT economist William Wheaton. “But they were traditional listings, not foreclosures, so they didn’t create the big discounts you get with foreclosures.”
Wheaton reckons that we’ll see a flow of around 1 million foreclosures a year, at a fairly even pace, from now through 2013. That figure is frequently cited as evidence that the market is doomed for years in most foreclosure markets. Not so. The reason is that the vast bulk of those units, probably over 600,000, according to Gleb Nechayev, an economist with real estate firm CB Richard Ellis (CBG), are being converted to rentals either by investors or their current owners. Those properties are finding plenty of renters, since the rental market is still extremely strong across the country. Remember, the millions who lost their homes to foreclosure still need somewhere to live.
A typical investor is Alex Barbalat, a Russian immigrant who’s purchased seven homes east of San Francisco in the towns of Bay Point, Antioch, and Pittsburg. His average purchase price is around $100,000 for homes that once sold for between $300,000 and $500,000. But he has no trouble finding renters, since his tenants can commute to jobs in San Francisco on the BART transit system. Barbalat is pocketing rental yields on the prices he paid of around 12%, and he’s in no hurry to sell. “I’m holding them until prices drastically rise,” he says.
Investment funds are also entering the game. Dotan Y. Melech looks for bargains in Las Vegas for UnitedAMS, a firm he co-founded that manages apartments and other real estate investments. The firm has raised more than $20 million from outside investors to purchase distressed properties. So far, Melech has bought around 300 houses and plans to purchase another 200 this year. He has no trouble renting the houses he buys, since, he estimates, occupancy rates in Las Vegas are touching 95%. The “cap rate,” or return on investment after all expenses, is between 8% and 10% — twice the rate on 10-year Treasuries. Melech rents to people who lost their homes but are reliable renters. “A lot of people can’t be buyers because their credit got hurt,” he says.
Even with investors jumping in, buying activity in foreclosure markets hasn’t yet increased enough to bring inventories down. It will soon. Zandi thinks prices will fall a couple of percentage points lower in the distressed markets in the short run. “But that will be overshooting,” he says. “It’s like an elastic band. If prices do drop this year, they will need to bounce back because they’ll be far too low compared with rents and replacement cost.” Renters will come off the sidelines to purchase homes in the years ahead, precisely the opposite trend of the past few years.
Consider the example of Michael Dynda, a retired Air Force avionics technician who now works for a government contractor in Las Vegas. Dynda, 49, is a first-time buyer who put off purchasing for years, in part because prices were falling so rapidly in Las Vegas, with no bottom in sight. But last year the combination of bargain prices and low mortgage rates became too good to resist. He ended up purchasing a 2,300-square-foot stucco home for $240,000, or about half what it would have fetched in 2007. Dynda got a 4.38% home loan, and pays the same amount on his mortgage as on the rent on the house he left to become a homeowner. “The timing was about as good as it could get,” says Dynda.
Mike Castleman’s company tracks the inventory of new homes in 19 states across the country. He sees supply getting tight. “Home prices are fixin’ to rise,” he says.
Back on the ranch, Mike Castleman is lounging in his creek-front mansion, built from “a hundred tons of fine central Texas limestone.” As he shows off his collection of custom-made guitars, including one crafted to resemble the skin of a rattlesnake, the homespun housing guru once again returns to his favorite topic.
Castleman claims that this recovery will look like all the others: It will bring a severe shortage of housing. He invokes the livestock business to explain. “It takes three years between the time a bull mates with a cow and when you get a calf ready for market,” he says. “That’s how it is in housing too. We’ll get a big surge in demand and the drywall companies will take a long time to ramp up, and it will take years to get new lots approved. Buyers will show up looking for a house in a subdivision, and all the houses will be sold. The builders will tell them it will take six months to deliver a house.” But those folks, says Castleman, will be set on buying a place. “And they’ll want it so bad they’ll bid the prices up!” In other words: Beat the crowd.
It’s a Great Time to Buy a House Mike Castleman, the Texan with the best realtime view of housing in the U.S., tells editor-atlarge Shawn Tully that the naysayers are about to get a big surprise: rising prices for new homes.
–Reporter associates: Anne VanderMey and Christopher Tkaczyk
Texas remains one of the bright spots in the nation when it comes to housing and the economy. The Texas Association of Realtors reports that nearly 203,000 homes sold last year, down a modest 5% from 2010 levels. However, home prices remained relatively stable. The median sales price rose 1% last year to $147,600.
Analysts say the drop in sales is not necessarily a sign of a trend since federal government incentives for first-time home buyers spurred sales in 2009. TAR chairman Dwight Hale notes that Texas has emerged in a stronger position than almost everywhere else in the country. He adds that, “Our homes are some of the most affordable in the country and we’re seeing job growth substantially greater than national averages, which will continue to fuel the recovery in Texas.”
If you are looking at new homes in North Dallas, Landon Homes has a variety of affordable, green homes available in several premier neighborhoods. For more than 20 years, this visionary Frisco home builder has been creating homes that respect both the environment and your budget. Landon Homes takes care to conserve energy resources and minimize your monthly expenses, while creating a home that is both beautiful and eco-friendly.
To schedule a tour of Landon’s new homes in North Dallas, Frisco, Little Elm or McKinney, contact Tanya Smith toll-free at 866-898-3603.
If the national unemployment rate and real estate figures have spooked you out of trying to sell or buy a home, take a look at the Texas numbers. Six states are largely responsible for dragging those national numbers down: CA, FL, NV, AZ, MI & OH. Meanwhile, Texas has weathered the economic storm, boosted by oil prices and a diversified industrial base.
The state’s unemployment rate is below the national average and job growth is steady at a healthy 2.8 percent rate, the same as it has been over the last two decades. In addition, Texas has one of – if not the strongest – real estate markets in the country. So if you’re in the market for a new home, pay attention to local numbers, not national, and you won’t go wrong.
One area that’s been growing fast is McKinney, site of Landon Homes’ Shiloh Ranch community, and recently rated number 5 in CNN Money Magazine’s Best Places to Live in the U.S. Newcomers are flocking to this Dallas suburb because of McKinney’s great schools, safe streets, low crime and robust employment opportunities. The city also features lovely rolling hills, expansive open spaces, more than 40 miles of hike and bike trails and 2,000 acres of parkland.
The homes in Shiloh Ranch are the most energy efficient in the area, include huge backyards, and some models feature 3-car garages. The community is located just north of Virginia Parkway off Custer Road with the Exemplary J.R Wilmeth Elementary School right across the street.
For more information about Shiloh Ranch or any of Landon’s other new home communities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, contact Tanya Smith anytime at 866-898-3603 or visit our website at www.landonhomesusa.com.
Are you searching for a new home in McKinney, TX to buy this year? You couldn’t have picked a better location. This North Dallas suburb with the small-town feel is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. Before you start your new home search, here are a few tips to keep in mind to help you prepare:
