Tuesday, September 9, 2014

More Luxury Living Lined Up for Plano (DBJ)

(Dallas Business Journal) – After facing some opposition, the 484,000-sf One Haggard Place residential tower has the green light.

The 109-residence development will be at the corner of W. Spring Creek Pkwy. and Parkwood Blvd. The 20-story tower will anchor the Haggard Farm development.

Condos will range from 1,420 to 4,800 sf in one- to three-bedroom units. Penthouses are planned that can be configured from 8,000 sf to 16,000 sf.

The project could add an estimated $140 million to the tax rolls of the City of Plano, Plano Independent School District and Collin County.

Visions5 is developing the property. The designer is GDA Architects. Austin Commercial is the general contractor. Construction is scheduled to start by the end of this fall. 

 --, Staff Writer- Dallas Business Journal

Friday, August 22, 2014

Bonus watering for Murphy Residents!


Posted on: August 22, 2014 by Office of the City of Murphy


Additional Day
 Residents and businesses in Murphy are scheduled for yet another bonus watering day during the week of Aug. 25 as the City temporarily suspends the twice-monthly watering schedule, says City Manager James Fisher.
... “Allowing the additional day gives us a chance to keep the water in our system moving, and that’s important for a number of reasons.”
Residents with addresses ending in an odd number may water on Monday, Aug. 25, a day that is not on the schedule for them. And, residents with addresses ending in an even number may water on Wednesday, Aug. 27, a day that would normally not be one during which watering was allowed.


“These bonus days do not negate the need to maintain the proper watering times,” added Fisher. Watering is prohibited after 10 a.m. or before 6 p.m. to avoid the hottest part of the day during which evaporation is most likely.  Stage 3 seasonal restrictions, which limit watering to twice a month, are in place until Oct. 31. These restrictions apply to all automatic sprinkler systems.

While water conservation is critically important, Fisher says that the effects of using less water results in placing the City of Murphy in the unusual position of having water linger in the storage system longer than normal.  “We need to move the water in our storage system to maintain the system at its peak level of efficiency,” he said. “The residents and businesses in Murphy have done what we’ve asked, and that has put us in this position. We’re actually pleased to give something back for their support of our water conservation efforts.”

Watering restrictions are available for review online at the Customer Service page (and below in this blog)

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Murphy, TX Water Restrictions

We got a cool little postcard in May... I don't think I was one for the end of summer.  Since we are in these restrictions apparently until Noah builds another ark, here's the city's guide to keeping you from getting a fine!

Murphy Fine water use water restrictions City of Murphy code water 75094 restrictions

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Trying to Move to Murphy? Better act fast!

Wow... 7 days on market--SOLD.  3 days on market--SOLD!  ONE DAY ON THE MARKET AND SOLD?????  Yup.




How long will this one last?  I mean, Boggess Elementary and under $300K!  $265,000 to be precise. 



240 Seleta Drive 75094

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

2014 Starts Well for North Texas Real Estate

Steve Brown of the Dallas Morning News, reports what we all suspected.  The market in the Dallas area is healthy and still inclined toward the seller's advantage.  So it's a great time to sell and the advantage you gain in selling will well equip you for being an aggressive and competitive buyer.

Keep in mind, the new home building industry is an easy to read thermometer for the overall housing industry.  When there is an oversupply of new homes, there is likely the same condition  in pre-owned homes and vice versa.  

What this all means to you and me is that our jobs are safe, our incomes are steady, our home values are on the rise, and we can sell your house quick as ever.

      Here's Brown's article:

 Dallas-area homebuilders can’t keep up with demand for new houses
     North Texas homebuilders couldn’t keep up with buyers in the final months of 2013, as new home sales rose to the highest point in more than four years.

     Builders sold 5,218 new homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the fourth quarter.  But starts for the three months came in at only 4,514 houses — the lowest quarterly production in almost two years.

     Fourth-quarter starts were held in check by December’s weather and construction constraints including tight labor and shortages of building sites, said Ted Wilson, principal with Dallas-based housing analyst Residential Strategies.  “They have been ready to pour foundations, but the weather has not been good enough,” Wilson said. “It will push some business that normally would have come in the fourth quarter into the first quarter.”

    Finding enough construction workers to meet homebuilding demand won’t be as easy as waiting for a change in the weather. Labor constraints have been haunting the local housing market since 2012.  “When there is so much talk nationally about a need for jobs in the U.S., it is ironic that the D-FW new home industry is facing a labor shortage,” Wilson said.  “The housing downturn wiped out a lot of companies that served the housing industry, and it is taking a long time to bring workers back, especially when there are vibrant industries such as oil and gas and trucking competing for many of these same workers.
“There are shortages of bricklayers, framers, you name it,” he said. “Homebuilders are also having to compete for workers with other parts of the real estate market.”
Local construction labor shortages have increased the average time it takes to build a house in North Texas by as much as a third.

    “Typically it takes 120 days to get a house built,” Wilson said. “That’s up by 40 days.  “There is such a backlog they may sell a house and not be able to start it for three months.”
Only about 2,800 finished, vacant new houses were on the market in the D-FW area at the end of the year. That’s less than a two-month supply, Residential Strategies found.  D-FW home starts in 2013 were almost 60 percent ahead of where they were at the bottom of the recession in mid 2009.

     But with 20,778 home starts in all of 2013, builders have a long way to go before the market is back to where it was in 2006 when almost 50,000 new houses were started in the area.

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/residential-real-estate/20140109-dallas-area-homebuilders-cant-keep-up-with-demand-for-new-houses.ece