Dallas Real Estate News & Views: What Do We Think About Partial Tear Downs?

Brick removed, walls smoothed for stucco?

Rear second story addition

Can you remodel a ranch and make it a liveable, sellable home?

So there is this house on Northaven. I called the builder a few weeks ago and he told me he buys homes like this 1950’s ranch and rather than tear down the whole house, he preserves as much as he can and remodels it. Looks like they are even adding a second story in the back. We’ll be tracking the progress here on CandysDirt.com.

But here’s the deal: do these homes sell? Here is one a few doors down listed by my friend Trey Bounds with Allie Beth Allman. $1,250,000. Reduced from $1,742,850 I kid you not. It’s been on the market since 12/2008 with that RIDICULOUS PRICE TAG and been through more agents (OK, three) than Tiger Woods has had mistresses. I feel like doing a cheer here because if anyone can sell it, Trey can, and he has it priced sensibly. But this little angel started out life as a 1950’s ranch and maybe, like most of us girls, she’s just a ranch girl at heart no matter how much stucco and crap they glop on her.

6147 Northaven

So what’s the deal? Did the Real Estate bust kill off the scraper mentality? Is it better to maintain as much original (um, old) structure as possible to be green and most pointedly, are these homes marketable?

6147 Northaven 7/03/2006