Burton Knight is Not Giving Up on His Water-Friendly Lawn, Says Unfair Park

BurtonKnightLawn

 

Photo: City of Dallas via Unfair Park

Burton Knight is a smart fellow — he has a horticulture degree from my alma mater, Texas A&M University — but all the wits in the world might not be enough to win a fight against Dallas City Hall.

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Survey Says … Trulia Economist Asked Homeowners What Their Biggest Regret is as National Housing Market Shows Signs of Rebound

Buy a bigger house

More and more homeowners are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and as the downward trajectory of the housing market turns upward, they are also seeing missed opportunities.

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Let’s Gondola Over to Dallas Midtown Valley View… Shaping Up as a New Dallas Community

Midtown Valley View

Valley View Shopping Center is shaping up on paper like a Victoria’s Secret glossy ad, but one thing’s for sure: it may never again look like the Valley View Mall many of us grew up with! I will never forget the opening of Bloomingdales over there, how cool was that? Alas, now Valley View is suffering behind the road hell that is LBJ is and you almost cannot even see it anymore. But like I tell myself every time my tires touch LBJ, this too shall pass and something way better will be here. Well, after a year working closely with the City of Dallas, neighborhood stakeholders and internationally respected architects, i.e. everyone, Beck Ventures is giving us a first look at detailed plans for the transformation of Dallas Midtown. And it is, to say the least, ambitious!

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Trulia’s Real Estate Lab Can Show Agents How To Write Listings That Get Homes Sold

So, with the right listing, even a dilapidated house in the Fair Park area could sell?

Maybe so, according to new research from Trulia.com.

Mixing science and selling, Trulia’s newly minted Real Estate Lab has just published research showing the psychological link between “color” language in real estate listings and a buyer’s attraction. Continue reading

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Financial Website Calls Plano The Best-Managed City in The U.S., Fuels Rivalry With Fellow Collin County Suburbs

Plano Legacy

According to 24/7 Wall Street, our neighbors to the north in Plano live in the best-managed city in the U.S., beating Madison, Wisc., and Irvine, Calif., for top honors. Just how did they come to their conclusion, crowning one of the most popular Dallas suburbs as king?

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Love Your Mama: Real Estalker Picks Up Hicks Story, Quotes Our Fabulous Candy Evans

Love this sassy little write-up on the Hicks estate, which is marketed by Douglas Newby & Associates, from Your Mama at The Real Estalker:

Like we usually do when it comes to dissin’ and discussin’ high-priced real estate in Dallas Your Mama gave the deliciously dishy Dallas-based property gossip Candy Evans a ringy-dingy and asked if she thought there was much of a market for a $135,000,000 house in Dallas.

There may very well be a market for an $135 million house in Dallas, but it’s a small one, as Candy said. You never know, right? Still, as Your Mama pointed out, you’re going to need big bucks and a lot of water to run this place. Natch:

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Thinking of Making a “Z” Sale? Yesterday Was Your Last Day to Skirt The New MLS Sales Disclosure Rules

I spoke to MetroTex Association of Realtors MLS Director Cathy Faulkner yesterday about “Z sales” coming to an end. In the luxury market, “Z sales” gave lofty sales prices a sense of anonymity.

I won’t bore you with the technical details of what a “Z sale” is exactly. Check out this site for a primer on the practice. The gist is this: sellers who were gun shy about disclosing what they paid for a home listed on MLS put a “Z” instead of a big number followed by a lot of zeroes.

Dallas Realtor Jeff Duffey says the death of the practice “will never affect approximately 99% of the real estate market areas throughout North Texas.” However, he estimates roughly 20 percent of the sales in high-end neighborhoods such as the Park Cities, Preston Hollow, and Turtle Creek are “Z sales.” Continue reading

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More Museum Tower Drama: Washington’s Cultural Landscape Foundation Puts Nasher on ‘Endangered List,’ Blames Museum Tower

The plot thickens!

The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Washington-based center bent on “increasing the public’s awareness and understanding of the importance and irreplaceable legacy of its cultural landscapes,” has included the Nasher Sculpture Garden in their Landslide 2012 list of endangered cultural landscapes.

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Saving the Environment One Drop at a Time: Starting Today, I’m Going Tankless

Busy day here yesterday at the ranch, as we emptied and discarded these babies for an Eternal GU 195S on demand hybrid gas fired water heater. In effect, we are going tankless. Woo hoo! These two hot water heaters are 12 years old, about the age when they start to break down. One broke on Christmas Eve, but it was no big deal because our hot water heaters sit in pans that have drains attached — water bugs notified us of the leak while we were at church. We turned off the broken unit and used the other one — the joy of being empty nesters!  A few weeks ago, I heard rumblings in hot water heater II — it was loud and bouncy, as if pebbles were popping inside. Was someone having a party in there?

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Thursday Three Hundred Two-fer: Keep Your Family Close With These Stevens Park Estates Homes

Jenni Stolarski and Rob Puckett of Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s are marketing two Stevens Park Village homes that back up to one another and sit on the fifth green of Stevens Park Golf Course —2036 Old Orchard and 2041 Mayflower — as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a family to be really close without moving in with each other. Continue reading

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