Dreaming the Spectacular and Timeless

Modern masterpieces that are nothing less than awe-inspiring, these spectacular and timeless structures, renovated or otherwise, are truly properties and treasures to behold. These are the Dallas, Texas Luxury Homes which some may consider just dream properties but are now within reach for even the not-so-rich-and-famous but determined to feel like one.

These impressive properties feature the finest in custom finishes and luxury details. Grand entrance and doors, majestic staircases, elegant fireplaces and lofts, spacious kitchen and dining area, living rooms and bedrooms, solar-heated pools, breathtaking front and back yard grounds and lush, green and verdant surroundings are to behold in each property which were all well-kept and in perfect and stunning details and finish.

From rolling estates, to chateaus, ranches and villas, each Dallas, Texas Luxury Homes have a rich and unraveling story to tell. Ranging from as low as $780,000 USD to a steep $30,000,000 USD tag, these properties not only serve as stature indicators to some but true elegance in living to those who wishes and has earned their way to own it. But hey, Dallas itself is home to 11 billionaires and so affluence is really not a status to be too much bothered about.

A home, no matter how simple or lavish, is still the fortitude of a person or a family. It is the keeper of their hopes and aspirations, it’s where their dreams are made and realized. No matter how hard it may seem to have one, a dreamer will find a way to realize his aspirations and indeed, having a home to proudly call his own is not a feat but a job well done.

So if you will ever decide to purchase or lease a property that you have dreamt of owning in Texas, you can definitely find the treasure you are seeking for in the heart of Dallas because Dallas, Texas Luxury Homes are simply the BEST there is and where the spectacular and timeless lies.

The Wild Dallas Properties Ride

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! The Dallas properties, specifically the Dallas-Fort Worth real estate market, are booming as it is considered one of the hottest in the nation! Recent data shows that this runaway trend has no plans of slowing down!


As per the Prudential Texas Properties February 2014 reports, the Dallas-Fort Worth region, has seen a huge inflow of interested home buyers after registering a whapping 21% slope compared to the active listing of the same month last year and 5% drop from the previous month signaling a drop on the current inventory. Such decline may signal a positive trend in the local inventory turnover rate which is also an indicator that theDallas properties market is zooming up!

As per U.S. Census Bureau statistics, the Dallas-Fort Worth area has registered the third-highest population growth from July 2012 to July 2013. Just a few figures behind that of New York and Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth population ballooned to 108,000 people more than its size, tallying up to more than 6.8 million residents.

The real estate market in Fort Worth continues to climb upwards, as noted by Altos Research, a California-based real estate analytics company. Demand and home values have both increased drastically. The median single-family home value in the city was marked at $154,113. Median sale price for Feb 2014 is pegged at $250K from a pricing of $202.2K in the past year. As for the demand, the number of units sold for Feb 2014 dropped by 5% from the same month of 2013.

There is a quick turnover as per the Dallas properties are concerned. This positive trend indicates positive momentum on the market trend and it has no indication of slowing down until the advent of spring. As the competition for properties heats up, so does the Real Estate market which will lead to active agents and fast-paced buying and selling. So, hold on to your properties, partners because the Texas Real Estate market is on a wild Rodeo Ride and y’all don’t have any choice but to ride ‘em til it slows down! Yeeee -Haa!

Do really need an agent?

-->Do you really need an agent for your property to be sold? Excellent question. 
Most sellers nowadays are faced with a dilemma of whether or not entrust their properties to someone just for the purpose of striking a better deal. Is it really just a question of TRUST and CONFIDENCE? Are there perks that goes with having someone doing the “legwork” for you, is it just a status quo or you’re just too idle to do it? 

Having an agent to transact for your property is really a breeze. All you have to do is sit back and wait for the result and voila! After a while, you’ll be informed that transaction was completed and that the property is now reduced to either a thick bundle of green bills or a single rectangular paper with a bank name, routing number, account number and the amount! WRONG!

Entrusting your property with Real Estate agents is like putting eggs in an incubator: You can be assured it’ll be taken cared of but nothing really happens until you, yourself, will see the process of incubation through. But it will not be as effective without the incubator either. Doing it on your own will still take time and, without professional help, failure is certain and inevitable!

Real Estate, more than anything, is all about risks and chances. For a certain percentage, real estate agents can take care of your property for you but unless it is a legitimate broker you are dealing with and not some fly-by-night outfit, you can be assured that you’ll get positive results in a week or two. But not all results are that “positive” or have that positive turnout. The pricing, location, and status of the property including the efficiency and affectivity of the broker/agent are factors that dictate how fast (or slow) a property will hit the market.

Deciding to go for DIY (do-it-yourself) route of selling on the other hand, posts a different challenge. The utilization of service posts “for sale by owner” listings on a range of sites for a flat fee of $199 for six months is indeed savings but only a handful would take a chance knowing that an established broker backed-up property is much reliable and secured than former. But usually, for a market where the inventory of properties is limited, owners are empowered to do it themselves hoping to save half or all of the commission due for a middleman.

Although selling your property without the middleman is a big advantage, it’s the same as representing yourself in court. Are you knowledgeable enough of the terms, the trends and the proper pricing that will not put your property on the disadvantage? For sure, those are just the few concerns that you should focus on prior to doing Gung-ho with the property dealings!

“You can’t just sign a paper and sign over your house. There are so many levels. Home deals are big financial transactions,” says Michael Corbett, a real estate author and host of NBC’s “Extra’s Mansions and Millionaires. “There’s a lot of negotiating going on…and each one of those negotiations has to be handled professionally and non-emotionally and it’s very hard to represent yourself.”

So, do you really need an agent for your property to be sold? Excellent question. At the end of the day,it will still be you who will decide. Do it soundly, do it wisely…would you pay less for your treasure?

Behind the Three Dimensional Real Estate Brokers

How does a Real Estate broker differ from any other blue-collared survivor of the concrete metropolitan forest? Simple. We, Real Estate brokers are “three dimensional” individuals. Yep…you heard it right the first time. We are the 3D pawns of the sales and marketing world simply because we tread on three equally challenging, chaotic grounds:  

        1. Physical               2. Airwaves             3. Cyberspace.

I know it’s weird and to some, far fetched. Allow me to expound:

Physical

Our day begins and ends with sales calls, appointments, client calls and even late to very late meetings, just so we may be able to make our pitch, handle our transactions and finally seal the deal and meet our sales quotas for the week, for the month, and/or for the year! In this ground, our weapon of choice: a simple yet dependable tablet, laptop, netbook or, for the neophytes, a trusty planner. Countless kilometers, gallons of fuel, liters of sweat and a mouthful of effective and battle-tested pitches and rebuttals, are our arsenal.  And this is just for starters!

Our dealings take us to a point of messing up our meal schedules, our sleeping habits, and worse, even our love life! Sales, for us, is a way of living. It’s something that we chose to deal with, we chose to earn with and we chose to rule our life with.

Real estate in particular, with its ins and outs, requires and even pushes us to be obsessive-compulsive in every aspect of our business. And with the pressure that is involved with this physically demanding job, we need to be well-versed with not just the rules of the trade, but also the way our environment moves with our dealings.

Airwaves

Dealing with a multi-faceted and diverse environment spanning the four corners of Uncle Sam’s land, we need an ally to serve as one of our vehicles for us to reach the nook and crannies of our area, as well as the target customers without compromising our ever valuable TIME. Print, air and broadcast media is our bridge to every curves and corners that lies beyond our line of sight.

Being a broker allows us to have transactions outside our area of responsibilities and this stretches from the East Coast to the West, from the North to South. The tri-media (i.e. TV, radio and print) plays a vital role in the distribution of information where a pamphlet or brochure can’t reach. Effective setting up of ads and teasers to the tripod of media communications assures us of an efficient stretch of our marketing coverage.

Cyberspace

Even if we are at the peak of our career, even with all the lifelines that we got, the pressures of hectic schedules and overlapping tasks certainly drains us down. At this point, the cyber-highway is one effective and efficient avenue to maximize our dealings. Software and Applications that were designed to assist us are now readily available. And yet still, when the tasks get frenzied, there are Virtual Assistants to assist and alleviate our load. These capable and hyperactive individuals can do tasks as simple as filing and encoding information to our system, clearing our email inbox, schedule appointments for us,  remind us of our personal dates to the doctor and dentist, and even run by again our future important events e.g., recitals, PTA meetings, that in our haste we fail to remember!

Our lot in life

Indeed, our being three dimensional is draining and time-consuming, just as all sales and marketing job. But this is our lot in life; it’s not a lot, but it’s a life! And we do have a lot of means to get through our day without collapsing along Wall Street with eyes wide open. This is what we do and this is where we thrive. Thanks to the avenues that allow us to survive: the Tri-media, the web and the Virtual Assistants…our bomb of a job ain’t a bummer after all. Need I say more?           

The American Dream Threatened

Have Americans given up on the dream of having a “home” to call as their own? With the buyers facing erratic trends such as tight inventory, rising mortgage rates, and falling affordability, the dream is now perceived to be cooling down as the real estate trend dwindles in comparison with the 2013 recovery.

"The dream of homeownership remains very much alive and well, but these aspirations must also contend with the current reality, and in many areas, conditions remain difficult," said Zillow's chief economist Stan Humphries.

As per current inventory, the availability of affordable commercial real estate has declined to 4.7 months’ supply of homes compared to a high of six previously. Mortgage rates are currently pegged at around 4.2 percent nationally, up from lows of 3.3 percent last year, which makes it quite unreasonable for lower income and first-time buyers. With such figures, the thought of owning a home is slowly becoming an unrealistic idea.

In addition to the mortgage payment scale, lenders are also making things difficult for first time buyers. Lenders these days require solid and unquestionable credit scores, well-documented incomes and job histories, as well as sizeable down payments, to qualify for the best mortgage deals.

The optimistic thing, though, is the unwavering mindset of some who are still confident that they will own a home this year or within the next 12 months according to a survey conducted by Zillow, an online real estate database. If that will materialize, there will be millions of home owners this year and will translate to considerable sales figures to the real estate industry. The efforts of most real estate agents to maintain this rhythm flowing in the industry just to keep the “American Dream” alive and contagious, is truly commendable. But it’s not enough.

Recession or not, the American dream of having their own home remains promising. The rebound of the Real Estate industry may not be as constant but the “Dream” to most Americans is and they are very optimistic that it will be realized. Soon.

A case for becoming a perpetual student of real estate
There is no doubt that real estate professionals continue to be needed in order to assist buyers and sellers with negotiating the best possible outcome for their home sale or purchase — it’s convincing them of this fact that’s the hard part.
One thing I have experienced in my 20+ years in real estate is that there are two types of agents — specialists and generalists. What sets those agents having niches or specialities apart from their non-specialized colleagues is that they have specific knowledge that other agents don’t have.
These agents who specialize in a target markets such as luxury, farms and ranches, waterfront, condominiums, specific developments, and of course my personal favorite, the senior demographic, have a distinct advantage over those who have only generalized real estate knowledge.
Why? Because they have insider information and knowledge that consumers need and can’t easily find online. Experts offer something that average agents cannot.

Residential real estate  market is shifting noticeably.
Regions that virtually had no housing inventory just twelve months ago are now seeing a surge of homes coming to market. As an example, let’s look at a sand state city; Phoenix – one of the hardest hit markets during the housing crisis.
Last year, real estate agents in Phoenix were desperately searching for homes to satisfy the needs of their buyers. Inventory levels were as low as 1-2 months in many price ranges. Prices skyrocketed. Sellers began to place their houses up for sale to take advantage of the avalanche of buyers descending on the city. The number of active listings is up over 36% from the number last year.
However, with rising prices and increasing mortgage rates, buyers (especially investors) began to disappear. Total home sales in the MLS are down by 17.4% from last year.
Phoenix will eventually be fine as sellers, buyers and agents again get comfortable with a more normal housing market.
Demand began to slow at the same time as supply was rapidly increasing. That dynamic will impact price movement in a big way. Agents who listed houses high hoping to take advantage of the upswing must now have difficult conversations with their sellers as price increases in the region are beginning to soften.
However, we can learn from what happened in Phoenix. We must all keep close watch on the months’ inventory of homes for sale in our marketplaces in order to properly counsel our sellers on price.