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In a recent D Magazine article the Real Estate Council has been working with Dallas city officials to speed up the processing of building permits and zoning requests.
With FY12 planning underway this is going to play a major part in how the budget gets set and how it affects people living in Dallas.
Coldwell Banker has been producing its annual home price comparison index since the 1980s. It specifically tracks the comparative price of a 2200 square-foot, single family home with 4 beds, 2 ½ baths, a family room and a 2-car garage in a neighborhood suitable for corporate middle management. At $332,375, such homes in Dallas are the highest in Texas, and are up $6000 on last year’s figures.
Coldwell Banker found the nationwide average price for this type of home would be $363,401, considerably higher than the Dallas average price. In the same survey, by comparison this same type of house would cost $248,960 in San Antonio, $226,500 in Austin, $159,847 in Houston and just $153,450 in Fort Worth.
Other surveys fail to show this huge disparity between Dallas and other Texas cities because Coldwell Banker only uses a narrow range of home listings in specific neighborhoods which would appeal to corporate executives. No-one disputes the fact that you can get a very nice home in the present market for less than $300,000.
A Dallas Morning News analysis on rates charged for home insurance revealed dramatic increases in the premiums paid by homeowners who have low credit ratings. For those hard hit by the recession, this can be the final straw. Among top home insurers, 19 of the 26 largest companies admit they charge higher rates for those with low credit scores and they can be loaded by as much as 2 1/2 times!
The state’s three largest insurers, State Farm, Allstate and Farmers, all rely on credit information to determine individual premiums. The use of credit scores in this way is perfectly legal and the insurance industry maintains it is necessary to make sure that those who pose a bigger risk pay higher premiums. Meanwhile, consumer groups and civil rights advocates argue that low-income families are penalized because of a single factor which has little to do with homeowner insurance. It is hard to see how credit can affect the likelihood of a home being hit by a hail storm. A spokesman for Texas Watch, commenting on this trend, noted that credit card companies have reduced the credit limits for many good customers, thereby increasing the ratio of their credit card debt compared to their limit. The higher the ratio of debt, the lower a person’s credit score – and the more they pay for insurance.
While this blog may not look any different, we have completely upgraded what’s under the hood. Leverging the Word Press platform means that we can integrate new functionality like automatically finding similiar posts and will also help us ping the various feed readers.
Welcome to DTRE 2.0.
