Prices of preowned homes in the Dallas area were up 7.4 percent in the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. The gain in September from a year ago was the fourth highest in the country – significantly ahead of the 4.9 percent nationwide increase. Home price increases nationwide have slowed in recent months, but in the Dallas area, the year-over-year price increases have remained steady. Charlotte, North Carolina and Dallas continue to have price increases considerably above the national average. Dallas-area home prices are now 12 percent higher than they were before the recession and at record level in the Case-Shiller index.
– Dallas Morning News, November 26, 2014
Dallas-Area Home Appreciation in 2015 to be Twice the National Average
Get ready for 2015! “I expect the appreciation to stay in the high single digits,” said David brown in the Dallas office of housing analyst Metrostudy Inc. “Our forecast is for homes to appreciate in the 7 percent to 8 percent range in 2015.” “This is still about double the long-term average rate of increase.” It is also about double what is expected around the country.
– Dallas Morning News, November 26, 2014
Prosper: The Name Says it All
Prosper got its start as a railway whistle-stop is on the verge of a building boom that will forever change the once rural community. Homebuilders are plowing up thousands of acres of former farmland to create housing to serve growing employment centers to the south in Frisco and West Plano. And on the south edge of Prosper along U.S. Highway 380, surveyors are laying out sites for new shopping centers, office buildings and medical complexes.
“It’s been a whirlwind summer,” said Robert Winningham, who heads the Prosper Economic Development Corp. “We have 15,000 residents and are getting ready to double to 30,000. We will hit close to 500 new homes this year,” Winningham said.
With Frisco’s neighborhoods quickly filling up with new homeowners, Prosper is next in line to benefit from North Texas’ need for more housing. It’s already the second-fastest-growing community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, according to recent census reports. The town couldn’t be in a better location, straddling Preston Road and the route of the Dallas North Tollway. Prosper stretches about 9 miles east to west and 3 miles north from U.S. 380 to the Celina city limits. “We’re like a big net catching everything that comes up from Frisco,” said Winningham, who came to Prosper about two years ago after a stint as Allen’s top economic officer. “As Frisco fills up along the tollway, that leaves us next.”
Two major residential projects in the works in Prosper will eventually add more than 15,000 residents. The 2,000-acre Windsong Ranch community on the west side of Prosper opened this summer and has seen sales of dozens of new houses. The development by Terra Verde Group will eventually have about 3,000 homes.
– Dallas Morning News, November 21, 2014