Home prices in the DFW area have gone up quite a bit in the last 5 years. Dallas has always been expensive but now prices are starting to go up in Fort Worth rapidly.
Back in 2010 I found that acceptable homes in Fort Worth started at around $100k and nice homes around $150k. Now just 7 years later anything less than about $115k is a “handyman special”.
Our home has gone up about 40% in value since we built it in 2011. This is about 5 miles away from the Walsh development.
Fort Worth is finally catching up with other areas.
None received. I mistakenly indicated the population of Dallas, not the entire metro area (which is around 7 million).
Apparently the DFW Metroplex has the 4th highest number of Fortune 500 company HQs. Any company on this list probably has 100s or 1000s of people earning six figures or more. http://www.fortworthecodev.com/fort-worth-overview/facts-figures/major-employers/
ssgenius - Why do you have such a problem with the idea that there are subdivisions that aren’t built of “starter homes”? In fact, the people who are buying into this sub may well be glad the average house isn’t available to your basic Wal-mart cashier.
People are willing to pay for perceived safety, amenities and exclusivity. They will be willing to drive a little farther to work so that Johnny and Janie can have good schools. They have jobs that allow them to tele-commute.
With 20% down, and a ~ $250K mortgage, you’re looking at monthly payments of about $1,200 at today’s interest rates. That’s exclusive of tax and insurance, but it’s also largely tax deductible for the first 10-15 years.
And if you consider the rule of thumb that housing should be 30% of your monthly gross income, you’d need to earn $3600 gross each month, which is about 50K yearly.
I think it’s 38%, which would be a monthly salary of $3,160. Annual salary of about $38K. But that 38% includes tax and insurance, so that has to be factored in. I don’t what that would be in TX, but let’s say taxes are $8K, year and insurance is $500.
There is a value called the median multiple, which is home price divided by gross household income. So if s home costs 300k and gross household income is 75k, then the median multiple is 4.
I think anytime the value is over 3-4, affordability becomes an issue.
In cities like LA or the Bay area I think the value is 9-10.
How do people afford it? 50 year mortgages, interest only loans, etc.
A major issue is foreign investors from China, Russia, Middle East, etc are buying up properly in the west which drives up real estate costs.
This is unincorporated Parker County? I’m seeing property tax rates around 1.7℅, or about $5000/year on $300k of assessed value. Which is significant, but of course you’re paying no state income tax.
My guess is that this new development is aimed at the very and moderately wealthy for whom Keller and Southlake are too new/too in-town. Or, for the people on that side of the Metroplex who want that sort of Stepford high-end suburb, but for whatever reason don’t want to live in Keller or Southlake.
But houses starting in the 300s isn’t that rare for DFW; the housing market is superheated at the moment. For example, my house, which we bought in 2007 prior to the subprime mortgage crisis, cost $170k. Today, if I go look on Zillow and the other online estimate sites, it comes in between $295k and $330k, which is right in line with the other prices per sq. foot in the area (Lake Highlands in NE Dallas).
So a $300-500k house in DFW may not be as crazy as it sounds; they’re probably small houses without much lawns (I saw 3800 sq ft lots as the low-end on the site, which doesn’t give you much room for a yard when you throw a 2500 square foot house on that lot.
But there are lots of cheaper subdivisions in the Metroplex, especially if you aren’t dead-set on a new home- you can either get a cheaper home, or a larger house/lot for the same amount of money.
The median household income in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is $59,175, I’m not sure why you would expect people making half that to be buying these houses.
I think he was assuming that most people buy a house within a 10 or 15 minute drive of where they work and already live. Not that people across the metroplex would be willing to commute 30-45 minutes each day.
Why on earth would you assume that, though? Anyone I’ve known who’s lived in any kind of metro area sees 30-45 minute commutes as a normal thing. They may opt not to do that commute themselves, but generally know lots of people who have that kind of drive or longer.
Because he said in his OP that “people around here make $15” an hour" and when I pointed out that that wasn’t who lived there, he responded with the face-slap thingy, which I read as “duh, I should have known that”.
