Dallas market 'undervalued'

This time, being on the low end of a survey probably isn't so bad
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, June 16, 2006
Dallas has more to brag about than its basketball team.

A new survey finds that Big D has the most undervalued housing of any big-city market in the country. That's right – the best buy in the nation.

Normally, it wouldn't be bragging material to have "undervalued" real estate.

But with the buzz about cooling residential prices in many cities, it's good news that Dallas doesn't have a housing bubble hanging overhead.

Indeed, homes in the Dallas area were almost 19 percent undervalued in the first quarter, according to an analysis by financial firms Global Insight and National City Corp.

Compare that with Naples, Fla., where the median home price was more than 100 percent overvalued. Or Salinas, Calif., which was 79 percent overvalued in the first quarter.

"Seventy-one metro areas, accounting for 39 percent of all single-family housing value, were deemed to be extremely overvalued," the housing sector report warns. Most of those hot markets are in Florida and California.

But there are signs that a correction is in the works. "Quarter-to-quarter price appreciation is slowing in most metro areas and is nearly flat in San Diego and Boston," the analysts said.

The cities at the top of the "undervalued" column have something in common – they are all in Texas. Bryan-College Station has the biggest spread – almost 24 percent undervalued. Next comes Dallas, and then Fort Worth with 18.5 percent undervalue in median prices.

The study also points out that the Dallas area lost more than 18 percent of its housing value during the "correction" of 1986 through 1989. Only someone who wasn't here for the regional economic collapse of the late 1980s would refer to it as a "correction."

Texas homeowners who watched their real estate values evaporate would have more colorful descriptions of that real estate crash.

No doubt the folks in Florida and California will have something to say about home values before the current "correction" is over.

Senior corner

Development is about to kick off on a high-profile North Dallas corner.

Dallas real estate executive Eric Beichler has teamed up with Southwest Housing Development to build a 154-unit seniors community at the southwest corner of North Central Expressway and Northaven Road.

The luxury rental buildings will range from two to four stories and will be constructed around three courtyards and a parking garage. Other features include a cafe, spa, library, media room and other facilities.

Beeler Guest Owens Architects designed the building, which will be constructed of stone, brick and stucco.

Construction on the $20 million building – called Northaven – should be finished in early 2008. Rents in the building are expected to average $1,420 per month.

Mr. Beichler is managing partner of commercial realty firm Mohr Partners and a principal in Libby Field Investments LLC.

Highland moving

Highland Homes is heading north.

The award-winning Dallas homebuilder is trading its longtime office near LBJ Freeway for new digs in West Plano's Legacy business park.

Highland has leased about 30,000 square feet in developer Myers & Crow Co.'s Parkwood Place office complex on Tennyson Parkway. The builder is taking the top floor of the first building.

The lease was negotiated by Jim Lob and Dolores Wood with Trammell Crow Co.

New Zealand theme

Apartment developer Legacy Partners said Thursday that it has purchased a 15.3-acre site at Coit Road and State Highway 121 for its next project.

Work will begin immediately on the Kiora Park Apartments, which will open next summer, according to Spencer Stuart Jr., senior vice president and partner at Legacy's Dallas office. The 250-unit project will have a "New Zealand" theme, the developers say.

Legacy is building the project in partnership with General Electric Capital Corp., and Guaranty Bank is providing the financing. Charles McCallum Jr. of McCallum Properties brokered the sale of the land.

California-based Legacy is also building an apartment and retail complex in Richardson's Telecom Corridor.

On Horizon

Developer Opus West Corp. has finished construction on a Lewisville headquarters for Horizon Health Corp.

The 80,000-square-foot office complex on Lake Vista Drive has been under construction for seven months.

More than 200 Horizon employees will be located in the building, which was designed by architect BOKA Powell.

Promotion

CB Richard Ellis said Thursday that it has promoted Joe Wallace to co-manager of its Dallas office. He will join Rich Pogue in overseeing the office, which has more than 191 members.

Mr. Wallace came to CB Richard Ellis as senior managing director in May 2005. Before joining the real estate services firm, he was founder of Highland Advisors LLC.

Consumer confidence falls in May, research group says

05:08 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Associated Press

NEW YORK – Consumer confidence soured in May, as Americans fretted about the overall economy's future and the job outlook. The drop in a widely watched barometer of sentiment was the steepest since hurricanes pummeled the Gulf Coast last year, increasing worries about the health of consumer spending.

The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday its consumer confidence index fell almost seven points to 103.2, down from the revised 109.8 in April. Still, May's reading was better than the 100.9 expected by analysts.

The decline stalled a rebound seen since November in the aftermath of last year's Gulf of Mexico hurricanes, which sent the index down 18 points in September. The exception was a dip in February when short-lived pessimism over the job market hurt consumer sentiment.

"Consumer confidence, which reached a four-year high in April, lost ground in May," said Lynn Franco, director of the New York-based Conference Board Consumer Research Center, in a statement. "Apprehension about the short-term outlook for the economy, the labor market and consumers' earning potential has driven the Expectations Index down to levels not seen since the aftermath of the hurricanes last summer."

Still, Franco said, consumers rate current conditions favorably.

The Expectations Index, which measures consumers' outlook over the next six months, fell to 83.7 in May from 92.3 in April. In fact, the proportion of consumers expecting their incomes to rise in the months ahead fell to the lowest level in three years, the survey reported. The Present Situation Index, which measures how shoppers feel now about economic conditions, slipped to 132.5 from 136.2.

Economists closely monitor consumer confidence because consumer spending accounts for two thirds of all U.S. economic activity.

Souring confidence, along with a jump in oil prices and a lackluster sales report from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., sent stocks plunging Tuesday. The Dow Jones industrial plummeted 184.18 points, or 1.63 percent, to 11,094.43.

The setback in confidence in May – while anticipated amid higher energy costs – is discouraging for retailers, which have seen sales slow during the month. In fact, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, expects May sales at stores open at least a year to rise a modest 2.3 percent, at the low end of expectations. It cited high gasoline prices as a big factor. Wal-Mart and other major merchants are slated to report monthly results Thursday.

While shoppers have remained resilient in the face of higher gasoline prices, which have been hovering around $3 per gallon, the question is what will it take for consumers to dramatically cut their spending.

An AP-Ipsos poll in early May found 70 percent of Americans expect that increases in gas prices will cause financial hardship over the next six months – up from 51 percent a year earlier. The national telephone survey of 1,000 adults had a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

So far, "there is a lot more worry about higher gasoline prices than there is action," said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia Securities in Charlotte, N.C. "Higher gasoline prices have certainly eaten into purchasing power, but spending is still barreling forward."

But Vitner noted that anxiety is building among consumers about what higher interest rates and higher energy costs will mean to the economy.

In a worrisome report issued last week by the Federal Reserve, core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose 2.1 percent in April, the biggest gain in 13 months.

That's making economists nervous that high increases in oil prices are now expanding into other areas of the economy. And the Fed, which has been on an interest-hike campaign over the past two years, is being confronted with the challenge of keeping inflation in check without slowing the economy and hurting the housing market further.

Conflicting economic data is also making shoppers feel more uncertain about their future, said Karl Bjornson, retail strategist at Kurt Salmon Associates.

"We are in this conflicting, choppy water place, and consumers are beginning to be concerned," said Bjornson. He cited fluctuating gasoline prices and mixed messages about the housing market. Recent reports show the housing market has exhibited a split personality, with some hot markets in Florida, California and Arizona slowing down while some laggards are picking up momentum.

The Conference Board index was derived from responses received through May 23 to a survey mailed to 5,000 households in a consumer research panel. The figures released Tuesday include responses from at least 2,500 households.

Consumers' overall assessment of current conditions eased but remains upbeat. But consumers' outlook for the next six months, which improved moderately in April, turned pessimistic in May. Those expecting business conditions to worsen increased to 13.2 percent from 9.3 percent. Those expecting business conditions to improve declined to 16.5 percent from 17.3 percent.

The outlook for the labor market was also less upbeat. Those anticipating more jobs to become available in the coming months declined to 14.6 percent from 15.4 percent in April. Those anticipating fewer jobs rose to 18.2 percent from 16.3 percent. The proportion of consumers anticipating their incomes to rise in the months ahead fell to 16.6 percent from 18.0. That was the lowest since July 2003 when it fell to 15.9 percent.