The more and more I talk to other parents from my son’s school, the more they ask me about buying homes inside 635. Where is a good spot where they can find decent-sized houses that are still close to the city center? And what about schools?
Many are put off by the smaller, more expensive properties inside the top-performing DISD elementary campuses. Homes inside Lakewood Elementary’s attendance area are becoming more and more expensive. Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Hexter elementaries are all headed in that direction, too, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a home for less than $300,000 that has 2,000 square feet plus a decent-sized yard.
This presents an opportunity for builders, who are seeing the demand for larger, more efficient housing inside the loop and in neighborhoods where middle-class and creative-class families are drawn to. That includes North Oak Cliff, which is served by the resurgent Rosemont Elementary School. But these are people who aren’t looking for a project home, or a townhome or apartment. They want a home that they can raise their families in, and they don’t want to have to look to the suburbs to find it.
So, like Rudy Bush, I am thrilled to see that companies like PSW are thinking 20 years ahead rather than short term. They’re looking at what the renters of today will want as the home buyers of tomorrow, and and building both apartments and single-family homes that will accommodate them in Lakewood, North Oak Cliff, East Dallas, and now Preston Hollow:
I was heartened though by two recent stories in the Advocate magazines.
The first, from Lakewood, is tracking some single family development there. The second, from Oak Cliff, is doing the same.
That’s the real excitement to me. We have a city that is demanding housing for families. The prices aren’t cheap, $300,000 and up. But that feels like the going rate for a good home for a solid middle class family. If we can get them to bet on our elementary schools, and our middle schools, we can begin to change the game.
I think these developers are smart. They picked the right places at the right times. I think they will be successful. And I hope the guy who comes behind them says, gosh, I wish I had thought of that first.
Well said, Rudy.
