Why You Should Consider Joining Your Neighborhood’s Voluntary Homeowner’s Association

In established neighborhoods throughout Dallas, homeowners are re-instituting or initiating voluntary homeowners associations to bring residents together with common goals. The Northwood Hills Homeowners Association, for which I serve on the Board of Directors, was formed to:
 
1.  Preserve and enhance the value of property and improve the quality of life in our neighborhood.

2.  Assure that neighboring properties affecting our property values are maintained at or above City of Dallas Code requirements.

3.  Support anti-crime activities and provide the NHHA Security Patrol a private service company that cases our neighborhood seven days a week and responds to emergency calls, does out-of-town checks and generally makes Northwood Hills a safer place to live.

4.  Support neighborhood beautification activities and projects, by upgrading and maintaining the common area medians at the many entrances to our neighborhood.

5.  Host special events like the annual Independence Day Parade, Spring Alley Clean-Up, and Battle the Bugs.
 
6.  Work with other neighborhood associations for the good of our area. 

7.  Communicate with our members and neighbors using open meetings, newsletters, and the Internet, with members receiving MemberMails, with all kinds of neighborly news ranging in content from suspicious persons sighted in the area, to criminal activity in or near Northwood Hills, to lost pets, and more.

And by the way, did I mention, just be neighborly! Northwood Hills is like neighborhoods most of us remember growing up in. Each morning, it is common to see residents of all ages, jogging or walking through our streets to get in their daily dose of exercise. Some have dogs on leashes with them, but some come back around later in the afternoon, to make sure their pets get their exercise. It is not uncommon to receive a MemberMail (see above) inviting our members to welcome a new family to our neighborhood. Young Moms organize monthly Playgroups for those with small children and the ladies have been celebrating 4th Wednesday Luncheons, once a month for as long as I can remember.

Northwood Hills is truly a special place to live and raise a family. My husband and I have been here for nineteen years. To learn more about The Northwood Hills Homeowners Association, visit www.northwoodhills.org. Read more about what we are accomplishing by clicking on past issues of our newsletter, The Northwood Hills Breeze.

De-Mystifying the Business of Choosing a School for your Kids

When families choose to move to the Dallas area, and primarily North Dallas, the Park Cities, Preston Hollow, Bent Tree, Northwood Hills, or Plano, they begin their search based on the public schools serving a particular subdivision, or they begin the arduous task of researching the many private school options the Dallas area offers.

I often get the question from young parents, “what are the best schools in Dallas?” Many times, the parents doing the asking, have pre-school aged children. I have to remind them, that each public district is set up a little differently and what might be a perfect size for one child, might leave another falling through the cracks. Parents often times, have not even figured out how their child learns, or what environment might be best.

Private schools each have their own mission statement. While most of the private schools seek to attract the brightest students, each has its own strengths, and in many ways does not compete with most of the other options. Take for instance, The Hockaday School, all girls, grades Pre-K-12, day and boarding, grades 8-12, and St. Mark’s School of Texas, grades K-12, all boys, attracts some of the brightest students in the Metroplex. ESD, a co-ed Episcopal school, grades K-12, requires the students to take religious classes and Greenhill, a co-ed non-religious affiliated school, K-12, each attracts its’ share of the top students in Dallas. The Shelton School and Winston, each offer students with learning differences, a way to succeed. Jesuit College Preparatory, an all boys Catholic high school, grades 9-12, integrates a college prep education with the principles of St. Ignatius Loyola, “Men for Others”. With approximately 250 boys per class, Jesuit offers honors degrees for its’ top students, but accepts a wider range of students than its’ private counterparts. It’s sister school, Ursuline Academy, all girls, grades 9-12, accepts approximately 200 girls each year, and certainly gets its fair share of talented students.

Parish Episcopal, Prestonwood Christian Academy, Trinity Christian Academy and Cistercian are other religiously affiliated schools. Each has its’ target student, as defined by a unique mission statement.

How does a parent, then, learn to crack the code? If you are considering moving to the North Dallas area, it is important to understand the school timeline. The major public independent school districts as well as most of the private school websites can be found on my Community Links page of my website, www.judysellsdallas.com.
After you have done some basic research, you can begin narrowing down what you think might be choices for your child(ren). Public schools hold ‘round-ups’ in the first part of the calendar year. Plan to contact the district or an individual school in January or February. Most will welcome the opportunity to show you one of their schools. If you find yourself doing this research at a time other than the first couple months of the year, make sure you inquire about the available spaces in the particular grades your children would be entering. In some cases, kids are on a waiting list and must be bussed to neighboring schools until spaces open up at the neighborhood school.

As for private schools, listen carefully. Shortly after school starts each fall, the process begins. Schools have individual tour days at their schools as well as group open houses, with representatives from all the schools, in a single location, for prospective families to gather information. The location of the Group Open House rotates each year to a different school.

At these functions, parents will learn that most schools require prospective students to take the ISEE test, to measure verbal quantitative ability, math and reading achievement, and writing skills. It is the one way that an admissions director can compare students from different schools, apples to apples.

The tests can be taken worldwide. I had clients moving to Dallas from India and they were able to take the test in India. Another one of my clients took the test in California prior to their move. The ISEE test is given at many locations in Dallas and Fort Worth. The deadline for test scores and application to most of the private schools is typically mid-January.

Interviews and school visits can also accompany the process. Jesuit College Prep has all of its’ candidates interview on one of two weekends in January. It is a short twenty minute meeting with administrators, teachers and/or current students. At The Hockaday School, prospective students are asked to spend a day at the school to sit in on classes and interview with a teacher or administrator.

Once all the steps are complete, parents and prospective students “play the waiting game”. Most schools notify their accepted list the second weekend in March. Most also have a waiting list because some students may have applied to more than one school and received acceptances from more than one. Obviously, they will have to choose, and that then, will open up a spot at the school they decided against.

If you are considering to the Dallas area and you want more information on private schools, you can visit www.dfwprivateschools.com. Also, be sure to contact Judy Switzer & Associates at 214.801.7273 or judy@judysellsdallas.com or visit www.judysellsdallas.com to help you get answers to any education- related questions you have, for any public independent school district (ISD) or private schools.

WHY SHOULD WE BE BUYING AND SELLING REAL ESTATE IN DALLAS, TEXAS, now?

If you are like me, I cannot watch the Dallas evening news anymore. I cannot stomach the gloom and doom that is reported for an hour. I even find myself enjoying the commercials! Note to self: there is something wrong with this picture!

The national housing market has taken a nosedive and many investment analysts do not believe we have seen the bottom, yet.

Why, then should we consider entering the real estate market in North Dallas, Preston Hollow, or Northwood Hills? Let us look at the individual components that help determine the optimal time to buy and/or sell in any given local market. They are interest rates, home prices, and inventory.

Interest rates are at historic lows. Because a buyer qualifies for a monthly payment as a percentage of his/her gross monthly income and overall debt, the lower the rate to borrow funds, the more funds one can borrow.

Additionally, market prices are good! At any given point in time, there are always plenty of motivated sellers. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, many citizens find they need to move for a variety of reasons. A local job change can spur on the event. The vast geography that makes up our Metroplex, often times motivates residents to move to lessen the commute to a new company. So regardless of the market, there are always people in Dallas and Fort Worth and the connecting suburbs that need to move. Because of the uncertainty in the markets worldwide, many potential sellers have been “sitting on the fence,” waiting for the optimal time to put their homes on the market. Overtime, this causes pent-up demand.

Within the next couple of months, I predict the inventory in the Dallas housing market will begin to grow. Sellers hoping to take advantage of the spring market are preparing their homes for sale now.

As a result, the market is about to experience a “perfect storm” in North Texas. When all three aspects of the market are favorable for homes sales, i.e. low interest rates, increasing inventory and aggressive pricing, the buyers come out the winners! This phenomenon does not occur very often, so if you have a reason to upsize, downsize or oversize, I recommend you do it now!

HASP – Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan Summary

More than 50,000 homes were posted for foreclosure in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 2008. But fortunately, Texans, and especially those in established neighborhoods like Preston Hollow and Northwood Hills, have not been as hard hit as homeowners in most other states. The major reason for this is that our values have not taken a nosedive like those in states like California, Arizona, Florida and Nevada.

President Obama took the first step toward bailing out homeowners Wednesday by committing billions of dollars to enable responsible borrowers to refinance at lower interest rates, by sidestepping the current rule that requires at least 20% equity in the home. This Affordability initiative is supposed to help 4 to 5 million Americans.

The second part of the plan is aimed at millions of workers who have lost their jobs, or had their hours cut back. Nearly 5 million people have applied for unemployment benefits. The Homeowner Stability Initiative is designed to reduce homeowners’ monthly mortgage payments, through loan modification. The lender would be responsible for bringing down interest rates so that the borrower’s monthly payment is no more than 38% of his or her income. Next, the initiative would match further reductions in interest payments dollar-for-dollar to bring that ratio down to 31%. The lower interest rate must be kept in place for five years, after which it could be gradually stepped up to the conforming rate in place when the modification was granted. The Treasury will also share in the cost of reducing the principal amount owed on the loan. Treasury will develop uniform guidelines for loan modifications across the mortgage industry. Servicers will be given incentives to perform loan modifications in lieu of foreclosure.

The third part of the plan is to strengthen confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Increased funding will enable Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to carry out ambitious efforts to ensure mortgage affordability for responsible homeowners, and provide forward-looking confidence in the mortgage market.

These are very complex issues. And I for one hope Obama’s plan works. Unfortunately, I am not sure how it can. There is no doubt we need to instill some confidence, or certainty, if you will in the mortgage markets. However, I have worked as a third-party consultant for lenders wanting to personally reach out to at-risk borrowers, for the past year and a half. I traveled to the doorsteps of individual homeowners in and around Dallas, who were identified as possible “loan modification” candidates by their lenders. It was my job to discuss their options with them and provide them with the road map to get help, which included a financials document. In almost every case, there were mitigating circumstances that kept the homeowners from being able to take advantage of the mod.  While lenders today understand there is nothing more costly than a foreclosure, they are not going to modify the terms of a loan, only to prolong the agony and have to go thru the foreclosure process just a few months later.  Because these borrowers were not qualified by the generally accepted standards to begin with, a downturn in the economy, a slowdown in the housing market, a cutback in hours, not to mention any number of other health-related or relationship-related hardships, put them in a position of not qualifying for even a modified payment.

Something certainly must be done, and I don’t have all the answers. But only time will tell just how many homeowners will benefit from the HASP initiatives.

As more details come out about the many ways the $75 billion  housing plan will help the many homeowners in danger of losing their homes, I will attempt to keep you up-to-date. First-time homebuyer was defined in the Dallas Morning News today as anyone who has not owned a home in the last three years.

 

IN THE NEWS: How will the $787 billion stimulus package affect you?

“•First-time home buyers. First-time home buyers are eligible for an $8,000 tax credit. And unlike the $7,500 credit enacted last year, this one doesn't have to be repaid, unless you sell your home within three years.
 
The credit is available to taxpayers who buy a primary residence between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1, 2009. The credit phases out for taxpayers whose AGI exceeds $75,000, or $150,000 for married couples.” USA Today

Whether one is for or against the government bailouts and stimulus package, one must wonder just how much the $8000 tax credit to first time homebuyers is really going to stimulate the real estate market.

First of all, isn’t it the first time homebuyer market and the lack of lending standards that started this mess. With interest rates at industry lows for a decade now, everyone who was in the market for a home, should have been able to have one. Even those who did not really qualify by generally accepted industry standards, got one.

Secondly, lenders have come to their senses and tightened the qualifications. Borrowers’ credit scores must be better, they must have money for a down payment and/or closing costs and they must provide proof of employment. Additionally, the largest segment of the population that might be considered new potential first time homebuyers, i.e., recent college graduates and graduate students, are largely unemployed or working part-time gigs while networking to find a position they were educated to perform.

So who will take advantage of this most generous gesture and just how stimulating can it be to our degenerate economy? The AGI limits will also significantly reduce the pool of eligibles. After all, if a first time homebuyer was educated in a field where there is demand and was able to get a job after college, isn’t it likely he’ll be making more than $75,000, or $150,000, if he is married?

After twenty years in the Dallas real estate market as a Realtor® and Broker Associate at a leading real estate company, I have watched the pendulum swing 180 degrees and back again. I think we are fooling ourselves if we think this tax credit, and heaven forbid someone needs to sell in less than three years and then must pay back the $8000, is going to actually rejuvenate our ailing housing market.