There are Now Five $20 Million Plus Homes For Sale in Dallas

Share News:

Hicks 10000HollowWay18L

Walnut Place

And our bud Steve Brown says they are selling like “haute-cakes”, ha ha ha, but in reality the $3 to $4 million plus market is probably the slowest market segment in Dallas, unless you are talking tear downs.

And when it comes to $20 million plus, I mean, how many buyers are out there? Most people would prefer a nice $2 million home and a vacation home.

Five Dallas-area homes are now listed for sale at $20 million or more – the largest number of such elite properties to hit the market.

“You don’t see this many at once, and all of these houses are incredible,” said Dallas property agent Lisa Besserer with Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty.

Besserer is marketing a $20 million house on Strait Lane in North Dallas.

The Trammell Crow home in Highland Park was in that family for more than 50 years. Now it's time for new owners to enjoy the 10,000-square-foot house. Photo: courtesy of Dallas Morning News.

The Trammell Crow home in Highland Park was in that family for more than 50 years. Now it’s time for new owners to enjoy the 10,000-square-foot house. Photo: courtesy of Dallas Morning News.

That we have five homes priced over $20 million is unprecedented for Dallas. We are the land of affordable housing. But we have some high power entrepreneurs here who have made it big and want to enjoy their success with property. Those homes would be —

-Walnut Place, the Hicks estate on Walnut Hill Lane priced at $100 million. (27,092 square feet on 25 acres)

-The Crow estate on Preston Road, priced at $59.4 million, and said to be a tear-down. (9522 square feet on 6.1 acres)

5950 Deloache east gardens

Lisa Blue estate

-Lisa (Baron) Blue’s home on DeLoache, originally priced at $37 million, now $33 million. (15,254 square feet on 8.9 acres)

10210 Strait Foyer

10210 Strait Lane

– The Philip Johnson masterpiece on Strait Lane at 10210 Strait at $27,500,000 (11,387 square feet on 6.4 acres)

10620 Strait Lane

– 10620 Strait listed for a cool $20,000,000 (12,984 square feet on 3.9 acres)

-Another home,  4939 Manson Court (29.196 square feet on 2.875 acres) had been on the market since January of 2013, never lowered the $29,95,000 asking price. The listing has been cancelled.

4939-Manson-Court-ext-21

4939 Manson Court

Walnut Place has only been in MLS since March 23, though it was listed for about a year and a half with Douglas Newby who had it as an off-market listing at $130,000,000. It’s now listed with Allie Beth Allman and David Nichols for $100 million.

The Crow estate was just listed with Allie Beth on January 14.

Lisa Blue’s stunning Robert A.M. Stern masterpiece with indoor and outdoor pools, solarium’s, even a petting zoo for the children in the yard, was listed last May with Erin Mathews of Allie Beth Allman. The price was recently lowered to $33 million.

The Philip Johnson architectural masterpiece at  10210 Strait Lane was listed with David Nichols on September 24.

Lisa Besserer’s listing at 10620 Strait Lane, the Plancke estate, was listed in MLS on April 9, but Lisa had the home as a hip pocket prior to this time.

By the way, please note that four of the five are Allie Bath Allman listings. Lisa Besserer is with Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Real Estate.

Who is looking at these homes? David Nichols told Steve that “Middle Eastern buyers have looked at both the Hicks property and the historic Beck estate on Strait Lane”.  I know the tip top Toyota CEOs are also looking, but one has apparently bought in Vaquero. It really takes a multi-millionaire at the very least to pull off one of these purchases. A hedge fund guy could sell an Atheron house for $60 million and buy one, yes, if they were moving.

“The people who buy these kinds of properties are very select buyers and may not be local buyers,” Nichols said. “At the very high end of the market there are now several houses out there to choose from.”

That’s why they are NOT moving like “haute-cakes.” Now let’s talk million dollar homes, which the media likes to play up as upscale:

He says the number of houses sold in North Texas priced at $1 million and higher has jumped by more than 50 percent and last year, local agents sold more than 1,000 million dollar homes, according to the MLS. Many more — about 30% — were sold as off-market listings and transactions. More than any other seller, the owners and buyers of million dollar plus homes want to keep the sales price as far away from the folks at the Dallas County Appraisal District as they can.

According to Coldwell Banker, Dallas is one of the top 15 U.S. markets for million-dollar home purchases, and “million dollar home sales are about 10 percent higher so far this year in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, following a 14 percent rise in 2014, according to the latest data from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University and the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems.”

It’s only June. We could see a 20% rise. Add in off-market sales,  the increase could be even higher.

Steve says median home sales prices in the Park Cities are now just below $1.2 million. North Dallas median prices now top $800,000, and there are many $3.5 to $12 million dollar spec homes going up, including one down in my ‘hood on Belmead. In fact, there are six homes under construction on Belmead, so full of construction trucks and dirt clods we avoid driving on it.

There are 1,100 houses listed for sale at $1 million or more in North Texas at the end of April.

“In Preston Hollow, we had a tour of homes about two weeks ago and there were four or five really nice homes between $10 million and $20 million,” said agent Joan Eleazer, who’s marketing a $19.5 million house on Strait Lane in North Dallas.

A recent story in D Magazine indicated that the problem with multi-million dollar properties is they are hard sells to other buyers, especially those with the means to buy. Multi-millionaires like to create their own environments, and they didn’t get where they are by not asking for the impossible:

…buyers with the means to buy a $30 million house—unlimited resources, more or less—can also afford to build something new, completely customized. Finally, in the small local community of the ultra-wealthy, there’s some concern about moving into a house that has already hosted big social events—a home that might be associated with fundraisers for President Obama, for example. As one agent put it, “Nobody wants to buy someone else’s ex-wife.”

While I agree these homes are hard sells and blow the marketing budgets, and I know agents negotiate lower commission percentages, how wonderful is it to be an agent with the keys to the $20 million castle? And these castles have something you just cannot buy: the very best locations in Dallas. Actually, you CAN buy it, but first show me $20 million.

Candy Evans, founder and publisher of CandysDirt.com, is one of the nation’s leading real estate reporters.

Leave a Comment