Real Estate News: City to Hold Neighborhood Grant Workshops

Find out how your neighborhood can apply for a vitality grant, and find out what North Texas city tops the list when it comes to annoying neighbors in this week’s roundup of real estate news.

CITY TO HOLD GRANT WORKSHOPS

The City of Dallas will hold workshop sessions to assist neighborhood organizations who wish to apply for a Dallas Neighborhood Vitality Grant, it was announced last week.

The grant was created to help neighborhood groups find and grow projects that address a specific need in the neighborhood, while also increasing the cohesiveness of it and neighborhood pride.

“Projects must serve a public purpose and provide community benefits by promoting the creation of strong, safe, and vibrant neighborhoods,” the city explained of the grant, which is a reboot of the growSouth Neighborhood Challenge Grant.

Funding, which is awarded to top-ranked neighborhood enhancement projects through a competitive process, will range from $1,500 to $10,000. Projects can be for physical improvements, or for neighborhood engagement.

The workshop sessions will teach neighborhood leaders how to become eligible to apply for the grants, and how to apply. Attendance by at least one group representative is part of the eligibility requirements. The deadline to apply is Dec. 6 at 4 p.m. Workshops begin Oct. 23 and will be held around the city.

For more information, as well as a schedule of workshops, click here.

ALMOST ALL APARTMENTS BUILT IN DALLAS-FORT WORTH IN 2015 WERE LUXURY

Nationwide, 75 percent of all apartments built in 2015 were considered Class A, or luxury builds — but the Dallas-Fort Worth area eclipsed that rate.

In fact, 95 percent of Dallas apartments in 2015 were high end, and 86 percent were in Fort Worth, according to analysis by RentCafe.

Texas dominated the luxury multifamily landscape that year, with 88 percent of new multifamily construction classified as high-end. Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Midland, Fort Worth, and Spring had a combined 103 new luxury rental properties.

Staggeringly, among those cities, there were only six non-luxury multifamily properties built in 2015.

In San Antonio, 17 out of 17 properties were luxury.

“In Dallas, TX, one of the top cities for luxury rental development in 2015, the average monthly rate in a new luxury building is $1,366, an additional $551 per month, or 68 percent more, compared to the average price of a new rental unit in a non-luxury community,” the report said.

“Moreover, early 2016 data suggests that the luxury apartment market sees no sign of slowdown,” the report said of the national trend. “Of all large apartment buildings finalized in the first quarter of 2016, 79 percent were categorized as luxury.”

But there also seems to be demand for it. The average occupancy rate in luxury rental properties in 2015 was nearly 96 percent.

DALLAS TOPS LIST FOR ANNOYING NEIGHBORS

Dallas may top a list of cities where residents complain the most about their neighbors, but weirdly enough, the city doesn’t top any list of specific complaints.

A survey conducted by ImproveNet found that although Dallas tops the list when it comes to how often we complain about our neighbors, when you drill down to types of complaints, the city is not at the top of any of them.

But it’s seventh when it comes to confronting a neighbor about an annoyance.

“We surveyed residents from 24 of the biggest cities in America, and, inevitably, there were winners and losers,” the report said. “Atop the list of most annoying cities are Dallas, Miam, and Austin. Cities where neighbors are least annoying include Minneapolis, Portland and Atlanta.”