Podcast: Here’s How Celebrities and Athletes Buy Dallas Homes with @properties’ Jerry Mooty

Real estate is always a good play for athletes looking to diversify, and there’s no more diverse real estate market than Dallas-Fort Worth for athletes. From Highland Park compounds and Preston Hollow estates to Flower Mound guard-gated communities and emerging Frisco developments, athletes can find a bountiful real estate selection here.

Decoding the Dallas Real Estate Buzz with Jerry Mooty – Dallas Dirt hosted by Candy Evans

The world of Dallas real estate is ever-evolving, and staying at the forefront requires insights from industry leaders. Dallas Dirt did a deep dive into the real estate landscape in Dallas versus Austin with Jerry Mooty, the CEO and principal of Texas @properties Christie’s International Real Estate Office. In this interview, Mooty discusses the launch of @properties Christie's International Real Estate, its growth in Austin, the company's new Sports and Entertainment division, and what athletes are looking for in Dallas real estate. Host Candy Evans also touched on Mooty's familial connection to the Dallas Cowboys and Jerry Jones, and asked Mooty for his personal opinions on the Dallas real estate market for 2024. 

In this episode of Dallas Dirt, host Candy Evans sat down with Jerry Mooty, principal and CEO of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate to discuss the brokerage’s new division specializing in celebrity and athlete homes. The conversation expands to the firm’s Austin expansion and the state of Austin real estate. Gain valuable insights into luxury real estate and the future of Dallas housing in this Episode 6 of Dallas Dirt.

Here’s a look at some of the Dallas Cowboys homes we’ve covered over the years:

Watch Now:

About the podcast: Dallas Dirt is a weekly audio and video podcast hosted by Candy Evans. Listeners and viewers are invited to share their comments and suggestions at [email protected]. Dallas Dirt is accepting pitches for local Dallas and Texas-based podcast guests. PR requests and guest submissions may be emailed to [email protected]. Advertising and episode sponsorship opportunities are available. Contact [email protected] to inquire.

Episode Transcript

Note: these transcripts are auto-generated from the podcast audio and may contain slight transcription errors.

• I’m Candy Evans and this is Dallas Dirt. Today my guest is Jerry Moody, CEO and principal of the Texas At Properties Christie International Real Estate Office. And I’m so excited to have him here today because I’ve watched this company kind of grow and develop from its inception, kind of like a child growing up. Jerry, welcome to Dallas Dirt. Thank you for coming. We’ve had some really exciting news.
• 00:34
  on CandysDirt recently about what’s going on with you and the brokerage. You want to talk about your first year expansion into Austin, which is amazing. And then the news about the celebrity. Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you for having me, Candy. I’m really excited about being here. Yeah, so our brokerage launched in Texas about two and a half years ago as you were a big part of that. So we’re always so appreciative. Best party, by the way. We did have a good party.
• 01:04
  And so we’ve been growing kind of organically, you know, through the recruiting and adding different divisions and adding agents here in Dallas. It turned out the Austin territory became available for the Christie’s brand. So I’ve spent about a year recruiting and putting the team in place. So we launched there in September in the fall and it’s off to a really big start. We’ve added 50 agents in the first 90 days. Some of the agents we’ll talk about here. 50 agents? Yeah.
• 01:33
  And some of them are the premier agents in all of Austin. So they have a deal called Elite 25, which is your top 25 agents in the whole city. And we’ve got three or four of those that are joining us. Wow. That’s amazing. And your headquarters here in Dallas are up at the star. Well, we do have an office there, yes, ma’am. And we also have another office, which is technically our headquarters in Highland Park. In Highland Park. I don’t think I visited that one yet.
• 01:58
  Yeah, it’s right by Javier, CTO or Tony. Yeah, I know exactly what that is. The one that starts very impressive because you’re up in that really bustling area up there in Frisco near where the Cowboys practice. Of course. Absolutely. And the flood and everything. Well, let’s talk because I just can’t wait. The launch of this new sports and entertainment division. Because ultimately, we all love celebrity real estate. And it seems like you’re going to bring more of it here.
• 02:27
  And of course, between Austin and Dallas, we have a lot of really big celebrities, mostly sports players. That’s the difference between Austin and LA. LA has the movie stars with their glamorous homes. We have all the sports stars with their homes. Yeah. Yes, and you guys can actually get kind of the privy on that, yes? Absolutely, so obviously with this kind of a division, sports and entertainment, you’re kind of focused on your professional athletes or your actor or actresses.
• 02:55
  Who are moving into your geographical area or some might move out of your geographical area? And so we’re trying to help them but you know, it’s as agents evolve and get more experience They have the opportunity to represent these types of clients And so we’ve now accumulated enough agents to where we’re starting a division to where there’s a lot of experience and if you some of them we can’t talk about but if you knew the you know the resume of of who the people are then you’re
• 03:24
  excited that we have this opportunity. Well, you have a little bit of a, I should say a little bit, a lot of fame and experience with that in your own family because you are related to, and you kind of, I can see the family resemblance to Jerry Jones, correct? That’s correct. I can’t hide from the resemblance. My mom and Jerry are brother and sister, so yes. How far apart are they? They’re just two years apart. Two years apart, very close. Very close. Yes, yes. And so it’s been a blessing for me when I moved here.
• 03:53
  to go to SMU, Jerry had not bought the team yet. He purchased them the year after that. So I was already in Dallas. So I’ve been blessed to be a part of the organization, looking at an ancillary kind of relationship with my businesses and things like that. I bet it’s so exciting. I mean, how exciting was that to be at SMU and have all that going on? It was great. I came the year after the death penalty, which everybody in Dallas remembers that SMU lost their football team.
• 04:22
  And so I was on the first team back. Oh, you play? I play. Oh, that’s what brought me here. Of course you play. But I had concussion problems, so I didn’t play very long. And so it was a good segue into Jerry buying the team because I got to start working for the organization as a sophomore at college. Is that not like a dream, absolute dream? And then of course, real estate and football in Texas, go hand in hand. Absolutely, absolutely. A lot of…
• 04:49
  A lot of land and as everybody including the listeners probably know, there’s tons of people moving here. You know, we have great professional athlete organizations, teams here in Dallas. Austin is very known for the actor scene and more of your celebrities are moving to Austin. So we’re really enjoying kind of where we’re situated with this new division. Oh, it’s absolutely perfect. But why are the celebrities moving to Austin over Dallas?
• 05:19
  I’m just curious. What are you hearing? And can you drop any names? Can’t really drop any names. I mean, some of them are obviously clients of my agents. I don’t know what type of agreements they’re under. Me personally, I’ve signed, you know, non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality agreements to represent these individuals, mainly because getting their name involved in the situation sometimes doesn’t help you in negotiation.
• 05:49
  So they usually have someone like an advisor or a handler who’s looking at the houses on their behalf. Like a straw horse. Like a straw horse, yes. Because if this person, if you find out that say, Troy Aikman or someone like that, of that caliber is buying your home, you’re probably not going to lower the price, you’re probably going to negotiate, you’re going to be like, oh, the house just went up by $50,000, right? Well, they’re definitely not going to lower the price.
• 06:16
  And it does hurt you in negotiations a lot of times. So you do have to have an agent who is very smooth, yes? Usually, yes, and just understands the sensitivity. A lot of sellers really, they love their home, so they want to know who they’re selling the home to. And when you’re not able to tell them, you got to know how to handle that situation appropriately. Oh, wow. So these agents that you are putting together, this whole division.
• 06:44
  Is there any special training that they get? So our internal criteria is you have to be related to an actor or professional athlete. You have to have handled an actor or a professional athlete in a transaction or you’re currently representing one. And so if you look at the agents that are in this division, somewhere in that criteria they all have that experience. And that’s what gives them the…
• 07:13
  you know, the knowledge. Plus, it also gives some great leads, yes? Correct, correct. And you’re looking for that as well. You’re looking for the lead generation as well as the transaction. Yeah. Yes. And, you know, most importantly, it’s really how the client proceeds our services. So you definitely have to be selective of who you put out here in this kind of environment, because they have to handle it correctly. And then we’re very proud of our brand.
• 07:42
  Christie’s is a very luxurious brand, and so we try to make sure that we’re handling regardless of the level of the transaction, you know, the appropriate experience level. Well, what I’ve always loved about AppProperties is you have kind of the best of both worlds. You have the technology that a company that basically, you know, gave itself a name, like, you know, a computer savvy name from the very beginning, launched in my hometown of Chicago, you know. It’s a great company. And then they had this merge with Christie’s, which was…
• 08:12
  brought in kind of the old established luxury. So you’ve kind of got the best of both worlds going on there. Absolutely. We like to say we’re modernizing the Christie’s brand a little bit. It’s a 256 year old brand. It’s still in the same family. The story of them selling the affiliate network to App Properties is really a special story because they invited App Properties to the bit to the bargaining table. And we were the smallest one.
• 08:41
  at the table and we were the eighth largest in the country. But the reason they invited us was because of the technology you referenced. And how do you bring 900 offices around the world, 51 countries, 35,000 agents, how do you bring them together to where you become a powerhouse in the real estate industry? You have to have that technology. Correct. You know, sometimes I think about just a few years ago when we were even talking about
• 09:04
  oh, technology is really important in real estate. It’s like now it’s just, it’s there. And it’s like, if you don’t have it, you’re not even part of the picture anymore. Dr. Freeh? Yeah, and it’s very evident when we’re recruiting our agents and we show them the technology and they don’t have it from whatever brokerage they’re from. It’s very appealing to know that they can be more efficient. Our data shows that we’re giving somewhere between three and five hours a day back to the agent of their time.
• 09:33
  which usually leads to them doing more deals. And so it’s a money making proposition when we say come over to us and we’ll support you with this technology and our staff and then you’ll hopefully do more deals. And you’ll be more productive. Let’s talk about the difference between real estate in Austin and Dallas or Dallas and Austin. What are you seeing in the market now? I’ve been reading that home prices are softening a little bit in Austin. I think they were a little bit more ferocious.
• 10:02
  Right. And Dallas pricing and really happened seeing the softening here. What do you see? Yeah, Austin for sure, it had a higher spike in property values during COVID and the hot market. And all the tech down there. And all the tech moving in and obviously high net worth individuals when they’re moving in and they like a house, they’ll pay what they want to pay. So we did see a softening probably about 15 to 20% in Austin. That is leveled out and actually things are starting to happen.
• 10:31
  pretty quickly in the last 30 to 45 days where prices are stabilized and even getting multiple offers on some of these properties. How is the inventory? Inventory is still low and obviously that’s the primary way to prop up your pricing is like I just ran a list for a client an hour ago and there’s eight properties in Island Park here in Dallas that are three million and above. That’s all the inventory that’s available. Well, they’re gonna sit down with us. Yeah.
• 11:00
  And so similar in Austin when you’re looking at Barton Creek and West Lake, and obviously they have a wonderful lake community and those properties are excellent and move very quickly. And they’re beautiful. Now Austin’s moving West though, correct? Correct. Everyone’s kind of going out towards the Hill country and that area. Yes, it’s moving. It’s already moved out to Johnson City. And obviously we’ve heard about Dripping Springs and Bernie and Fredericksburg and all those wonderful areas now.
• 11:29
  some of the big corporations that are moving into Austin are causing a little bit of drip to the East, like Tesla and some other big companies. There’s big developments going on in the East as well. Yeah, Tesla was also part of that heated, I think, expansion in your home prices down there, don’t you think? Correct. Yeah, I mean, because it was just such an anointed city. But Dallas, of course, we have so much…
• 11:54
  you know, going on here, we’ve got all our great communities. We’ve, of course, got the Frisco and that growth, and then up to Sherman. I mean, out of the two cities, which one do you think is poised for more growth in the next, say, 30 years? I personally think Dallas is poised more for one reason, and it’s almost the topography of Austin. You get these different landlocked situations with the lakes and the rivers.
• 12:19
  And it’s just harder to develop and it’s created a little bit of congestion when it comes to traffic. That’s the reason for the congestion at lakes. Right. And so you just can’t put a road where there’s a lake. And up here we don’t really have those restrictions and obviously we can keep developing all the way to Oklahoma. You mentioned Sherman. We’re seeing Salina and all these wonderful pieces of land that just have been undeveloped. Yeah. I mean, it’s amazing. If you haven’t…
• 12:48
  traveled north, you know, and say the last three years, you go up north and it’s a different world up there. Especially, you know, Frisco is like developed. Right. Right, it’s the right. It’s fully mature and- Exactly. Neighborhoods are wonderful, gated, large luxury homes. You know, that’s the next thing that has followed the development is the luxury level of homes. And speaking of luxury, what is it that these star athletes and these celebrities want in a home? Because-
• 13:17
  You said gated communities, so that kind of reminded me that security is probably a very important component, yes. Yeah, probably the most important thing is privacy. Privacy. And so you look at communities like Hills of Kingswood that’s gated 24-7, large lots, large footprints for the homes. Some homes in that development are upwards of 30,000 square feet. You have a lot of professional athletes who are building there. So overall the Dallas Cowboys are building there.
• 13:46
  Rangers players and so it’s get out there. So it’s definitely worth seeing and it’s it’s kind of one of the premier neighborhoods I would say in North Dallas is the hills of Kingswood hills of Kingswood and that’s in Frisco in Frisco, right? Correct. Are there any other developments up there? Obviously, we’ve all heard about the PGA in the fields and all those wonderful estate lots coming on board. I Mean that would be more for your golf house possibly your golf
• 14:13
  Yeah, and it’s probably more for your high net worth individual who’s not a professional athlete or a celebrity because they want to be involved in that type of development with golf and resorts and those types of assets. But really and truly when you look in, even in Dallas and Preston Hollow and some of your bigger land homes, you know, they have more acreage, that’s really what the celebrity or the athletes looking for the most.
• 14:40
  They want the land, they want the acreage. Well, they want that for privacy, but also if you’re an athlete, you’re putting in tennis courts or basketball courts. You need space to kind of put your footprint in place. Yes, you also have to work out. I remember some of the homes that we’ve covered over in the creeks of Preston Hollow and all these other areas where they have whole gym. Right.
• 15:08
  So when we’re talking about athletes and what they’re choosing in a home, do they want to build new and kind of create their dream or are they looking for an existing home that they can just move into? Turnkey. It kind of depends on their current situation. Some athletes are getting transferred into the Metroplex because they got traded or they just signed a new contract. And so most of those are having to purchase a preexisting home.
• 15:34
  The ones that are established in Dallas, where Dallas is their home, there’s actually a ton of professional athletes that play in other cities for those organizations, but their home is Dallas. Oh, why is that? Why are they here? I think it’s just the same reason other people are moving here from California and the coast is Dallas has a lot to offer. So off the top of my head, there’s probably 10 or 15 athletes that live here that play for other teams in other cities, but they’re making Dallas their home for their families.
• 16:03
  And so those usually end up doing new construction because they’ll find their lot, they’ll design the home because they know they’re going to be here a long time. And so they build their dream home. Right. That’s so interesting to know. So we are talking about, or we were talking about the best places for athletes to live in Dallas. And we talked about the Kingswood. Hills of Kingswood. How old is that, Deville? It’s not that old. It’s probably, they just started selling lots at phase two. So I would say less than 10 years old.
• 16:33
  And it’s just maybe a mile, mile and a half from the star. Of the star. I think so very, very local or centrally located in Prisco. And so it’s just, it’s brand new. All the homes are brand new. They’re beautiful. There’s still some, a lot of new construction as well. One of the smartest things Prisco ever did was work a deal with your uncle, you know, to do the star there. And I mean, don’t you think that has added tremendously to property values in Prisco?
• 17:02
  Absolutely. And it’s… Because the high school kids work out there to the high school football team, correct? Correct. And not to misspeak, but I think the reason or one of the negotiated points was if the Cowboys put their headquarters there, they would like to build an indoor facility for them to practice in, but also for the high school and the first school independent school district to use. And so that’s been a wonderful relationship.
• 17:28
  I mean, that’s huge. That’s a lot of money that the school district didn’t have to spend so they could focus on other things. So that’s kind of a… It’s a really good example of government and private enterprise working, I think, together. Well, this is great. I’m excited to look forward to what the next step is. What do you think we’ll be talking about this time next year after we go through 2024 and we’ve kind of all survived?
• 17:57
  this crazy year of high interest rates and everything, and now we’ve got the political scene is heating up. What do you think we’ll be talking about next year, Jane? You know, I tell people all the time that we’re really blessed to be here in Dallas and in Texas in general because we are a little bit insulated from what’s happening around the country when it comes to interest rates. So I think we’re going to see another spike, is my personal opinion. Opinion, yeah.
• 18:24
  No, and grows in the market. Yes. We have had a little bit of a lull in the fall of 2023. Part of it is that’s historically the slowest period of the year, so people aren’t moving. But as Christmas has turned and we’re into the new year, we’re seeing a big increase in showings, increase in buyers, increase in listings, and moving property pretty quickly. And inventory is still low. And what’s the difference?
• 18:51
  price points are we seeing the strength now? You know, the luxury market is probably the strongest as anywhere in the country, mainly because inventory is so low. And that’s the three million about. Right. And so when you have a high net worth individual or an athlete or an actress who’s moving here and they only have a few choices, those houses are going to move quickly. Thank you so much for joining us here in Dallas. Now, you know, we have a studio in Austin.
• 19:21
  We kind of reconvene in about three months down in Austin and talk about the market, where it’s going. I’m sure we’ll all be having our heads spinning because it’s going to be so busy. So how does that work? That would be fantastic. You know, I love being a part of everything you do. So thanks for including me. We are big fans of At Properties Christie’s International and so proud of you guys for taking on Austin and owning it, which just sounds like you’re doing. That’s another episode of Dallas Dirt. Thank you for joining us. And you know what?
• 19:50
  There’s more to come.