Midland Texas Real Estate is Still Among Highest in Texas. So Guess What We Did?

We started a blog there! You are looking at the very humble beginnings of Midland Dirt, an offspring of CandysDirt/DallasDirt. In the fall, I went out to Midland to visit a farm/vineyard — yes, they have a LOT of vineyards in the area — and I kind of fell in love. There’s something about Midland terrain that just got to me. By the way, Dallas architect extraordinaire Frank Welch, who lived in Midland, totally agrees with me.

When I saw the hot real estate market first-hand, the dearth of inventory and prices that just about made me choke, I decided we needed a Midland blog.

So I was tickled pink to watch WFAA-TV last night and see a story on belt-tightening in the oil patch: Boom or Bust -Who Makes Money On Falling Oil Prices?

When I was in Midland, I learned that many clients were practically giving designers access to their checkbooks when they hired them.

What’s the budget, one designer asked her client.

There isn’t any, she was told.

Well, times have changed out there a bit. WFAA-TV’s Jason Whitely says that homes are not selling as fast, and the market is softening, but the average home price in Midland is still about $300,000 — $298,000 — despite a loss of 5000 jobs from the town. The average apartment rent is $1450 a month. So many people commute to Midland, or live in trailers — I saw some fancy ones when I was there, and a lot of RV parks — the hotels are quite pricey: the Hilton is, or shall I say was, about $350 a night, which was a good price. I paid less for a room in Manhattan a couple weeks ago!

Here is a 2671 square footer of four bedrooms, three  baths with a pool for $298,500. Still couldn’t get this much for that money in Dallas.

Jason talked to a Realtor in Midland, Leah Watkins, who says she had to cancel a trip to Napa:

Fort Worth-based home builder D.R. Horton is among the big investors here. It began building in Midland and Odessa in 2012.

“In calendar 2013, we closed 78 homes and in calendar 2014, we closed 203,” said company spokeswoman Jessica Hansen.

“It felt like there for a while things would just fall into your lap,” added Leah Watkins, a Realtor with Legacy Real Estate.

But not anymore.

Watkins said she used to close on four houses a month. Like many, she now strives to get at least one. That caused her and her husband to cancel a trip to California last weekend so they can start saving more money.

I have heard of at least one major acquisition of an apartment complex where the buyer backed out because of fear of falling oil prices. An architect told me about another client who got “cold feet”. However, experts have told me the Midland economy is a bit more diversified these days than it has been in the past, and while residents may be pulling back on trips to Napa and other discretionary spending, the cities should weather the storm.

Jason found one area where a new boom is brewing: energy litigation –parked equipment, broken contracts and bad investments

Since no one knows how long the Saudis will flood the world with cheap oil, no one knows when oil prices will head north. My guess is this may give the market time to catch up. Because, when you talk about the Middle East, it’s a huge unknown and you just never know… Please share our Midland blog with your West Texas amigos, and we are looking for lots of information from this neck of the Texas woods! And stay tuned for more on real estate and oil prices: Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty is hosting a personal symposium on this topic early next month with Thompson & Knight.