The Time to Build is Now

The Dallas housing market, including Lakewood, has been relatively stagnant in recent years, compared to most metropolitan areas around the country. Many have fared much worse, including Atlanta, which had a 12% drop in 2011.

According to housingpredictor.com, Dallas home prices are forecast to rise by 1.4% in 2012. Our stronger job market is gradually lifting the housing market and available home inventory is shrinking. Because home prices are lower than most other major cities, we continue to attract transplants that come for the jobs and low housing costs. These transplants arrive with great discretionary buying power, which is a boon to our local economy. But all these factors will raise home prices. It’s a matter of when, not if.

So what’s keeping housing so affordable right now, including new construction?

Tough mortgage lending standards are making it harder to buy, and more stringent appraisal requirements are making it difficult for sellers to push the market higher.

The inventory of available lots still favors buyers, as well as the availability of building materials. More demand will drive up these costs and home prices. It’s foreseeable in 2012; all it takes is the right catalyst. A sudden boost in the local job market, in consumer confidence, or in market or political incentives to homebuyers could boost the housing market. So if you’re considering a new home, you’re lucky. Right now is the perfect time to build.

Here comes Walmart

Ugh, I hate Walmart [Advocate Back Talk blog, “Walmart to take former Whole Foods spot on Lower Greenville,” Feb. 2], and now we’ll have two in our neighborhood. I, for one, won’t be shopping at either one.

—MARGARITA

What a horrible development for Lower Greenville!

—STEVEN T.

I’d rather see a leased building than an empty one.

—ALFREDO

Bonham Elementary closing

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My son attends Bonham [Advocate Back Talk blog, “It’s official: Bonham Elementary will close,” Jan. 27]. I’ve attended all of the board meetings and community meetings regarding the proposed closings, andI’vecome to the conclusion that Dallas has a school board that is not interested in education. It’s egregious. My son and I, along with our tax dollars, will be moving out of Dallas and into the suburbs this summer so that he cancontinue to receive a good education. I hope the board took into consideration the outmigration of tax dollars when they calculated their savings.

Thank you for your business!

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—RENEE D.

Lee is exemplary and feeds into the IB curriculum at Long and Woodrow. I think you should give it a chance. In East Dallas, we have been able to keep good schools through various regimes and school boards.

—RSF

Valentine’s fireworks for someone’s sweetie

How sweet! [Advocate Back Talk blog, “No, that wasn’t Valentine’s Day gunfire you heard,” Feb. 15] I really think it was more than 10 minutes, and it was wow! I was home alone and had a pretty good view from my balcony. I totally enjoyed it. What a lucky lady.

—KRBSMILE

I would have appreciated some advance notice. It scared the heck out of my child and kept him awake. The timing did coincide with his bedtime.

—SMARTY

EMAIL EDITOR RACHEL rstone@advocatemag.com

The mama rebellion

After Davina Rhine’s son was born 10 years ago, she felt alone. Yes, she has a supportive partner who is a hands-on dad. But she was among the first of her friends to have kids, and she lacked mentors and role models to whom she could relate. Rhine, who lives in Lochwood, was a young college student, into punk-rock music, tattoos and the local art scene when her son was born. Everything she read about parenting >>

>> seemed to have little to do with her own life. “Everything I read said I should be able to work 60 hours a week and go to school and cook these amazing dinners and make every play date,” she says. “That’s the image that’s pretty much shoved down moms’ throats.” That “super-deluxe model” mom, as Rhine calls it, isn’t realistic. So she decided to write her own book. It took about eight years to research, write and edit (she was working full time and going to school part time), but in December, Rhine self-published “Rebel Moms: The Off Road Map for the Off-Road Mom.” The book is a collection of stories from real-life moms from all over the country, as well as some whom Rhine met in our neighborhood. There are artists, boxers, teachers, writers, nurses and “vocal neighborhood momma-misfits,” Rhine says. She hopes the book will help women avoid becoming burned out and frustrated when they can’t live up to unrealistic expectations. “It’s for the activist mom, the rocker mom,” she says. “They tell you how to be a mother, be yourself and find your own way.” Rhine couldn’t find a publisher she liked to publish her book, so she started her own small press, Rebellion Press. She is submitting the book for review to feminist and parenting magazines, and she even sent it to her favorite book reviewer at the New York Times. She is planning a nationwide book tour this spring. After that, she plans to work on publishing a compilation of “healing poems” for rape victims. In the next three years, she would like Rebellion Press to take submissions and publish about one book a year, all funded by her job as a team manager for an international security company. She says she wants to offer a medium to voices we might not otherwise hear. It’s the same ideology that drove her to write “Rebel Moms”: “So that moms anywhere can find mentors they can relate to, especially if they’ve had hard times in their lives.” Find “Rebel Moms” at rebellionpress.com or Smoke and Mirrors Art Gallery, 1920 N. Haskell. —Rachel Stone