Home Value Increases In East Dallas May Push Residents Out
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EAST DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Growth in North Texas remains on a rapid pace but there's a view of that growth in old East Dallas that illustrates a change some residents embrace and others object to.
"They call it Old East Dallas, but now it's Uptown," said John Cameron, who has lived in his home for 15 years.
Evidence of what Cameron means is apparent by the $600,000 home across the street. And the home's builder wants Cameron's lot, too.
Cameron and his neighbor Virginia Apbert have 45 years of life bonded as neighbors on their block. She said new developers will simply have to build around her since she isn't moving.
"They're building a bunch of condos and stuff around here - basically moving everybody out," said Apbert.
Old is now gold in the neighborhood.
New houses with $500,000 price tags sit next to properties valued at $130,000 or less. Developers want the land, not the house.
"But if you sell, where do you go? We waited all these years to build all around here, now that we have it, they want us to vacate," said Cameron.
Most of the new houses built throughout the Carroll and Capitol corridor of East Dallas come from developer Alan Kagan. He's finding plenty of longtime residents willing to sell their homes for double the appraised value.
People who remain will likely have higher property tax bills since the vacant lots have more market value than the houses they live in.
"I would say the lot values are going up, that's definitely happening, and that's why so many of the residents have sold," said Alan Kagan with Dwellings AK and Co.
Apbert doesn't mind the new additions but like Cameron, doesn't want the power of progress to push her out.
"If you don't want leave, we don't know what's going to happen," she said.
CBS11 spoke to other long time homeowners in the neighborhood who aren't worried about the tax impact. They're just waiting on developers to raise the asking price for their homes. They all agreed $300,000 is too low.
Whether or not market values will reflect demand soon remains to be seen. But as one developer put it, "there's definitely a demand over here."
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