Park Cities... income question (Houston, Dallas: apartments, renters, mortgage)

[pinipig523]

So I was looking at a "Best of Texas" list. Then it hit me... How is it that the median income for HP and UP are sub 200K but the avg house is 1M or above?

Are these income estimates too conservative?

[CREW747]

They are pretty accurate....For example,there are many Texas cities and towns that have median incomes over $100,000 yet in more expensive places to live ( all around costs like housing,gas etc. ) such as New York,New Jersey,Connecticut,California many of the towns and cities have lower median incomes yet houses average $800,000.

[TurtleCreek80]

Yes, accurate. You have to remember a couple of things:
1. A university (SMU) sits in UP so student incomes of $5k & under are accounted for depending on where they file taxes. This is a small % but every $2k student work filer pulls down the avg income quite a bit!!

2. 20% or so of households are renters who typically have lower incomes than someone buying an $800k home. Rents are not crazy high as many landlords have owned their rental property for decades. My friends rent a UP cottage for under $2,000 yet to buy the home would cost $4,000+ with mortgage + taxes. Landlord bought in the 1970's for $40k or something crazy low like that.

3. Retirees. My granny died while having income under $75k yet she lived in a $1.5M home they bought in the 1950's. It was paid off and property taxes were manageable as parts of it freeze once a spouse is 65 (which my grandfather turned in 1980ish, long before Robin Hood tax rates took effect). Such a large portion of the population stays after their kids graduate that there are probably houses on every block meeting this criteria.

[synchronicity]

As an FYI, in the just released 2010 American Community Survey data, HP's median household income shot up from ~178K to ~223K. Southlake stayed around the same at 180K, Colleyville stayed the same at about 154K, and UP stayed around the same at ~143K.

All the reasons TC80 notes are almost definitely (as if I would ever challenge TC80's knowledge of Park Cities, or the Metroplex as a whole. I may not be smart but I ain't that stupid) among the reasons why the HP and UP have lower incomes to home values than Southlake/Colleyville (and likely West Plano if we could pull the numbers just for that area). Also, since the latter were developed much more recently than the former, you likely have slightly younger demographics overall and more "new money" there than in Park Cities (although I haven't checked the demographics that way yet, but one could easily do so thru the Census info).

There's a few posts of mine from about a month ago with 2010 median household income numbers for the upper range Metroplex 'burbs (and "maybe-sorta-not-exactly-'burbs").

[CREW747]

Good points...there are many people in the Park ciirs who did not pay what their house would currently sell for,like a 60 year old couple who purchased in 1980 for $200,000 and now it is worth 1.5 million...

The Park cities and Southlake are examples of what happens when a city zones carefully.The school districts have driven home prices...The teachers and curriculum is the same as any other district.When you have an entire student body coming from upper middle class and up home situations success is what you get

The way to do apartments right is spread them out.Areas with mass amounts of apartments zoned to the same schools pretty much always under perform the schools with kids from the opposite situation.When spending a large sum of money on a house it is important to know what the area is zoned for and how tight the city has been with what they allow.Some examples of cities that care about tax payers interests....

- Southlake
- Park cities
- Flower Mound
- Highland Village
- Prosper
- The Woodlands in Houston
- Rockwall
- Fairview
- Keller
- Colleyville
- Trophy Club
- Allen

Allen and the Woodlands are 2 cities that have apartments but have spread them out ...

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by CREW747

The Park cities and Southlake are examples of what happens when a city zones carefully.The school districts have driven home prices...The teachers and curriculum is the same as any other district.When you have an entire student body coming from upper middle class and up home situations success is what you get

...

I disagree about the HPISD teachers being the same as everywhere else. They aren't. The district REQUIRES ALL teachers to earn a mastwr's degree within 5 (I think) years or else leave the district. Most districts don't do this. Furthermore, there are quite a few AP/Honors teachers with PhD's in their subject matter. This is extremely rare outside elite private schools. I had better history / English/ humanities teachers at HPHS than I did at one of our flagship public universities.

The student body & parents definitely have good genes, but what separates a HPHS from a Frisco or Colleyville is the quality of administrators, teachers, and school board.

[EDS_]

Income stats like that above are very misleading vis a vis towns like HP, UP and spots all over the Metroplex. Lots of folks who earn a nice salary have had a "Liquidity Event" or two.

Malpractice lawyer hits a grand slam with a $10MM verdict and collection
Doc. sells his practice for $5MM and then goes to work part time at a clinic
Oilman sells his business for $300MM and with an advisory salary of $100K
Stuff like that.

[pinipig523]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Income stats like that above are very misleading vis a vis towns like HP, UP and spots all over the Metroplex. Lots of folks who earn a nice salary have had a "Liquidity Event" or two.

Malpractice lawyer hits a grand slam with a $10MM verdict and collection
Doc. sells his practice for $5MM and then goes to work part time at a clinic
Oilman sells his business for $300MM and with an advisory salary of $100K
Stuff like that.

I don't think a malpractice lawyer can hit a $10MM verdict in TX, I just took the most current TX law exam.

[txgolfer130]

I don't think that is quite true re: HPISD requires their teachers to have Master's degree's. Only 17% of the teachers in HPISD have master's degree's...according to HPISD.

http://www.hpisd.net/Uploads/162/misc/f213651.pdf

Staff Quality, Recruitment, and Retention Strengths
18.3% of Highland Park ISD's teaching staff have 11-20 years experience.
17% of HPISD's teaching staff have Masters degrees.
15.7% of HPISD's teaching staff have over 20 years experience.
29.9% of HPISD's teaching staff have 6-10 years experience, an increase over the 20.3% State average.
6.3% of teaching staff are beginning teachers, lslightly above the State average of 6.0%.
Highland Park ISD has an experienced, almost totally highly qualified staff.
9.0% of our staff are Paraprofessionals.
Class size averages 12.0 students per teacher, with 14.5 being the State average.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by pinipig523

I don't think a malpractice lawyer can hit a $10MM verdict in TX, I just took the most current TX law exam.

Proven Results - Law Firm Miller Weisbrod, LLP Attorneys Dallas, Texas (http://www.millerweisbrod.com/CM/Custom/Proven-Results.asp - broken link)

Check out #74 on that list