Most Affluent Zip Codes 2008 (Dallas, Southlake: low income, apartment, homes)

[compSciGuy]

So, where does the area being measured begin & end? One of my friends bought a place in Keller and I would assume that area has expensive housing & high incomes. It's hard to argue that Southlake is a Dallas burb, but Keller isn't ... I really consider both Fort Worth suburbs.

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by PlanoGirl

Interesting...

How is it that Highland Park has the highest median home value but one of the lower median household incomes? Is that because it is an "old money" area, lots of homes are owned by retirees, lots of home that have been passed down in the family, or something else? Just curious

Originally Posted by FarNorthDallas

It's like that every year. I always wondered why, too. Older retirees in Highland Park? Do they have wealth, but not wage income? I don't know.

Originally Posted by jobert

75225 is UP, but states it's Dallas. just an observation. I agree with the theory about income in HP.
This total may be the amount they cashed out of their investments for "living expenses" and keep in mind that "Old Money" doesn't tend to have mortgages.

The 90K was most likely cashed out of a seven-figure nest egg, and declared as "capital gains" to the IRS.

You have several different reasons for this. As several have mentioned you have the retirees and the "old money" so they don't have the BIG income or the BIG mortgage. How some areas with a LARGE amount of wealthy people can go unnoticed in surveys like this is because these are the people w/ MANY different ways to have an "income" without it being a direct PERSONAL income. Most people w/ any amount of money have trusts set up and living family trusts. Their assets may be protected in a trust. The family homestead could be in the name of a trust. Their incomes could come from a variety of areas if they own a business. They would have their individual personal income that is what gets reported on their personal income tax. Then they will have all of their commercial/business assets in a trust, joint venture, LLC, LLP, etc and they get an income from that but it doesn't show up as much on their PERSONAL income. If all of this was stripped away and one could see the REAL assets and dollars there might be a lot of people in for a surprise. Some of the areas on these surveys would drop like a rock and other areas not seen as much by some as "affluent" would quickly rise to the top.

Most of these areas at the top of this survey are simply people that make a decent and good living and live in a nice middle to upper-middle income area. They don't own businesses and corporations so they don't have any other "income" to report. Those that live in the "real" affluent areas have more means to "protect" their assets and kind of keep them on the lowdown. They also have a variety of areas that an "income" comes to them. They have the perks and bonuses of being in a position of having someone to make sure their "estate" and assets are protected. Try this, go pull up some streets in the Park Cities and Lakewood that have a high dollar value in real estate on Dallas Central Appraisal District and see how many of the "owners" are listed as a trust.

[lh_newbie]

75205 starts at Fitzhugh. It's not just HP, where as Southlake is a bit of an island.

Personally, I don't get the fascination with this sort of "statistic" which is pretty meaningless. My ZIP isn't anywhere on that list, yet our personal household income is above that of even Southlake. We chose to invest heavily into retirement rather than status of a ZIP code. We'll see who retires early and who has to work into retirement to maintain their lifestyle.

Brian

[lh_newbie]

Jobert - correct, updated my post to Fitzhugh. Neat ZIP code map here for Dallas:

//www.city-data.com/zipmaps/Dallas-Texas.html

HP includes many SMU students and some apartments. I think Southlake is primarily large single family homes.

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

Personally, I don't get the fascination with this sort of "statistic" which is pretty meaningless. My ZIP isn't anywhere on that list, yet our personal household income is above that of even Southlake. We chose to invest heavily into retirement rather than status of a ZIP code. We'll see who retires early and who has to work into retirement to maintain their lifestyle.

Brian

EXACTLY!!! Same here. I went back and looked at the incomes of the top 5. Got'em all beat as do several neighbors. I don't need to live in the prestigious zipcode to have a good life. We have been looking at retiring on later than 50 if not sooner. Heck, some days I'd swear hubby IS retired. Those are the days he is around here doing nothing and I'm like, "don't you have a job or something"

You are right it is pretty meaningless as I've already said, most of those zipcodes are full of people that work for someone else. A few might not but the majority do and don't really have a lot of control over their own destiny when it comes to job location and such. There are other areas with a lot more money but the people that live there fly under the radar because of the way their assets and income are arranged.

[MurphyPl1]

Hey, don't knock your DH! I KNOW he works. I've seen him visiting a customer on a Friday night in an emergency.

Which reminds me, I have an invoice to pay.

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by MurphyPl1

Hey, don't knock your DH! I KNOW he works. I've seen him visiting a customer on a Friday night in an emergency.

Which reminds me, I have an invoice to pay.

LOL!!!! He even made an emergency call on Father's Day after church this year. I went with him as the good dutiful wife.

That was funny though. He comes home asking me if I know you and how. LOL!!!!

[TurtleCreek80]

I have no stats to prove this, but have always thought that 8,000 SMU students in UP/HP (which I believe has a population near 30,000) really skews the averages for both zips 05 and 25.

[Lakewooder]

Good explanation mom -- yeah most of the old money folks try to hide their income while the new money folks like to show it off and exaggerate it..
75225 also covers the old Preston Hollow estate area and goes over to my final resting place, Hillcrest Cemetery.

As far as SMU students, one of my friends gives her daughter a $3,000 per month allowance plus a credit card - I think that's insane. And she bought her a $550,000 home in the M-Streets area.

75206 M-Streets are valued around $450,000 and 75214 Lakewood is valued around $550,000 for the average home prices according to the Ron Burch's monthly Advocate statistics.

[FarNorthDallas]

Originally Posted by Big G

I would also guess that list extends far beyond the top 25 ZIP codes listed.

No, the Dallas Business Journal only does the top 25. I wish they did more. I love meaningless statistics.