Douglas Newby insights on Architecturally Significant Homes, Neighborhoods, and the Evolution of Cities
Impact on Homes That Make Us Happy
Douglas Newby is a national award-winning realtor who identifies architectural significance, value, and homes that make people happy. Insights offered in these articles include the nuance and evolution of neighborhoods, cities and Dallas. If you are interested in purchasing an Architecturally Significant Home, go to Douglas Newby & Associates real estate site DougNewby.com.
Favorite Douglas Newby Blog Articles
Highland Park Teardown or Architecturally Significant Survival?
A Highland Park teardown is just another old, out-of-date house or it is an architectural accomplishment designed by one of the best architects in Dallas or the country, and the former home of prominent residents. An insignificant Highland Park teardown makes room for a new architect-inspired home. An architecturally significant home that becomes another Highland...
Home Value Hierarchy – Hal Thomson
For a perfect illustration of home value and the many factors that elevate a home’s value, consider the Hal Thomson-designed home at 3925 Potomac Avenue. As I’ve shared before, home value is determined by a home’s location, its neighborhood, its site and its historic and architectural significance. All these characteristics combine to make this architecturally...
ForwardDallas Moves Dallas Backward
If Dallas Loses its Homeowners All of Dallas Loses Perhaps you’ve heard that there is a plan moving forward at Dallas City Hall that will permanently change single-family neighborhoods throughout our city. Whatever you might know about it, it’s actually worse than you think. Not only is there a proposal from five council members to...
The Myths and Misinformation Promoted by ForwardDallas
This ForwardDallas talk was presented to the North Dallas Neighborhood Alliance of 50 Homeowners Associations. Thank you for allowing me to join you this evening. It is fitting that we are meeting in a church as Sharon Grigsby, a Dallas Morning News columnist who I have admired and considered a friend for many years, wrote:...
Preservation Minded Owners are Key to Saving Historic Homes
Preservation celebrates another preservation victory. I just sold one of the most important architecturally significant homes in Dallas with deed restrictions included in the sale that prevent the home from being torn down, and helped the property sell for a higher price than the appraised value. David Williams-Designed Home Sold for Over Appraised Value and...
Zoning Lobbyist Claims Home Owners Have Faulty Judgment When Advocating for Home Ownership
Dallas Should Nurture Home Ownership for Stable and Appealing Neighborhoods A recent Dallas Morning News column reveals the argument that zoning consultants and STR lobbyist are using to promote rental units and apartment developments in single-family zoned neighborhoods. Esteemed zoning consultant Dallas Cothrum in his Dallas Morning News column recently wrote that homeowners, usually older...
Preservation Dallas 50th Anniversary Home Tour Celebrates Architects and Neighborhoods
Understanding the relationship of architecture and neighborhoods is the foundation of understanding preservation. This 50th anniversary home tour by Preservation Dallas on April 15th is the best Preservation Dallas Home Tour yet. The tour elevates itself from previous home tours that focused on a specific neighborhood, a specific architect or random historic Dallas houses. This...
How Architect Designed Homes Can Outperform the Market
Most houses sell at generic prices and there is a reason why. The real estate industry is geared for homeowners to sell their homes for the same prices as their neighbors’ homes. The whole industry—realtors, lenders, appraisers, homeowners and homebuyers — accept the current concept of comparables. Legislators and regulatory agencies even dictate the restrictions...
Beverly Drive Book Club Talk – The Poor Side of Town and Why We Need It
Below is the Talk Presented by Douglas Newby to the Beverly Drive Book Club It is a real treat for me to be here with you today. Thank you, Susan Bednar Long, Karen Edwards, Ruth Ruhl and the Beverly Drive Book Club for inviting me. I can’t think of any place better than the Beverly...
Architecturally Significant Homes in Dallas are Best Collection in Country
Dallas has the best collection of 20th and 21st century architecture in the country because of the cross-pollination of ideas from the extraordinary lineage of talented Dallas architects with the regional and national architects that design homes in Dallas. The interaction of architects with each other and the patrons of architecture at this architecturally significant...
Dallas Architecture Forum Celebrates 8 Architects and 250 Years of Architecture
The Dallas Architecture Forum, on their 25th anniversary, highlighted eight architects in an informative and insightful way. The program at the Dallas Museum of Art was presented in two panels. One was led by Kate Aoki, AIA, who now designs the DMA exhibits, and Kelly Mitchell, AIA, who is a talented architect and who many...
Anchor Neighborhoods are Threatened by Shifting Dallas Downtown Density
Anchor neighborhoods zoned MF2, made up of architecturally significant modern townhouses, condominiums, attached single-family, and single-family homes, are being threatened by the shifting downtown Dallas density and proposed mid-rise and high-rise zoning. Downtown Dallas Density Keeps Moving Towards Our MF2 Anchor Neighborhoods Downtown Dallas keeps creeping away from the original Central Business District on Main...
Short-Term Rentals are Assault on Homeownership and Single-Family Zoning
Why do single-family occupied homes matter and need to be protected? Homeowners are the heart and soul of the city. When homeowners start leaving a neighborhood, the neighborhood declines. When homeowners have confidence in the future of a neighborhood, they buy a home in that neighborhood or reinvest in the home they already own in...
Homeowner’s Greatest Property Right is Single-Family Zoning
Some Confuse a Homeowner’s Greatest Property Right With How Many Uses the Homeowner can Utilize for Their Home A homeowner’s greatest property right is not how many uses a homeowner can use their home, in addition to that as a home, such as a tavern, rooming house, short term rentals (STRs), office suites, pharmaceutical production...
Fair Park First – Single Family Neighborhood Homes Last
Fair Park First Might Prompt 21st Century Urban Renewal Wiping Out Neighborhoods Recently, exciting plans for Fair Park were unveiled at an architectural forum by Fair Park First, the nonprofit selected to transform and manage Fair Park’s transformation. The elements of the proposed transformation are ambitious and have great potential for Fair Park, the surrounding...
Douglas Newby Expertise
A life long curiosity and interest in art, culture and economics, and how they impact homes, neighborhoods and cities shape the prescient understanding Douglas Newby has for evolving real estate markets. His uncanny ability to see which homes and neighborhoods thrive and which will lag and when has been immensely beneficial to his clients and to the city. Ultimately, what is most important is homes that make us happy.