BILL CHERRY'S GREATEST DALLAS PARK CITIES REAL ESTATE BLOG: November 2009

Shopping malls are beginning to show the cracks of slower sales. I've been around these things for years.  When this starts, if you're the management company, you'd better react quickly and properly.  And oft times "properly" has to come from God and through your gut.  Call it intuition if you want.  But if you don't have it yourself, you'd better find someone to advise you who does.

Here in Dallas, Raymond Nasher's creation, the famous high-end, spectacularly successful NorthPark, has more vacancies than I've seen there in many years.  The latest to close up shop is a well-known jewelry store, Bailey Banks & Biddle.  It's apparently liquidating all of its stores.  Nevertheless, that'll leave another big blank at NorthPark.

In recent years, a good percentage of on-price and factory outlet malls haven't had to do much more than have a reasonably good mix of tenants.  But that is changing, and changing quickly.  And for ownership and management to ignore the inevitable will be costly.

<<==Shelly Gravino Lord and Family

Charter Oak Partners is a Virginia company that has a long and successful history of placing, tenanting and managing factory outlet malls.  The last I heard, the company owned some thirteen centers.

Their senior vice president of marketing is a longtime friend of mine.  When I first met her, she was Shelly Gravino.  Now married, she's still called "Shelly Gravino" by old acquaintances, clients, and people in the business, but newbies know her as Shelly Lord.

Just out of college a bit more than twenty-five years ago, Shelly went to work for a failing mall.  She told the mall management that if they would give her a budget to create other reasons for people to come there, she'd pack the mall with regular activities for shoppers, and from that, the mall would catch on and become successful. 

By golly it worked.  I know because I was very familiar with the mall before she got there, and I thought it was and would always be a dud.  She made a believer out of me.

Retail conventions like the ICSC (International Council of Shopping Centers) always have Shelly as one of their headliner speakers.  And because of her knowledge and success, hers are always a sell-out.  Heck, I've heard her countless times, and it's always the highlight of the meeting.

One time about twelve years ago, I was so exasperated with one of my own management contracts that I hired her to come look over the property, pat me on the head, and say, "There, there...you're on the right track."  She was right.  I was.  But had I not consulted with here, it's likely I would have made the faulty evaluation that what I was doing wouldn't work, and needed to be changed.  Then it would have failed.

So I want you to put her name and contact information in your file, so that you'll have it handy should you need her. I'm telling you, this is valuable information.

Shelly Gravino Lord, Senior Vice President, Charter Oak Partners, 8000 Towers Cresent Druve, Suite 950,Vinenna, Virginia 22182;  703 905-4400; Email: maplerock@comcast.net

Copyright 2009 - William S. Cherry

 BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

Our 45th Year!

214 503-8563

WEB

WIKIPEDIA BIO

Every Year at Christmas Time I Miss My Friend, Mel Torme      

I'm never sure exactly when it's going to happen, but every year at sometime during the Christmas season I realize how much I really miss my friend, jazz singer Mel Torme. 

Mel knew more about the mixing of cord harmonies than anyone did before or has since.  He was the one who taught that art to bandleaders Les Baxter and Artie Shaw, and singers Ginny O'Connor (Henry Mancini's wife), the Hi-Los and the Manhattan Transfer.  He's the one who wrote the arrangements for Chico Marx's band when Mel was but a teenager.

And no one sung the songs of Christmas with more interpretive passion than Mel, even though he was Jewish.

Mel's also the one my business colleague of twenty-plus years ago, Carol Todreas, and I tromped on  many bitter-cold snowy nights from our Central Park South hotel to a small jazz club on Manhattan's east side called Marty's, to hear him front the George Shearing Trio, in a packed house that held no more than 70. 

Marty's was carved out of the first-floor corner of a multi-story parking garage.  It was New York City's best kept secret.  No way did the owner make any money, and it's for sure Mel and Shearing were working for not much more than a free meal. 

But for them it was the perfect gig.  For the audience it was the venue of success d'estime.

Mel Torme wrote the tune and most of the words to the Christmas song that goes, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire; Jack Frost nipping at your nose."  And he did it when he was just 22-years old. 

The following summer he appeared to a packed house in the Marine Ballroom at Galveston's Pleasure Pier. 

And he had one successful appearance after another at the Island's Balinese Room, although his name never seems to be included in the list of the B-Room's star performers - entertainers like Phil Harris, Myron Cohen, Frank Sinatra and the like -- when someone speaks or writes about those days.

Every year symphonies throughout America give their annual Christmas Pops concerts. The houses are always packed.  But interestingly, when you look around to see who's in the audience, you would think that every senior citizen within a fifty-mile radius was there, while the young people were obviously somewhere else.

The orchestra plays arrangements of many of the favorites - "Adeste Fideles," "Little Drummer Boy," "Deck the Halls," "O Come All Ye Faithful." and so on. 

I remember that one time the vote on my wife, Patty's, and my row was that a Davis/Custer arrangement of Silent Night was the best of the entire performance.

It may have been.  But before that, they had played my old friend Mel's song.  And I sung along in my head, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.  Jack Frost nipping at your nose. Yule time carols...." 

And that time like every other time, while the orchestra and the rest of the audience moved on in the program, they left me behind, as they always do, to think of Christmases of the past when Mel was still singing his songs, Carol and I were tromping through the Manhattan snow to hear him at Marty's, and all of the members of the Cherry family were still alive and together awaiting the wonderful celebration of Christmas.

Those are all of the reasons in the world for me to miss Mel Torme.

Copyright 2009 - William S. Cherry

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB

3405 SAINT JOHNS DRIVE

$1,925,000

Financing Available

Here's the story.

My friends, patent attorney and novel writer, David Tannenbaum, and his wife Mary called about a week ago.

"Bill, we've been living in our townhome in the West End for a year, and we really love living in the dynamic part of Dallas.  So we're going to sell our Highland Park home.  Stop by and let's get it listed," David said by phone.

Well, the Highland Park home has a swell family as tenants, and no one wants to disturb them during the holidays, so David and Mary asked me not to put the listing on the MLS or a sign in the yard or make a full-blown marketing program for it until after the first of the year.

Now if you know me, you know I don't sit on my hands and do nothing very well, and we're talking about a whole month of that.  So I called the residents to see what they thought about a few prospects sneaking a peak.

Ashley told me that she and her husband wouldn't mind if we showed it during the holidays, but she wants me to make double-sure that the prospects are really qualified to purchase it. 

So here's where we are on the financing.  I have financing arranged for a qualified buyer at 30% down, 6.50% for 30 years.  So at the listed price, a purchaser will need $577,500 in cash plus the closing costs.

OK, Active Rain members!  You're officially approved to schedule showings before it goes into MLS.  You can get the details on my website by clicking here.  Call me when you're ready.

3405 SAINT JOHN

$1,925,000

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB

This is part of an email I got from my dear friend, Mary Creighton.  We became friends almost fifty years ago as students at University of North Texas.  She later married the Dean of the Texas Senate, Senator Tom Creighton.

Mary, on the other hand, has devoted her talents and entire career to public education. 

I think Mary's report of going to the UNT Homecoming shows what former students can get out of going back to their college home every chance they get.

I went to UNT/Army game on Saturday in Denton.  First football game I have attended in five years.  It was a good game.  Fun to see all the mean green fans and the West Point (Army) fans. 

I had split ties with the game as my son Clayton and his wife were both graduates of West Point and Michelle and I were graduates of UNT.  So I just yelled for everybody.   

The band was great.  The dancers and cheerleaders were awesome. 

But the most impressive parts I found were the pre-ceremony honoring of veterans and recognizing some of the Ft. Hood people who helped those injured needlessly by that idiot. Also, at half-time, they had UNT ROTC students who were to complete their studies in December to be given their commission  by the visiting general and superintendent of West Point.  Very patriotic day. 

I also had my son Lee in the crowd and he had just returned from Afghanistan so that was special to me.

Do you ever go to your school's homecomings?  How about class reunions -- high school or college?

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

Our 45th Year!

214 503-8563

WEB

From the time I graduated from college until at least five years after completing graduate school, I was a banker.  In fact, I drifted into being a real estate loan officer.

Carey Mayfield was an attorney as well as the president of the first bank I worked in.  Within twenty minutes he taught me how to underwrite a real estate loan.

"Take the application, accumulate the stuff the bank examiners are going to insist on, then sit back, look the guy in the eye and ask him, 'Are you going to pay us back?'  Watch his face carefully and listen to how he responds.  If you believe him, make the loan. You don't need a loan committee's help."

I used that method for all of the years I made loans.  And my delinquency ratio was a teeny bit on the positive side of zero.

Isn't it odd that had the lending industries insisted on the loan officers following the Mayfield Principal, chances are most of the bad stuff wouldn't have happened?

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

Our 45th Year!

214 503-8563

WEB

The

The zillion member Dallas men's chorus known as THE VOCAL MAJORITY is one of the city's prize possessions.  They've been entertaining here for years.  The Christmas Show 2009 at the Eisman Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson will be staged on December 3rd and 4th and on December 16th.

Tickets can be ordered at 972 244-4650.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

Our 45th Year!

214 503-8563

WEB

 <<======Carol M. Smith, Praxis Real Estate Advisers, Atlanta.

This is my friend of at least thirty years, Carol M. Smith.  She is a remarkable residential real estate marketeer, having worked for and understudied the great Charlie Williams (RIP), President of Dallas' Sales Street Group.

Williams and his marketing brainy staff specialized in turning around failed subdivisions for main-stream developers like Fox and Jacobs, for an example.

I was vice president of residential development for a Houston company, Columbia Communities, when I first met Charlie and Carol.  And we met because Columbia desperately needed their services. 

You see, we had begun a financially huge waterfront development in an area of the country we simply didn't understand.  It looked to us like the market hated us.

So we were stuck with a big inventory that wasn't selling.  We're talking about millions of dollars worth.  What to do, and do fast!  We got wind of Sales Street Group and its remarkable Charlie Williams and Carol Smith.  We rolled the dice and retained them.

Within a few months. Sales Street Group's manager of our account, Carol Smith, had taught us how to turn our development from failure to success.  And from that, we learned to keep Sales Street Group on retainer, so that our future developments could be assured of starting out successful.

Today, Carol lives and works out of Atlanta.  Her firm is called Praxis Real Estate Advisers.  And she has bailed so many condominium projects out of trouble throughout New York, Atlanta and Florida that her clients have given her the name -- CONDO CAROL, and it has stuck. 

In fact her email address is Carol@Condocarol.com.

I'm passing this important source on to you.  You're likely to be involved in or know of a residential real estate project that, if it hasn't already, stands a chance of crashing and burning.  You'd do your clients a favor by retaining Condo Carol (Praxis Real Estate Advisers) to get it back on course.  I might even come along to help.

By the way, Carol is a licensed broker in New York, Georgia and Florida. 

Did Carol ask me to write this?  Of course not, and I don't plan to tell her that I did.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

Since 1964

214 503-8563

WEB

There's good news for two catagories of home buyers:

• The $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit has been extended.
• There's now a $6,500 tax credit for anyone who buys a home and who has lived in their crrent home for any five consecutive years of the past eight years.

The old version of the tax credit was set to expire at the end of November, and the old version did nothing to stimulate home owners who wanted to sell their current home and move-up to a more expensive one.

The new rule will also give additional incentive to those who wish to move to other parts of the country, perhaps for another job or for retirement.  And then there are those who really want to downsize now that their children are no longer living at home. 

At Bill Cherry, Realtors, we are happy to assist you in finding a home, whether you qualify for one of these new tax breaks or not.  But with these incentives, it is an especially good time, in our opinion, to buy your first home, or to sell your existing home and move to another.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK

SINCE 1964

214 503-8563

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