DID MY NEW NEIGHBOR JUST BUY THAT HOUSE FOR $1 MILLION?

STORY BY SAM GILLESPIE / PHOTO BY RASY RAN

Is Lakewood a $1 million neighborhood? Will that new home being constructed or big remodel across the street really bust through to seven figures?

That air isn’t as rarefied as it used to be. Sixty homes in East Dallas zip codes 75206, 75214 and 75218 sold for $1 million or more over the last 12 months, according to an assessment by the Briggs Freeman marketing department. That’s four times the number of million-dollar homes sold in 2006 and in 2011, before and after the Great Recession.

What’s driving this increase over the magic milliondollar number? An economist might say low interest rates, strong demand and higher construction costs. That’s a plausible explanation that can be well defended. The local real estate experts we talked to have some other theories that hit a bit closer to home.

• Starting from the ground up (quite literally), a big driver has been the cost of dirt. A lot in Lakewood Heights, often with a 1930s twobedroom, one-bathroom home on it, can’t be had for less than $400,000 — if you can find one at all. In Forest Hills, the lot values are a mind-bending $600,000 and up. With those numbers as a starting point, it doesn’t take long for a newly constructed home to reach $1 million. But the relationship between lot value and total home value hasn’t been proportionally the same over time. The previous rule of thumb for many Realtors and builders was that