Cell Phone Taxes Too High in Texas

I briefly heard on NBC news a couple of days ago that, on average, Texas has one of the highest taxes on cell phone usage. The average is 20% which is about $12 on an average user's bill. My cell phone plan is $39.99, but each month, my bill ranges from $48-49. That's $8-9 in just TAXES, and I live here!! I'm not an investor buying cell phones to use them out of state!

The news video is here. It basically talks about how the state of Texas gets over $700 million a year just from cell phone taxes alone!! That's a heck of a lot of money.

What are your cell phone taxes where you live?

Snow in Dallas

People say it never snows in Dallas!! Lookie here!! It's not really sticking on the streets because it was 80 degrees yesterday so there is still heat built into the concrete, but it's looking nice on the roof tops and in the flower beds. I guess I'm lucky that Pansies like cold weather, but I'm not too sure what's going to happen to all my cabbage and kale. Hopefully they're strong enough to handle the cold, as the temps continue to drop to 25 degrees tonight.

Texas- First Property Tax Arbitration Case

I'm so excited! I took the Arbitration class in October and I just got my first case! There was a gentleman in the class who was taking it for the second time as a refresher because he took the class over a year earlier and has yet to be chosen. I've been on the registry for about 2 weeks and have already received my first letter.

I was so excited that I didn't want to mail it back, so I scanned and emailed it back to their office. I just received a returned receipt showing they received my email. Now, I get to sit and wait to make sure I'm actually the person chosen for the case!

I'm looking forward to this new and exciting experience.

Dallas Real Estate- LBJ Tollway

LBJ 635 is the main East and West highway in the Dallas area, named after President Lyndon B Johnson. It's a nightmare to drive on. Rush hour in the morning starts at about 5:30am and goes until about 9:30am. Afternoon rush hour starts at about 3pm and goes until about 7pm. We're talking constant stop and go. I try to avoid 635 at all costs if I can. It's easier to avoid now that they've semi-completed the George Bush Turnpike about 5 miles north of 635.

Well, there has been lots of talk over the years about how they are going to dig tunnels under 635 to get some of the traffic off the main highway. Even though there have been plans and much talk for about 20 years, they're now saying there's not enough money for this project to actually do it.

The new concept they've thought about is running channels 25 feet under 635. The channels would only be 3 lanes for each direction. There will also be a toll charged to go underground as the money to build the channels would be coming from private funds and not the state. This would create the 4th tollroad in Dallas. pretty soon, you're not going to be able to go anywhere without paying to drive on the roads.

Are my taxes not paying for roads? This is ridiculous. I already live right off the Bush Turkpike. The Bush is currently being extended to be a loop around the Dallas area. The Dallas North Tollway has been here for years. Highway 121, further north, just turned into a tollway a couple of months ago. I'm getting really sick and tired of paying to drive to the grocery store or to my parents or to my office.

Are there other places in the country that can say they have FOUR Tollways/Turnpikes in their immediate metropolitan area? If I wanted to include the entire state, I would include the multiple Tollways in Houston, Austin, ect...

English is the Official Language in Farmers Branch, TX

As of Monday, English is now the official language of a small inner suburb of Dallas, called Farmers Branch. Farmers Branch has a population of about 26,000. This doesn't mean other languages can't be used for social or business in the city, but it means the city will no longer be providing Spanish translated information for anything provided to people within the city. Another city ordinance that passed on Monday was that illegal immigrant, as of January 2007, will no longer be able to rent apartments within the city. Within this ordinance, they are going to watch what happens over the next six months and potentially make it so illegal immigrants can't rent houses either.

There is a lot of noise going both ways. My housekeeper was over yesterday and is very upset because of this issue. She's actually a homeowner in Farmers Branch so this doesn't necessarily directly effect her, but most of her friends are renters. She said that someone yelled out at the rally that illegal immigrants were only good for cleaning their toilets. My jaw dropped to the ground. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Here's a quote from The Dallas Morning News: "I think Farmers Branch is saying that we don't mind if you work here - probably in minimum-wage jobs cutting our grass and washing the dishes in restaurants - and we don't mind if you spend your money here and shop, but we don't want you to live here ... and we're going to use living requirements to enforce that," said Gerry Henigsman, executive vice president of the apartment association."

All I can say is WOW! What Farmers Branch doesn't see is all the work the illegal immigrants do in the Dallas area because their small little city is very old and built out. They don't have any areas of new developments. If they did, they would know it's the illegal immigrants who are building all the houses in our areas. They're the ones roughing in the plumbing. They're the ones pouring the slab. They're the ones putting up the sheetrock, texturing and painting. They're the ones bricking the homes and putting the roofs on. They're the ones laying the sod and planting all the landscaping... they do it all! And sometimes all you need to do is bring them a 6-pack of Cerveza and they'll follow you home to paint your rooms or fix your fence or something like that. They aren't greedy, but they like their beer!!

Anyway, many think there is no way this ordinance is going to stand up in court. Many people don't think Farmers Branch is going to want to pay the legal fees if there are many court cases. We'll have to wait and see what happens.

Here is the link to one of the stories.

Picture courtesy of the Dallas Morning News.
Edit: My comments were not to be offensive. I was pointing out that in the new communities where they are doing all the building of the homes, the superintendants tell the new home buyers that if they ever need anything done while workers are around, that all they have to do is ask, and they'll come right over. They also suggest offering something like beer as an offering as I believe they are not allowed to accept money unless it's done off the clock with the current job they're working on. I apologize if I didn't make that clear.

A Service for Writing Real Estate Offers

Are agents really getting this lazy? I just received an email from a lady who started a new service where you can call in and register your buyer and when you're ready to write up an offer, you call them and they write it for you and send it to your buyer to sign. They do offer you the opportunity to fill out a blank contract first so they'll have all your stock information and typical wording in the Special Provisions section, but besides that, you just go blank by blank in the contract and they fill it out for you.

Gimme a break! How lazy are agents these days! It would take me longer to go over each and every blank in the contract with someone than it would for me to pull up the contract and addendums myself and hit the tab key going from blank to blank.
I laughed at the fees. It's $25 for the one-time set up fee per agent. And then it's a $10 fee plus $1 per page for the offer to be written. A typical offer is 8 pages for the main contract, 2 pages for the financing, 1 page for the lead based paint, 1 page for the home owner's association page, and various other addendum depending on the house like lease backs and contigent upon sale of another property. With a typical offer, that would equal $22 for someone else to write the offer for you...

Again, GIMME A BREAK!!!

Dallas Real Estate- Fastest Growing Small Communities

When people think of Texas, they think of Dallas (1.2 million people), Fort Worth (624,000 people), Houston (2+ million people), Austin (690,000 people), and San Antonio (1.3 million people) which are the 5 largest Texas cities across the state.

However, people forget about the smaller cities. They forget about them because we don't really give them their own identity as we group them into the larger city. Below is a list of the top 11 faster growing smaller cities in Texas. Fate, Little Elm, Murphy, and Frisco are all considered "Dallas". Hutto, Kyle, Bee Cave, and Leander are all considered "Austin". In the great state of Texas, the metro areas are so large, that they encompass large areas. The population of the "City of Dallas" might only be around 1.2 million people, but the entire Dallas Metroplex, with all its little communities, has over 4 million people.

Fastest Growing Small Texas Communities 2000-2005

Hutto- 492%
Fate- 406%
Little Elm- 365%
Murphy- 255%
Kyle- 233%
Selma- 175%
Cibola- 155%
Bee Cave- 135%
Roman Forest- 133%
Leander- 129%
Frisco- 110%