In the last year, @properties Lone Star Christie’s International Real Estate has been growing almost as fast as the Texas Triangle.
The operation, owned by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ nephew Jerry Mooty Jr., has two offices in Dallas (one is in Frisco); launched its Austin office in October; and now, just 90 days after the brokerage opened its Fort Worth office, more than 40 agents have joined up to tap into Cowtown’s luxury residential market.
Mooty tapped Monument Realty veteran Michael Hoover to run the office, which is located in Fort Worth’s Cultural District — a neighborhood just west of downtown that’s become a hotspot for development. It’s home to a luxury project from Crescent as well as an Auberge Resorts & Collections hotel, Bowie House.
The Real Deal sat down with Mooty to discuss the franchise’s expansion to Cowtown.
What’s your history with Fort Worth? Have you ever lived there?
I haven’t. I actually came to Dallas in 1988. I was born and raised in Springfield, Missouri. In the spring of my freshman year at Southern Methodist University, my uncle [Jerry Jones] buys the Dallas Cowboys, so now our whole family lives here.
How did you get into real estate?
I founded a law firm in 1998. I was 28, and I like to say “young enough and dumb enough” to do that, but I ended up growing that to about 60 lawyers in four cities. I was the managing partner, and I started doing more business deals for the partners than I was practicing law.
That actually led me to start a real estate development company in 2004. I had a homebuilding division and a commercial division, and then we all know what happened in ’08-’09, so it wasn’t the greatest financial exit, but it got me where I really liked real estate. I ended up selling ownership interest of the firm back to the partnership and started doing more entrepreneurial stuff. That led me to starting and buying this franchise
You purchased the @properties affiliate in 2021. How and why did you decide to start the Fort Worth office when you did?
As you educate yourself on the hot areas of your market, Fort Worth has population growth even higher and faster than the Dallas area.
You need to have somebody who’s not only able to run an office, like Michael [Hoover], but also has to have a pretty good agent count to start. We literally had about 35 agents join in the first 30 days, and that’s kudos to Michael’s network and sphere, as well as our branding.
What are you seeing in terms of pricing for Fort Worth’s luxury market?
It’s definitely a little bit less than your core Dallas area. In just the 90 days that we’ve been open, agents are starting to get some better listings. Like, we have a $7.2 million listing. We’ve got two or three that are in the $3 million range. We’ve closed already on four or five in the $2 to $3 million range. So it’s pretty equivalent when you start looking at what our brand attracts.
How far does the Fort Worth market stretch?
We’ve got a $7 million listing on Possum Kingdom Lake. That came over here with an agent just a few weeks ago.
Are you doing a lot of farm and ranch sales?
With Michael’s first initial group that came over, I think four or five of the 30 were all farm and ranch focused. We have a farm and ranch division for our affiliates. We have two or three agents in Dallas and Frisco that do that. And then in Austin, we’ve added four or five agents out of the hundred that we’ve got there that do farm and ranch. So we have Central Texas covered, Fort Worth, and all the way out to the Permian Basin.
What about corporate relocation?
We actually just brought in a relocation manager, so they will oversee that whole division probably both for Dallas and Fort Worth.
What’s next for growing the Fort Worth office?
I definitely think we would open an office in Southlake. That would probably be our first goal.
Given the upcoming election, are you seeing that people are more wary to purchase now?
Obviously consumer confidence is a trigger for us to evaluate, and it’s been trending down the last 12 months because of interest rates going up. But it’s been kind of funny — we’ve had our best months we’ve ever had out of our Dallas office. March was our biggest month at the time. And then we had a decent April, and then we had a huge May, almost double any other month we’ve ever done.
When your listings are higher priced, or your clientele is a high net worth person, they’re able to get their own lending, or they’re paying cash. And so we’ve seen some progress actually, as opposed to lower-end brokerages with lower price points are having trouble.
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