Home For Sale

Quirky '50s East Dallas home for sale does not lack for color or personality

There's a '50s home for sale in East Dallas that is definitely not for everybody but is surely for somebody?

Located just east of Ferguson Road and north of I-30 in the Claremont/White Rock Hills area, the house at 2534 Telegraph Ave. has 1,597 square feet, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a two-car garage with a cool peeky-window garage door.

It's on a quarter-acre lot with at least three mature trees, a chain link fenced-in yard, and a shed.

If you like houses from the '50s, and who doesn't, this one has a lot going for it. It was built in 1958 and still has many original elements intact, such as hardwood floors, swirled ceilings, and a main bathroom with vintage ceramic tile done in pink with gray accents.

The kitchen features the prototypical plywood cabinetry with copper handles found in many of the '50s homes in this area, but it's never been painted and is in great shape.

There's a built-in period wall oven and an adjoining newer-looking gas cooktop, inlaid into one of those classic '50s peninsula room dividers with a curved exterior and shelves.

The kitchen opens into a family/sitting room with a Flintstones fireplace that's probably not original, but is no less splendid.

There's also a separate formal living room with a dining area, which is what you enter when you walk in the front door. The entry has a little foyer with a '50s-era wrought-iron accent.

All good so far.

There's just one teensy-tiny thing which is completely a matter of taste. Well, two things maybe. And really, if you don't mind color, it's not a problem at all.

Every room is painted a color. It's kind of cool, if you like vivid colors.

The front room is a burnt mustard. The kitchen/living room area is magenta-purple. The bedrooms are: cafe latte, caramel, and hot pink.

The master, aka the cafe latte, has an experiment on one wall dedicated to shiplap. They also updated the master former half-bath to add a stand-up shower. It's very '80s Tan.

The house is listed by Mike Mazyck Realty for $220,000, and they're selling it via an auction.

"Regular financing is available, but the auction format is quicker than a normal sale," says agent Maria Roberts. "We have two showings, and that way the seller doesn't have to show it 50 times."

If the house doesn't sell via the initial auction, they can do another auction or put it out as a regular listing. "This just speeds up the process, because people nowadays want the sale to happen more quickly," she says.

Living room has a Flintstones-style fireplace and some serious color on the wall.

Courtesy photo

Living room has a Flintstones-style fireplace and some serious color on the wall.

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This is the income you need to buy a starter home in Dallas right now

Photo by Zac Gudakov on Unsplash

Dallas and Austin lead the nation for improving starter-home affordability.

A new housing affordability report shows Dallas is among the nation's top metros for improving starter-home affordability. First-time buyers are finally catching a small break, with the income needed to purchase a median-priced starter home falling in 2026.

Dallas residents need to earn $83,096 to afford a median-priced home in the metro area, or 5.1 percent less than they did last year, the Redfin report found.

Dallas had the third-biggest decline in the income needed to afford a starter home out of the 50 U.S. metros analyzed in the report. Redfin also determined that all starter home listings in Dallas are "affordable" based on the city's median household income — which the report estimates at $103,144.

Dallas still has a far higher income required to afford a starter home compared to the national average, but affordability is improving slightly across the board. Americans need to make $70,693 to afford the typical starter home, according to the report's findings.

"The income needed to buy a starter home is declining while earnings are rising," the report said. "The typical American household earns an estimated $87,599, about $17,000 more than what’s needed to buy the median-priced U.S. starter home. That gap is widening: A year ago, the typical American earned roughly $12,500 more than they needed to buy a starter home."

Still, starter home affordability is "still often out of reach" for first-time homebuyers in expensive real estate markets due to "near high record" sale prices and soaring mortgage rates, the study said.

In neighboring Fort Worth, residents only need to make $77,886 to afford a starter home — an attainable milestone based on the city's estimated median household income of $93,102. Fort Worth ranks fourth nationwide for its year-over-year improvement in starter home affordability.

For additional comparison, this is the income needed to afford a starter home in other major Texas metros:

Austin – $92,607 (down 6.1 percent)
Houston – $70,384 (down 4 percent)
San Antonio – $62,859 (down 3.7 percent)

Unfortunately, affording a home in the overall housing market is further straining Americans' wallets. American households need to make just under $110,000 afford the typical U.S. home, but Redfin's evaluation found the typical household makes about $22,000 less than that.

"The discrepancy is partly because the overall market is driven by outsized price increases in the luxury segment, and outsized price increases in places like San Francisco and West Palm Beach, where affluent buyers are active," the report said. "At the same time, some would-be buyers of starter homes are pulling back because they typically earn less money and are more sensitive to affordability pressures."

The top 10 U.S. metros with the biggest declines in the income required to afford the typical starter home are:

No. 1 – Austin, Texas
No. 2 – Oakland, California
No. 3 – Dallas, Texas
No. 4 – Fort Worth, Texas
No. 5 – Denver, Colorado
No. 6 – San Francisco, California
No. 7 – Phoenix, Arizona
No. 8 – Las Vegas, Nevada
No. 9 – Houston, Texas
No. 10 – Los Angeles, California

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