This year's hottest headlines

Quirky homes and celebrity pads get listed in this year's 10 hottest Dallas real estate stories

Editor's note: As the year comes to a close, we look back at the 10 most-read real estate stories in Dallas for 2022 — including big listings, market trends, and homes with ties to beloved sports and music stars.

1. 2 quirky shipping container houses come on the market in Dallas' Fair Park. One form of housing that has captured people's imagination as of late is the shipping container home, and in February, there were two on the market from a Dallas developer who has made it his specialty. Both properties were located just a few blocks south of Fair Park. One had a conventional facade; the other was a quirky rectangle standing three stories tall.

2. Thriving Dallas suburb boasts 7th hottest neighborhood for U.S. homebuyers. The population of Forney climbed 60 percent from 2010 to 2020, and the growth showed no sign of letting up in January. A new report from residential real estate platform Opendoor provided further evidence of the continued popularity of the Dallas suburb. Forney's 75126 ZIP code ranked seventh on Opendoor’s list of the country’s 10 most popular ZIP codes for homebuyers.

3. Shaquille O'Neal slam dunks into Dallas-Fort Worth with new million-dollar mansion in the 'burbs. In July, there was a new Big Man on Campus around North Texas — a really, really big man. NBA icon Shaquille O'Neal purchased a home in Carrollton ahead of the anticipated expansion of his Big Chicken restaurants in Dallas-Fort Worth and across the state. And he was already being a good neighbor.

4. T. Boone Pickens’ beloved Texas Panhandle ranch chops asking price by $50 million. In hopes of attracting potential buyers, the owner of the late T. Boone Pickens’ enormous Texas Panhandle ranch slashed the asking price by $50 million more than four years after it went up for sale. The 64,672-acre Mesa Vista Ranch, located about 55 miles northeast of Amarillo, was on the market in February for $170 million. (It has since sold.)

5. Dallas real estate mogul lists his Beverly Drive home with big extra perk for $16 million. Dallas residential real estate honcho Rogers Healy has vast experience buying and selling homes. In January, he put his own Highland Park home, at 3815 Beverly Dr., on the market for $8 million — with an intriguing twist that doubled the asking price.

6. Former Arlington home of the late Pantera musician Vinnie Paul is drummed into rubble. The saga of the quirky Arlington home once owned by the late Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul took an interesting turn in the spring. Earlier this year, the home had gone on the market for $750,000. Just a few days later, a buyer snapped up the home for an undisclosed amount. In the meantime, the home was razed. The demolition seemed to have happened in April.

7. West Dallas developer launches new venture building fancy prefab homes. Oaxaca Interests, the Dallas real estate company that developed Sylvan Thirty in West Oak Cliff, announced in September it was expanding into modular homes, with a manufacturing plant in Grand Prairie and a new product that was already for sale.

8. Exclusive peek inside Mediterranean landmark house for sale in East Dallas. An East Dallas-famous house near Casa Linda Plaza went up for sale. Located at 1425 N. Buckner Blvd., it's a landmark estate sitting on 4.18 acres in the heart of Casa Linda Estates that went on the market in April. It's a grand old home built in 1925 or 1928, depending on who you ask, that's become a point of obsession for many East Dallas residents.

9. Charming Texas Gulf Coast community named one of the most affordable beach towns in U.S. Here was some welcome news for Dallasites in search of a beach house that wouldn't break the bank: Rockport, a coastal community about a six-hour drive from Dallas, landed at No. 7 on Realtor.com’s list of most affordable beach towns in the country in the spring. The charming Gulf Coast town’s average home list price is $435,112.

10. Dallas architecture firm nabs top floor of cool MCM Meadows Building. A Dallas design firm snagged the top floor of an iconic building: SHM Architects, PLLC, announced in November it had leased a 12,218-square-foot space at the historic Meadows Building at Energy Square, located at 5646 Milton St., relocating from their offices at 4514 Travis St. in the Knox District.

Photo courtesy of Reality 360 Imaging

This three-story shipping container house cuts a sharp profile.

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Dallas ranks among top 10 U.S. metros for surge in millionaire renters

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The number of millionaire renters and homeowners in the U.S. has surged over the last five years, and Dallas has cracked the top 10 metros with the largest growth rates among these affluent renter households.

Nationwide, the number of millionaire renter households grew 229 percent from 2020 to 2024, far outpacing the 193 percent growth rate among millionaire homeowners, a new RentCafe study found.

In Dallas, the number of millionaire renter households has more than quintupled, from just 30 in 2020 to 165 in 2024. That represents a renter growth rate of 450 percent, which - surprisingly - is only the 8th highest nationwide.

Houston leads the nation with the No. 1 increase in millionaire renters. The number of these wealthy households increased from 18 to 232 over the last five years, representing an impressive 1,189 percent growth rate.

The top 10 U.S. metros with the biggest surge in millionaire renters are:

No. 1 – Houston
No. 2 – Naples, Florida
No. 3 – Miami
No. 4 – Seattle
No. 5 – Los Angeles
No. 6 – Denver
No. 7 – St. Louis, Missouri
No. 8 – Dallas
No. 9 – Boston
No. 10 – Phoenix

But when it comes to the largest populations of millionaire renters, New York City and San Francisco still lead the way. New York claimed the No. 1 spot with nearly 7,300 millionaire renters living in the city in 2024. Dallas ranked 17th on that list.

Elsewhere in Texas, Houston and Austin ranked as the 12th and 16th, respectively, for the largest population of millionaire renters. There were 232 millionaire renters living in Houston in 2024, and 206 in Austin.

This is who the typical millionaire renter is
The report also revealed a surprising statistic about the typical millionaire renter in the U.S. — a lot of them are millennials working in "white-collar, high-earning fields."

"Nearly half (49 percent) of millionaire renters are Millennials, and the number of affluent Millennial renter households surged 392 percent during the five-year period," the report said. "Gen X follows with 33 percent of millionaire Gen X households renting after increasing by 147 percent."

The report continued, "Although Gen Z still represents a small share of millionaire renters (just 2 percent of the total), no generation has expanded faster: Gen Z millionaire renter households leaped from fewer than a dozen to more than 400 — a tiny cohort today, but one that was virtually nonexistent five years ago."

The top three most common professions for millionaire renters are chief executives, software developers, and managers, the report additionally found.

"These roles tend to generate steady, substantial income without necessarily tying workers to one location, making renting a practical fit, rather than a financial necessity," the report said.

Hotspots for millionaire homeowners
In RentCafe's separate list comparing the top 10 most popular U.S. metros for millionaire homeowners, Dallas ranked 10th nationally with 4,731 millioniare homeowners living in the metro as of 2024. These wealthy Dallas residents are most likely working as chief executives, physicians, managers, and lawyers and judges.

Dallas has already proven to be a hotspot for millennial homebuyers, and the latest RentCafe data says millennials make up 19 percent of all millionaire homeowners in the U.S. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers still maintain the largest shares of millionaire homeowners nationwide, at 45 and 33 percent, respectively.

Houston (No. 12) and Austin (No. 20) appeared further down the list among the hottest metros for millionaire homeowners.

Only one Texas city appeared among RentCafe's list of the 20 fastest-growing metros for millionaire homeowners: College Station ranked 13th nationwide with a growth rate of 1,329 percent. From 2020-2024, the number of millionaire homeowners residing in College Station grew from 14 to 200.

millionaire renters millionaires rentcafe study rent