Dynamic Duo: Broker, Banker Join to Offer Construction Investment Model

David Dallas and Brandon Barber are a match made in real estate heaven. It’s probably no wonder then that the two are 2003 selections in the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s annual 40-Under-40 list of rising business stars.r

Since forming a business partnership in May, the duo has collaborated on three Fayetteville subdivisions, with Barber providing capital and Dallas’ brokerage business handling the primary listings. r

Their partnership will allow Dallas Real Estate Services Inc. to maintain immediate residential listings of more than $15 million in value because of the more than 170 lots Barber has purchased to list or build in three subdivisions.r

Both executives have other full-time jobs, or as Barber jokes, he has about 10.r

Although Barber is vice president of business development/commercial loans for Community Bank of North Arkansas, he’s also a partner in Dallas Real Estate Services Inc. Dallas maintains a separate appraisal firm, Dallas & Associates Inc., the orignal business from which he was able to grow his real estate services work.r

Barber brought his experience in residential development to the partnership, having built and sold 50-75 homes in Jonesboro’s Summer Oaks subdivision and the Covington Park and Bridgeport Estates subdivisions in Fayetteville. Homes in those neighborhoods have sold from $175,000-$350,000 each.r

Dallas brings more than 10 years of brokerage and appraisal experience.r

“Brandon was looking for an avenue to promote and sell his residential developments and it was just a good marriage,” Dallas said. “He needed a vehicle to do that, and it was not an opportunity that I was generating on my own.”r

Barber became a partner in Dallas’s exisiting brokerage business because it made sense from a legal and regulatory standpoint.r

Both “east-Arkansas boys,” Barber of Jonesboro and Dallas of Wynne, heard about each other through mutual friends. They were introduced this spring, and the rest is history.r

“I like to tell people that we dated for three months before we decided to get engaged,” Dallas said with a laugh. r

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Integrated Model r

Together, Dallas and Barber are creating a somewhat unique business model for investors in the local market by offering pre-contracted lots for purchase.r

“We’ve already pre-sold a number of lots to investors,” Barber said. “We are targeting those who want to get involved in the real estate market but are very similar to me. They are just too busy but want to play. We give them a turn-key price so they know ahead of time what it is going to cost them.”r

Barber has 109 lots under contract with Sam Mathias in Fayetteville’s Clabber Creek subdivision and has purchased 50 lots from Clabber Creek Village LLC in the Salem Village subdivision, soon to be re-named Clabber Creek Village. Salem Village is also in Fayetteville.r

Hal Forsyth serves as the managing member of Clabber Creek Village LLC. r

Dallas’s firm, along with Basset Mix & Associates of Fayetteville will be the primary listing agent for the two subdivisions. Arkansas Dream Builders of Farmington will be the primary builder for the 1,600-2,200 SF homes in Clabber Creek and for most of the 1,300-1,550 SF homes in Clabber Creek Village. Barber said that Clabber Creek Village will have a community swimming pool and new fencing in the future. Barber still has lots available for sale from $32,500.r

Lot prices at Clabber Creek range from $33,000-$39,000, although Barber said he has finished selling to outside investors. He will be building out the remaining 70 percent of the subdivision, and Dallas will be listing the homes that will range in price from $170,000-$220,000.r

According to Barber, his lots at Clabber Creek have an appraised value of around $4 million, although the listing value of the remaining 70 percent (not counting lots sold to investors) will be a potential $15 million, and his lots at Clabber Creek Village have an appraised value of around $1.5 million.r

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Leaving a Legacyr

Barber is building and Dallas Real Estate is listing around 20 homes in the Legacy Point subdivision in Fayetteville that range in price from $180,000-$220,000.r

Barber Properties built fewer than 100 homes in the last three to four years, but the partnership with Dallas will build that same number in one year.r

Dallas said that he and Barber have looked to others in the construction business for examples, such as Kevin Riggins of Riggins Construction in Springdale and Annabelle Nickel of Arkansas Dream Builders.r

“We saw a lack of new home listings in the price range we will be building and marketing in Fayetteville,” Dallas said. r

Dallas and Barber aren’t the only ones with that theory — Riggins agrees.r

“In Springdale alone, we have built 160 houses in the $120,000 to $150,000 price range and we haven’t done any in Fayetteville in the last two years, so there is a major need there,” Riggins said. r

Riggins believes that Dallas will be successful on the real estate side because of his great reputation from the appraisal service.r

“I am very impressed with their ability to get things done,” Riggins said. “They are just on the ball.”r

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Unique Advantager

Riggins said the biggest challenge Dallas and Barber will face is obtaining listings, a challenge that they have mitigated by bringing new subdivisions on board.r

“Where we feel our company is unique is that we can really do so much residential and commercial,” Barber said. “We can use our services as a real estate company and say hey, we already have a built-in inventory.”r

They plan to work with Basset Mix to list properties in their new subdivision while expecting to list around 75 properties by the end of September. Barber’s wife, Keri, is also a real estate agent for Dallas Real Estate Services and is listing homes along with another residential agent, Andy Hague.r

“We are going to be exclusively listing the stuff that we’re building so it’s a good way for us to get started,” Barber said.r

With a firm that employs nine full-time and part-time, Dallas said that he founded his business on the principal that it is never good to grow too fast. Ultimately with commercial, residential and appraisal services, Dallas still has to sign off on every document that leaves the building. r

Dallas has been a certified appraiser for 10 years and also holds a commercial CCIM (Certified Commercial Investment Member) designation certified by the Commercial Investment Real Estate Institute that fewer than 20 people in Northwest Arkansas have.r

“Through that program, I feel like we have some national connections that are going to allow us to do some things that get into larger brokerage,” Dallas said. “There is a model out there that we are trying to re-create on Brandon’s group subdivisions from a residential standpoint, and there are some other groups out there that do both, but where we feel like we can get a little business in Northwest Arkansas is the combination of all of the services.”r