Tom Woliver, co-founder and president of Dallas-based Oxland Advisors, Painted Tree’s developer, recently sat down for a candid interview with The Dallas Business Journal (Bill Hethcock, March, 3 2022). In the interview, he gave a behind-the-scenes account of how the 1,100-acre development is going, along with his thoughts on the future of the north DFW market.

According to Woliver, the community is progressing nicely from purchaseing the land in 2020 to sales and the first model homes opening this summer (2022). “It takes a while to get these things off the ground … and as far as I know, this is still the largest phase one ever done in DFW.”

“We’ve got 1,100 lots under development right now. We’re about to start another 600 in the next couple years.”

“Before, if you bought 1,000 acres it might take you 10 years to get through it. Because of the supply and demand right now, by April of this year, we may have Painted Tree !00% sold or contracted for (by homebuilders),” Woliver explained. “And I do think our location helps. We’re not way out in Sherman, for example.”

In terms of scale, Painted Tree will feature 4,000 homes at build out. “We’re at about 3,200 for-sale homes. Then we have another 600 multi-family units and then another 300 cottage rentals and single-family rentals,” Woliver says. 

Which is a new model for the market. “We’re segmenting (for-lease homes) like we do our single-family (for-sale homes), so anywhere from a townhome up to something larger, more sluxury, we’re trying to do the same on rental,” he says.

Finally, Woliver provides his thoughts on what’s next for Oxland Advisors and the future of the North Dallas market – which is quickly reaching capacity in A-rated locations like Painted Tree.

“We have a couple of other deals I can’t announce yet, but what makes it really hard in this world as a developer is: How do you follow up Painted Tree?”

He continued, “the challenge is, you have landowner expectations at a peak. Then you have a pricing peak and you’ve got supply chain peak, and if we’re not careful, we cant provide housing for the meat of the market.” 

“How can you have reasonably price housing, particularly as interest rates are going up? We’ve always talked about attainability, but the last two years, you can build any box and it’s going to sell or lease. That’s going to start to change,” he says. 

“Whether that means more density or getting more creative with some of our partnerships, that’s our focus right now on new acquisitions.”