About Margaret

I grew up outside Fort Worth in a house my parents built themselves, one room at a time, over about six years. That probably explains why I notice foundation work and roofline additions before I notice granite countertops. I spent my twenties in Houston, bought my first place near the Third Ward when nobody was talking about it, and sold it eleven years later for more than triple what I paid. Then I moved to Austin's east side, into a 1948 bungalow that I am still, slowly, fixing up.

None of that makes me a market analyst. I don't publish charts or forecast where rates are headed next quarter. What I do have is two decades of paying attention to specific streets — which ones flood, which HOA boards actually answer their phones, which "up and coming" claims turned out to be true and which ones were just a realtor's listing copy.

What I actually cover

• Austin's east side and the neighborhoods still catching up to it
• Houston's inside-the-loop patchwork — where zoning doesn't exist and it shows
• Dallas's DART-adjacent blocks and the Bishop Arts spillover
• San Antonio's slower, steadier market and its historic-district rules
• Fort Worth's west side new construction
• Plano's relocation-driven demand and school-zone math

Why "field notes" and not "guides"

A guide implies I've figured the whole thing out. I haven't — the market moves, blocks change, and something I wrote about a street two years ago might not hold today. These are notes: dated, specific, and open to being wrong. Take them as one person's close observation, not a substitute for your own inspection, your own agent, or current MLS numbers.

Get in touch

Questions, corrections, or something you think I got wrong about a neighborhood? Head to the Contact page.