Devonshire, Dallas

Devonshire covers about half a square mile in ZIP 75209, between Northwest Highway, the Dallas North Tollway, Lovers Lane and Inwood Road, with Bluffview to the west and Preston Center and University Park to the east. Residents describe it as three blocks wide and 25 blocks long, and its streets mix original one-story stone cottages and two-story 1940s Tudors with mid-century modern homes and newer luxury builds. Westminster Presbyterian Church, which moved here in 1955, sits at its center with a preschool, dog park and community garden.

The lesson here is that land drives the price and the house drives the spread. Lots are mostly about a tenth to half an acre, and recent sales ranged from about $950,000 for older homes to $7.5 million for new architect-designed builds, so the same street can hold both a teardown and a finished estate. Buyers should price the lot and the rebuild together, and sellers of original homes should know what a builder would pay for the land before they spend on updates. I run both numbers before we set a strategy.