From whom should one receive real estate advice? -- well maybe Terrell Owens.

Throughout his NFL career, Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens has collected touchdown passes, including four this season. Now, he's also collecting Dallas real estate.
T.O. owns six townhouses and condos in the city, valued at more than $2.5 million based on tax records. He acquired five of the properties within the last year, most of them as investments.

"Those are going to be worth a lot of money someday," he said, when asked after a recent practice about his holdings near the eastern end of Commerce Street. "I think it's going to be a big area in a few years."

The units are a short distance from the Fair Park Station, scheduled to open next year, on the DART Green Line. It's a transition neighborhood with a mix of older buildings, newer residential buildings and vacant lots.

Owens formerly lived in one of the units and acquired three more in nearby projects. They range in value, according to tax records, from $356,000 to $405,000.
Britt Fair, executive vice president at Hexter-Fair Title Company, closely follows local sales trends. He said there is risk, as well as potential reward, in pioneering an area. I'm not sure I'm going to take investment advice from Terrell Owens," Fair said. "But he may be on to something."

Patience is critical, especially in a slow market like this, advises Realtor Jerold Smith, who blogs about Dallas and Plano real estate. Smith said an investor such as Owens should plan to hold the units "for a minimum of five years to see a return."
Owens now lives at the Azure, a high-rise building in Uptown. His home is on an upper floor, where one of his neighbors is Cowboys running back Marion Barber. Former Cowboy Deion Sanders owns a penthouse unit, according to tax records.
Owens also owns a smaller unit on a lower floor, valued at $346,000. He is disputing the assessed value of the larger unit. Condos in the same position on nearby floors range in assessed value from $719,000 to $1.2 million. Assessed valuations often are lower than market values.

"I don't want to talk about my stuff," Owens said, when asked why he decided to invest in Dallas real estate. In a telephone interview, Jeff Rubin, Owens' financial adviser, acknowledged that the townhome purchases are investments. He said that rents are covering mortgage payments and that the holdings are being put into a limited liability corporation, a common practice for tax purposes. He declined to give further details.

Rents in newer buildings in the neighborhood near Fair Park run about $1 a square foot per month, according to current listings. Owens' units range from about 2,200 to 2,600 square feet, according to tax records.

In T.O., Owens' 2006 book, he wrote about his realization that, despite his big football contracts, he didn't have the financial security he thought he had. Pro athletes need to plan for when their playing days are over.

With the Eagles at the time, Owens fired his agent and hired Drew Rosenhaus as well as other advisers, including Rubin.

"I now had an effective, powerful machine working for me," Owens wrote. He added: "Although I respected their advice, the final decision was to be mine, not theirs."

The Cowboys signed Owens to a new contract this summer, a four-year, $34 million deal, which included a $12.9 million bonus.

Based on the contract amounts he details in his book and the terms of his new deal, Owens has earned about $67 million from NFL teams to this point in his career. If he completes his Cowboys contract, he could earn an additional $21 million through 2011.
Owens, who has 133 career TD catches, also owns homes in New Jersey and Georgia and condos in Atlanta and on the beach near Miami, according to online tax records.
The New Jersey home is listed for sale at $2.96 million, less than Owens paid in 2004With 20 percent down and a 30-year mortgage at 6 percent, the monthly payment would be $14,197, according to an online site that lists the house.

Tom Granese, a developer of one of Owens' units near Fair Park, said he anticipated that the area would develop more quickly than it has, but the economy has put everything on hold. However, Granese said, with the DART line opening, city investments in Fair Park, and a new bike trail, he expects substantial growth over time.

"I'm glad that someone like him is investing in a neighborhood like that," Granese said of Owens.

Article Courtesy of By GARY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News