Walton Global Buys Acreage East of Dallas for D.R. Horton

20 February 2025

Walton Global acquired 126 acres of land outside of Dallas, deepening its North Texas land holdings.

The Scottsdale, Arizona–based firm purchased the land to be added to another large-scale residential development in Kaufman County, a news release said.

Called Mabrey Meadows, it’s slated to bring a 513-home community to Talty, the small but fast-growing town roughly 30 miles east of downtown Dallas.

Planned community amenities include a pool and trails, with home prices expected to range from $250,000 to $350,000, the release said.

The land was purchased through Walton’s Builder Land Financing Fund, managed by Fortress Investment Group.

Arlington-based D.R. Horton, the nation’s largest homebuilder, is the developer behind the project, according to documents posted to bid tracking platform ConstructConnect. The site work and paving phase recently closed for bidding, with construction expected to begin in May.

The sellers are co-owners James Mabrey and Robert Schlachter, with his family, including Marc Schlachter, county records show.

The Schlachters founded Shoebacca.com, a Dallas-based online shoe retailer, and Nafta Traders, its wholesale affiliate. They own various land holdings throughout the outskirts of DFW, as well as a number of oil wells near Odessa and Abilene through a company named Schlachter Oil, operated by CEO Danny Schlachter.

Mabrey is principal of Dallas-based Mabrey & Partners. The firm assembles large tracts on the outskirts of Dallas, securing bond financing for water and sewer infrastructure to develop lots or sell development plans, primarily for D.R. Horton, according to its website.

Mabrey & Partners drafted a larger master plan for the land in 2018, spanning over 700 acres and more than 4,000 lots. That was before the Schlachter-Mabrey subsidiary sold 100 acres to LGI Homes in 2021 for its Kingsborough community, the firm’s website and county records show.

The 126 acres earmarked for Mabrey Meadows occupies the northeast corner of that now roughly 600-acre parcel, sided by County Road 261 and FM 2932.

The last big land purchase Walton made in North Texas was for 141 acres with D.R. Horton in January of last year in the town of Rhome in Wise County, north of Fort Worth. That deal was also made through Walton’s Builder Land Financing Fund, which acquires land upfront and secures future purchase commitments from developers, according to its website.

More recently, Walton has been shedding Texas holdings. Last month, it sold 126 acres south of Dallas, part of a 400-acre community expected to deliver over 800 homes. In December, the firm offloaded 930 acres in three massive land deals in the Austin, San Marcos and Fort Worth areas. And in December 2023, it sold 129 acres in the Collin County town of Princeton to Tesacom Real Estate.

Texas homebuilding surged last year, with single-family permits reaching over 360,000 by October — trailing only the pandemic-era boom years of 2021 and 2022 — driven by stabilizing mortgage rates and persistent demand, especially in DFW and Houston, according to Texas A&M University’s Texas Real Estate Research Center. Texas is the national leader in permit output, but construction costs slightly eroded its affordability edge; the average permit value rose from $221,000 in 2020 to over $290,500 last year.

Texas’ economic growth and relative affordability are expected to drive more buyers to the state, Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com, said last month. Dallas’ median home price rose 2.6 percent year-over-year to $395,000 in January, for example, while nationally, the median home price rose 4 percent in the same period to about $418,500, according to Redfin.