YouBet said:

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AggieFrog said:

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That's a pretty large house for a first home (bigger than anything we've had yet for our family of 5).

I haven't lived in Dallas County for years - what he wants is definitely still doable in new builds out west of Fort Worth. Our new build is in that price range in Aledo (2,700 sq. ft, 4 bedroom / 3 bath / 3 car garage on a 10,000 sq. ft lot).

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Problem with Dallas County is school property taxes. Our taxes are as much as our mortgage.

I do not recommend.

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Which school district? The average Dallas County rate is a little lower than Collin County.

Super generalized advice: try to avoid south of 183 and grapevine is the way.

knoxtom said:

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Most people I know looking for 450k go to Sunnyvale, Forney, or Royse City. You can't really find 450k in the northern suburbs anymore. I don't even think you can get into little elm in the 450s anymore.

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This is true based on our recent search. We sold our 2300 sqft home in north Carrollton for $500kish and likely could get another 10% today.

You're going to have to go out fairly far to get upper 2k sqft for 550k or less.

Surely you guys are solely speaking of homes that are new or have newer updates. I'd think one that's not recently updated (the horror!) would be significantly cheaper.

double aught said:

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Surely you guys are solely speaking of homes that are new or have newer updates. I'd think one that's not recently updated (the horror!) would be significantly cheaper.

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I can't speak for the burbs but it almost doesn't matter here inside 635. Age of home is irrelevant. Having updates or not is much more relevant, obviously, but even then people are paying top dollar and then either gutting it or scraping it before they move in.

A few listings pop up now and then around 450-460 in The Shores in Rockwall (typically around 2700sq ft, 3 or 4 bed, 2.5 bath on smaller lots) but have no idea of the actual contract price. Fate would be another option not as far out as Royse City but beware I30 can be a nightmare and the improvement project from Bass Pro to the Hunt County line has started in earnest between Bass Pro and Dalrock.

As alluded to above, the property taxes in Dallas and Tarrant counties are higher than everyone else's because you are paying for all of the big-city stuff (even if you live in a burb like we do), including the indigent hospitals, community colleges and bridge funds.

I'm in Wylie and our school taxes are 1.46. Since we moved here in 2003 we have ranged between 1.39 up to 1.82. I'm a CPA nerd and have a spreadsheet.

Have him watch Wylie, Murphy and Nevada. He may have to go to Royse City, Fate or Forney. Tough times...guess he could also look at Melissa.

We just built in Heath for ~500k on the golf course.

Updates are irrelevant but ours was fairly updated and built in 2004. For comparison, little brother just sold his 2k sqft house in highland village, built in the 80s, needs kitchen updates, for $510k. That sale closed a week ago.

Looks like Cody just listed this one. https://ntrdd.mlsmatrix.com/matrix/shared/x1B8dFtXC8c/2181CarmelDrive

You can still get houses in that range in the Lake Highlands area (Dallas, but RISD). They'll be smaller and older though.