Best 'burbs

2 family-friendly Dallas suburbs unlock top spots as best cities to live in U.S.

Plano has been named one of the best cities to live in America.

Two bustling Dallas suburbs have earned top-15 spots on a new list of the Best Cities to Live in America. And they are ... drumroll, please ... Plano, at No. 7, and Richardson, at No. 12.

Just one other Texas city — The Woodlands, outside Houston — shows up on the list, and it tops them all, coming in at No. 1. (Second-place Arlington isn't "our" Arlington; it's the one in Virginia.)

Niche, an online platform that helps people choose schools and places to live, revealed its 2021 Best Cities to Live in America rankings on March 15. Niche generates the rankings by combing through data from the U.S. Census Bureau, FBI, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and sifts through millions of reviews from residents. Among the ranking factors that Niche considers are affordability, housing market, neighborhood diversity, public schools, and walkability.

Plano (which actually came in fifth on last year's list) receives an overall A+ from Niche in 2021. It earns an A+ for family friendliness, jobs, and diversity; an A for nightlife, and health and fitness; an A- for housing; a B+ for weather; a B for commuting; a B- for cost of living and outdoor activities; and a C+ for crime and safety.

On the heels of a recent No. 1-ranking for renters, Plano lands at No. 4 on Niche’s list of the best cities in the U.S. to buy a home, with a median home value of $320,100.

It comes in No. 8 on the list of best cities to raise a family.

“What a great place to live. Plano is filled with stuff to do, great jobs, great parks, and great people. The schools are pretty good, the location is perfect, and the community is wonderful,” a five-star review on Niche says.

Plano sits between No. 6-Ann Arbor, Michigan and No. 8-Columbia, Maryland.

Richardson, which retained its 12th-place ranking from last year, also scores an overall A+ from Niche. It earns an A+ for family friendliness and diversity; an A for public schools, nightlife, and health and fitness; an A- for jobs; a B+ for housing, weather, and commuting; a B for outdoor activities; a B- for cost of living; and a C+ for crime and safety.

Richardson ranks fifth on Niche’s list of the best places to retire in the U.S. and seventh among the best cities to buy a house. Median home value is a mere $274,200.

“Richardson is a great Dallas suburb that has been a great home for my family and I,” a five-star review on Niche says. “We moved here almost 4 years ago and have had the greatest experience possible!”

Richardson sits between Irvine, California at No. 11 and Seattle, Washington at No. 13.

The Woodlands, the 28,000-acre, master-planned community north of Houston, has moved up Niche’s list of the best cities in America in the past couple of years. Now, for the first time ever, it's No. 1.

Overall, The Woodlands earns an A+ from Niche, with the community scoring an A+ for public schools, family friendliness, and jobs; an A- for outdoor activities, housing, and diversity; an A for health and fitness; a B+ for nightlife and weather; a B for commuting; and a B- for cost of living.

“The Woodlands is an ideal place for a family with children, with good schools and plenty of activities for them to do without having to go into Houston,” a five-star Niche review says.

“Most peaceful place to live and work,” another five-star Niche review says of The Woodlands. “Friendly people, beautiful homes, amazing schools, lots of places to go.”

Niche previously ranked The Woodlands second among the best cities to buy a home and the best cities to raise a family, and sixth for best public schools.

The cities that round out the top 5 are: Arlington, Virginia (No. 2), Naperville, Illinois (No. 3), Overland Park, Kansas (No. 4), and Cambridge, Massachusetts (No. 5).

lists home-for-sale rankings

out of reach

This is how long it takes to save for a starter home in Dallas right now

Courtesy of Tri Pointe Homes

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A new national housing affordability report has confirmed something many renters already know: The possibility of owning a home is moving further out of reach for many renters across America.

Becoming a new homeowner is especially challenging for households in several major U.S. metros — including Dallas — where it now takes well over a decade to save enough money for a down payment on a starter home.

These findings were unveiled in a new study from The Julian Bond Institute for Financial Equity Research (JBI), a nonprofit research branch of the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). The report comes as a result of its Project 2050 Survey that analyzed "Americans' financial aspirations across generations and racial groups and the obstacles they encounter in achieving them."

JBI said Americans of all generations, racial backgrounds, and ethnicities haven't given up on "this aspect of the American dream," but the journey towards becoming a homeowner is "grow[ing] exceedingly challenging." In addition to saving for a down payment and closing costs, renters must also navigate high mortgage rates and high home prices. All of these combined factors have pushed monthly payments out of reach for most families.

"There has been much coverage of the difficulty aspiring homeowners face in being able to afford the monthly payments on a home loan," the report said. "But less attention has been given to an equally important part of the housing affordability squeeze: The impact that higher home prices and the affordability crisis are having on the ability of families to save enough money to afford the upfront costs of homeownership."

Using the results from a previous 2019 survey and the most recent survey results, JBI examined how many years it would take a typical renter family to save enough money to cover a down payment and closing costs for a starter home in the U.S. and in its 10 biggest metros.

The report found that it now takes the typical Dallas renter household 12 years to save for a starter home in 2026, up from 7 years in 2019. And Dallas technically appears on the lower end of the spectrum out of the 10 biggest U.S. metros.

"Although there is some variation across these areas, even in Houston — where the years to save is the lowest — it would take the typical aspiring homeowner 11 years to save enough money to purchase a starter home," the report said. "At the opposite end of the spectrum, in Los Angeles, it would take 24 years. And in all these areas, there has been a sizable increase in the number of years required to save since 2019."

For the typical American household, it now takes 16 years to save for a starter home, a figure that has doubled since 2019. That's based on an American median renter household income of $57,991, and an estimated saving rate of 2.63 percent. The report defines the saving rate as the percentage of a family’s income that can be set aside for the purchase of a home after expenditures, assuming that aspiring homeowner families can devote 75 percent of their savings toward a home purchase.

"[This] translates to annual savings of roughly $1,525," the report found. "For such a family, it would take 16 years to accumulate enough savings to purchase a starter home [at the median price of $335,574]."

Renter households that made $42,750 in income at a 3.96 saving rate would result in $1,693 saved for the purchase of a home in 2019. By those metrics, it would take the typical renter household eight years to save for a starter home at the 2019 median price of $217,520.

This is how many years it takes to save for a starter home in the 10 biggest U.S. metros compared to 2019, from longest to shortest:

Los Angeles: 24 years, up from 14 years in 2019
New York City: 23 years, up from 10 years
Miami: 22 years, up from 10 years
Washington, D.C.: 16 years, up from 8 years
Chicago: 15 years, up from 8 years
Philadelphia: 15 years, up from 8 years
Phoenix: 15 years, up from 8 years
Atlanta: 13 years, up from 7 years
Dallas: 12 years, up from 7 years
Houston: 11 years, up from 8 years

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