Do the Math

Here's the salary needed to afford a home in Dallas

5823 Richmond Ave. Dallas home for sale exterior

Don't forget about property taxes when pricing your dream home.

Photo courtesy of Keller Williams

We know how many hours it takes to pay the rent in Dallas, but what sort of salary do you need if you want to buy a house? SmartAsset has the answer for Big D and three other Texas cities, based on its determination of a typical total monthly payment that includes mortgage, taxes, and homeowners insurance.

Gathering data from the U.S. Census Bureau and using the median home value in each of the 15 cities it studied, the personal finance website operated under the assumption that prospective homebuyers would pay 20 percent down on a 30-year-mortgage with a four percent interest rate. Things like an annual home value increase of two percent, annual inflation of two percent, and homeowners insurance at a rate of 0.5 percent were also included in the math.

Dallas can thank its affordable homes for its No. 8 ranking and a suggested necessary salary of only $27,505. To pay off a home that costs a median $135,400, Dallasites need only shell out a monthly payment of $825.

With similar numbers, No. 9 Houston suggests homeowners can get by on a $27,067 salary. The average Houston household earns $46,000 a year, however, meaning that affording the monthly $812 is probably not that much of a reach.

Austin homeowners should be especially cognizant of property taxes, as it's those pesky payments (some of the highest in the study) that greatly up the salary required for a home there. The real estate taxes on a home worth $240,000 in Austin (the median price) would be higher than the real estate taxes on a $471,000 home in Los Angeles. Monthly payments on the average home in Austin are about $1,426, which sets the yearly suggested salary at $47,523 and puts Austin at No. 6 on the list.

SmartAsset further clarifies how much property taxes impact those looking to buy in Austin, with the example of it taking a salary of $100,000 to afford the payments on a $609,500 home in San Jose (its median). If someone were to buy a home for the same price in Austin, SmartAsset would recommend an income of $128,000 — those real estate taxes in Austin would cost almost $600 a month.

Despite a recent population boom, San Antonio has remained affordable for prospective homebuyers, and that helps land it at No. 13. SmartAsset calculates a salary of $23,529 to afford a median-priced home of $117,000, but don't forget that important lesson about property taxes — they're all pretty high in Texas, and in San Antonio nearly 30 percent of that $706 monthly payment would go toward paying them.

If you're looking to move to San Francisco, better hope you land a well-paying job. It would take at least $128,598 to be able to buy a home there, as the median cost of one is nearly $800,000.

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GP News

Grand Prairie expands to the south with new master-planned community

Rendering courtesy of Provident

Goodland Grand Prairie

The City of Grand Prairie is growing fast and expanding to make way for a new master-planned development south of US Highway 287 and along Tollway 360, in Ellis and Johnson counties.

The community development, called Goodland, is the result of Grand Prairie’s recent 1,500-acre annexation extending its southern border toward Mansfield. Overall, with the added land, Goodland will be a 5,000-acre site featuring 15,000 residences including townhomes, custom homes, and gated communities for 50,000 residents.

According to a release, it will be a “city within a city” and a 45-minute drive from Dallas-Fort Worth. Beyond housing, there will be shops, restaurants, schools, public and private event venues, regional sports fields and complexes, dance halls, churches, trail systems, city parks, ponds, and preserved green spaces.

“This is a significant step in our city’s development,” says Grand Prairie Mayor Ron Jensen in a statement. “Unlike many of our neighboring cities, we have the unique advantage of new development opportunities to our south that will drive the growth and prosperity of our city. We recognized the opportunity and took decisive action.”

Leading the development is Provident, a Dallas-based real estate firm that has created other master-planned communities across Dallas-Fort Worth, such as Preston Hollow Village and Hillstead in Collin County. Provident has plans to work nature into the space design with more than 1,600 acres of creek corridors and floodplain land.

Plans are ongoing for a centralized mixed-use walkable Town Center, complete with civic buildings and other commercial development. Further south on the property near Highway 67, light industrial uses and other private employment campuses are already underway, projects that will contribute vital tax dollars for city growth and future expansions.

“This level of placemaking is quite rare, and certainly not easy to execute, especially in a brand-new community," says Provident Managing Director Rylan Yowell in a statement. "We are committed to a long-term vision with a desire to be good stewards of the land."

A new four-lane road called Goodland Parkway will link Goodland to Grand Prairie at Tollway 360 and US Highway 287. It's set to open by December 2025.

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