Solid financial foundation

This Dallas-Fort Worth neighbor ranks among most affordable U.S. suburbs

This three-bedroom home in Everman is listed for just $160,000.

Photo courtesy of Realtor.com

Bummed out about rising home prices in Dallas-Fort Worth? Then you might want to check out the Tarrant County suburb of Everman. Realtor.com just named Everman among the 11 most affordable suburbs in the country’s 11 largest metro areas.

“Everman feels a lot more like a small town than a traditional suburb in sprawling subdivisions,” Realtor.com says. “With just over 6,300 residents, it’s the type of place where you might run into a couple of people you know while filling your gas tank or picking up groceries.”

Realtor.com pegs the median home price in Everman at $183,500. By comparison, the median home price across DFW stood at $265,000 at the end of 2018, according to Texas Realtors.

Buyers in Everman “can get a three-bedroom brick home on a cul-de-sac here for just $150,000,” Realtor.com says. “There are a few destination-stop restaurants, but for entertainment options most folks decamp to nearby Fort Worth, under 20 minutes away, or to Dallas.”

To find the top affordable suburbs, Realtor.com started by looking at suburban ZIP codes in the 11 largest metro areas. Next, it filtered out places with violent crime rates above 50 on an index of 100 from Sperling’s Best Places. Realtor.com also eliminated places where rush-hour commutes to the city centers surpassed one hour. Finally, the website ranked the remaining ZIP codes by median list prices between April 2018 and March 2019.

In the Houston area, Realtor.com gave the suburban nod to Galena Park, where the median home price is listed as $119,300. By contrast, the median price in the Houston area was $235,000 at the end of 2018, according to Texas Realtors.

“Galena Park’s draw is its prime location. It’s just 25 minutes from downtown Houston and a short drive from all of those oil business gigs along the Gulf of Mexico,” Realtor.com says.

“Known for its good school system and family-friendly community, Galena Park offers lots of 1,000- to 2,000-square-foot ranches built in the ’40s and ’50s. That’s a lot smaller than many of the new homes going up around Houston. But with price tags under $130,000, it’s hard to complain.”

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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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