Real estate news

These Dallas suburbs are the nation's best places to buy a home

Frisco is the No. 2 best city for buying a home, according to WalletHub.

Photo courtesy of Frisco Square

The best places in America to buy a home have something major in common: most are in Dallas-Fort Worth, according to a new study.

WalletHub names plenty of names on its list of best places to buy a home in 2019, but five — Frisco, Denton, McKinney, Carrollton, and Allen — stand above almost 300 other U.S. cities. The personal finance site reviewed the average number of days a home stays on the market, share of newer homes (built between 2010 and 2017), building-permit activity, affordability, population growth, and others metrics for each city.

Frisco is the nation's No. 2 place to buy a home, behind only Boise, Idaho. The bustling suburb earns high marks for its share of newer homes (20.7 percent), building-permit activity (31 unit permits pulled per 1,000 residents), and job (29.8 percent) and population (32.9 percent) growth.

Not far behind are Denton at No. 5, McKinney at No. 6, Carrollton at No. 7, and Allen at No. 9. Their booming populations, share of newer homes, and building-permit activity make each attractive real estate markets. Carrollton and Denton offer a bonus: home values in both cities are projected to increase 3.1 percent and 5 percent, respectively, in the next year, according to the study.

Fort Worth barely misses the top 10, coming in at No. 13 overall and an even more impressive No. 2 among large cities. Cowtown shines with its high share of newer homes, building-permit activity, and population growth. Meanwhile, Dallas takes the No. 24 spot on the large cities list, much better than its 112th overall ranking.

The rest of the top 10 cities are No. 3 Overland Park, Kansas; No. 4 Cary, North Carolina; No. 8 Durham, North Carolina; and No. 10 Fort Wayne, Indiana.

rankings families reports lists wallethub home-for-sale

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Dallas was a top-10 destination for Gen Zers on the move for 2023

Photo by Lance Asper on Unsplash

Who wouldn't want to live in a Gen Z paradise like Dallas?

As Gen Z enters adulthood, many are flocking to the nation's biggest cultural hubs like New York City, Los Angeles — and now Dallas, which had the ninth-highest inflow of Gen Zers in 2023.

Dallas' new reputation as a Gen Z hotspot was unveiled in a recent report by American home improvement brand This Old House, which analyzed migration trends across multiple generations using 2023 U.S. Census Bureau data.

Dallas saw an influx of 13,770 Gen Z residents last year to become the generation's No. 9 most popular city. That's 4,223 more Gen Zers than the net migration rate from 2022, the report found.

Real estate marketplace Zillow seems to agree on a statewide scale, declaring Texas as the No. 1 destination for Gen Zers on the move in 2024.

However, as Gen Z Dallasites may have learned, it's going to take a big bite out of their paychecks to live in such a highly sought after city. A March RentCafe housing cost analysis predicted Gen Z adults living in Dallas are likely to spend over $149,000 on rent by the time they are 30 years old.

While Dallas saw big gains in its Gen Z population last year, many other big cities saw a mass exodus. Plano, for example — which gained 1,295 Gen Z residents in 2022 — lost 4,028 Gen Zers in 2023, the report discovered.

The biggest Gen-Z exodus was in El Paso, with a drop of 5,607 — "a sharp turn from 2022 when the city saw an increase," the report said. "Other cities, including Plano, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; McKinney, Texas; and Wichita, Kansas, are seeing similar declines."

"Gen X, baby boomers, and the Silent Generation are also moving away from major cities, particularly New York City and Washington, D.C.," the report said. "They’re heading to some of the same cities as Gen Z, including Houston and Jacksonville, Florida."

The top 10 cities that gained the most Gen Z residents in 2023 are:

No. 1 – New York City, New York
No. 2 – Los Angeles, California
No. 3 – Houston, Texas
No. 4 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
No. 5 – Chicago, Illinois
No. 6 – San Diego, California
No. 7 – Seattle, Washington
No. 8 – Charlotte, North Carolina
No. 9 – Dallas, Texas
No. 10 – Minneapolis, Minnesota

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Dallas was a top-10 destination for Gen Zers on the move for 2023