Market Madness

Of course North Texas is home to the best real estate markets in the U.S.

5201 Promise Land Drive Frisco house for sale

Frisco is still the national champ.

Photo courtesy of Keller Williams Realty

While global buyers are saturating the Texas real estate market and Flower Mound is collecting accolades for its stable investor returns, North Texas is busy dominating another list: the most attractive real estate markets in the U.S.

Analysts at personal finance website WalletHub compared 300 cities across 21 key metrics to determine not only tangible assets, such as an area's common square footage and home style, but also historical market trends and the economic health of a city's residents. Those metrics make up two rankings — "real estate market" and "affordability and economic environment" — that look at everything from median home-price appreciation and foreclosure rates to the population growth rate and median credit score. The real estate market rank makes up a whopping 80 percent of the score.

So, who's far and away the winner? Returning champ Frisco, which places No. 1 in both categories and earns a total score of 83 points out of 100. Hot on its heels are McKinney (No. 2) and Allen (No. 3), with Richardson coming in at No. 5 and Carrollton making a showing at No. 8.

Plano has slipped a bit from last year, going from No. 9 down to No. 27, and so has Denton, which takes a big tumble to No. 55 from No. 12. Dallas, meanwhile, is still hovering in somewhat the same range: No. 57 (compared to last year's No. 42).

Perhaps the biggest shift comes from Austin, which in 2016 basked in the No. 5 ranking and this year doesn't show up until No. 68. Fort Worth is similar, dropping from No. 23 to No. 87.

If you want to separate the cities by size, North Texas still comes out on top. McKinney takes the crown as best mid-size city (150,000-300,000 people), and Frisco, Allen, and Richardson hold down the top three for small cities (fewer than 150,000 people). Dallas finally jumps up a bit, landing at No. 11 on the big cities list (more than 300,000 people).

Mesquite gets a shout-out as one of the five cities where it takes the fewest days to sell a house, while Frisco and Allen score points again for having some of the lowest maintenance costs as a percentage of homeowners' income.

You might want to avoid sinking your real-estate dollars into the Northeast, as Connecticut's Hartford and Bridgeport and New Jersey's Elizabeth, Paterson, and Newark all land at the bottom of the list, with Newark ranking dead last in each category.

wallethub lists bests

No Cap

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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