Safety First

2 Dallas neighbors top list of safest cities for new homeowners

McKinney and Frisco are rated among the five safest on the list.

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Roughly 15 miles separate two fast-growing Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs, McKinney and Frisco. Yet they share highly coveted territory in the safety department.

Home security system company Vivint has put McKinney at No. 2 and Frisco at No. 4 in its ranking of the safest U.S. cities for new homeowners.

Vivint analyzed 93 U.S. cities based on 2025 property crime rates, share of homeowners under 35, share of recent movers, and employment of security and fire alarm installers. Property crime rates carried the greatest weight.

McKinney and Frisco both benefited from low rates for property crimes, with McKinney at No. 2 and Frisco at No. 3 in this category. McKinney posted a rate of 680 incidents per 100,000 residents, according to Vivint, and Frisco had a rate of 789.4 incidents per 100,000 residents.

The two suburbs also tied in a few categories, which were based on metro-level data. They ranked No. 12 for employment of security and fire alarm installers; No. 29 in the recent-mover category; and No. 35 in the young-homeowner category.

McKinney and Frisco aren’t strangers to high rankings in safety studies. In 2025, a SmartAsset list of the country’s safest suburbs ranked McKinney at No. 9 and Frisco at No. 10.

Here are the rankings for other North Texas cities in the Vivint study:

Plano ranked 11th
Garland ranked 16th
Irving ranked 18th
Arlington ranked 24th
Fort Worth ranked 28th
Dallas ranked 66th

Vivint ranked Texas' other major metros as follows:

Austin ranked 20th
San Antonio ranked 53rd
Houston ranked 57th

Port St. Lucie, Florida, topped the Vivint list, thanks largely to its No. 1 showing in the category for property crime rates.

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Royal Flip

Chip and Joanna Gaines find buyer for $2.7M Fixer Upper castle in Waco

Photo courtesy of Magnolia

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Texas' king and queen of home renovations, Chip and Joanna Gaines, are done lording over their 136-year-old castle in Waco. The stars of TV’s Fixer Upper have found a buyer for Cottonland Castle, Mansion Global reported. The sale is pending.

The Gaineses listed the 6,176-square-foot castle, in Waco's historic and affluent Castle Heights neighborhood, at nearly $2.7 million. They bought the property in 2019, when it carried a $425,000 price tag.

The castle, with a sandstone and limestone facade, is modeled after a German castle along the Rhine River.

Chip and Joanna Gaines, Fixer Upper Chip and Joanna Gaines are preparing to hand over the keys to their castle. Facebook Magnolia Network

The duo spent several years restoring the castle to revive its original character. That work became the foundation for their six-part 2022 series Fixer Upper: Welcome Home – The Castle. They opened it to the public for guided tours and introduced Magnolia brand tie-ins, like a “Colors of the Castle” paint collection.

“People love things that are nostalgic. They love things that are antique-looking, and I want this place to feel like it did in 1915,” Joanna said during an episode of Fixer Upper. “Whether you walked into the space in 1915 or today, it has that same feeling of history and love and beauty and castle-ship.”

A year after the series aired, the castle failed to sell at auction, according to Mansion Global. It went on the market in June. Amanda Nesbitt of Magnolia Realty, the real estate brokerage founded by the Gaineses, has the listing.

The three-story castle offers “a seamless blend of historic grandeur and modern functionality,” according to the listing.

That grandeur includes millwork, antique tile floors, diamond-paned windows and seven ornate fireplaces. The four-bedroom property features three-and-a-half bathrooms, a formal dining room, a great room, a card room, a library and a conservatory.

All furnishings, accessories and decor “have been thoughtfully curated to complement the home’s design,” the listing says, and are included in the sale.

The castle has a rocky modern history.

Jack Schwan bought the property in 1969 for $50,000, according to the Waco Welcome Center.

Over the years, the Schwan family made many repairs and renovations. The family tried to sell the castle in 1982; they thought it was worth close to $1.25 million following the overhaul. In 1991, the property sold only after a drastic price cut.

“Over the next two decades, the home passed through various owners’ hands and fell into disrepair. Many owners found the castle too large and in need of too much maintenance to be a financially feasible home,” according to the Waco Welcome Center.

The castle sold again in 2014, and a group led by Oxford scholar Dirk Obbink tackled renovation work. The Gaineses bought it five years later, after it had been neglected and abandoned.

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