Hottest Headlines of 2025

Popular suburbs move into Dallas' hottest real estate headlines of 2025

McKinney scored some accolades in 2025.

Photo courtesy of City of McKinney

Editor's note: As the year comes to a close, we look back at the 10 most-read real estate stories in Dallas for 2025 — including new honors for several local suburbs, market trends, and all-important Walmart news. These are the 10 hottest real estate headlines of 2025 in Dallas:

1. Dallas-Fort Worth suburb blooms as No. 1 best place to live in U.S. One Dallas-area city took the top slot on a list of "the 100 Best Places to Live in 2025." The list — from relocation marketing platform Livability.com — put Flower Mound at No. 1 for its appealing size and affordability. The suburb also claimed the No. 7 spot in a ranking of America's most livable small cities.

2. North Dallas neighbor ranks as No. 1 most affordable city in U.S. A Dallas suburb landed on top of a list of the most affordable places to live: McKinney ranked No. 1 based on its relative cost of living and high median household income.

3. Massive mixed-use development coming to key intersection in McKinney. McKinney is getting a new $1.3 billion mixed-use development. Called Long Branch, it will be a 155-acre project at the northwest corner of US-75 and the future 380 bypass, consisting of housing, retail, office, grocery, and hospitality. The development has 80 acres slated for active development, and will unfold over the next decade in four tracts.

4. Dallas-area suburb ranks as 3rd best place to live in Texas in 2025. The Dallas-Fort Worth mid-city of Coppell has been ranked the third best place to live in Texas in 2025 by rankings and review website Niche.com. The survey determined the best places to live in based on crime rates, public school rankings, the local cost of living, job opportunities, and more using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI, and others.

Coppell, Dallas suburb Coppell was ranked the third-best place to live in Texas for 2025. City of Coppell, TX Municipal Government/Facebook

5. 11 Dallas suburbs soar as fastest-growing U.S. cities in last decade. It's no secret that Dallas-Fort Worth's population is growing faster than most other metros in the U.S., but now several surprising Dallas neighbors have been named among the top 10 fastest-growing suburb nationwide over the last decade. Celina nearly led the nation with an astonishing 314 percent increase in population from 2014 to 2023, according to a growth study by marketplace platform StorageCafe.

6. Dallas neighbor is the No. 1 fastest-growing affordable city in U.S. A national study has declared Texas is home to the most affordable, fast-growing cities in the country, with Dallas suburb Frisco taking the lead at No. 1. Frisco and five more Dallas neighbors ranked high on GoBankingRates.com's list of "50 Most Affordable, Fastest-Growing Cities in 2025."

$Millennials moved to Texas more than any other state in 2019, with Frisco being\na top choice.$ Frisco is the most-affordable, fastest-growing city in the country. Photo by Roger Robinson/Visit Frisco

7. Dallas neighbor beckons movers as top U.S. suburb with small-town feel. Wylie, a city less than 30 miles from downtown Dallas, ranked as the No. 7 most highly sought-after U.S. suburb of 2025 in MoveBuddha's national survey. In addition to being recognized as the 7th most desirable American suburb, Wylie also ranked as the second-most desirable suburb to move to in Texas.

8. 2 Dallas neighbors rank among fastest-growing wealthy suburbs in U.S. Celina and Prosper, two boomtowns north of Dallas, are among the top three fastest growing affluent suburbs in the country. The cities' affluent status was unveiled in a GoBankingRates' study ranking the "30 Fastest-Growing Wealthy Suburbs in America" for 2025.

The Old Celina Park in Celina, Texas Celina is the No. 2 fastest-growing wealthy 'burb in America. Photo courtesy of celina-tx.gov

9. 6 Dallas suburbs make top 10 list of best Texas cities to move to. Advisors at ConsumerAffairs, a customer review and news platform, ranked the 50 most populated Texas cities across five main categories — affordability, safety, economy, health care and education, and quality of life — to determine which were the best places to move to. Each city was given a score out of 100 possible points. Four of the top five best places to move to in Texas are located in Dallas-Fort Worth: Allen (No .1), Frisco (No. 2), Plano (No. 3), and McKinney (No. 4). Two more DFW suburbs, Mansfield (No. 6) and Richardson (No. 10), rounded out the top 10.

10. Booming Celina hits the big time with its first Walmart Supercenter. The city of Celina is getting its first mega Walmart: According to a release, it will be a Walmart Supercenter located at the northwest corner of Preston Road (Highway 289) and the West Outer Loop. The store has been in the works for a few years, but the Celina Economic Development Corporation celebrated the opening in a groundbreaking on April 16.

housing affordability news

Dallas named No. 2 Southern city where homes are becoming more affordable

TREC Dallas Facebook

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A new real estate analysis has revealed housing prices across the Southern United States have seen a major large-scale decline from 2024-2025, with North Texas homebuyers experiencing the second-steepest "price correction" in the region.

Dallas-Fort Worth buyers have a better chance of purchasing an affordable home this year after prices cooled 5.71 percent from 2024-2025, the study found.

Online real estate marketplace Zoocasa compared year-over-year median price changes for single-family homes across 20 cities in the South based on local real estate data. The study also looked at housing affordability in the American West, Midwest, and Northeast.

In Zoocasa's ranking of the Southern cities where affordability is improving the most, Dallas ranked No. 2.

In 2024, the median price for a single-family home in Dallas was nearly $398,000, which has since dropped to $375,000 in 2025. North Texas sellers may not be happy about cooling prices, but it does make housing more attainable for first-time homebuyers.

Better housing prices will surely attract even more new residents to the DFW area, especially when one considers Dallas was the No. 1 destination for movers in 2025, and its suburbs are still booming in popularity.

"Affordability is on the rise across Texas, with major cities seeing significant price corrections," the report said. "Most importantly for buyers, the median home price in each of these cities remains more affordable than the national median."

The national median price of a home in the third quarter of 2025 was $426,800, according to the latest information from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Housing affordability elsewhere in Texas
In Beaumont-Port Arthur (a metro area east of Houston), housing prices have fallen 4.62 percent year-over-year, making it the metro with the No. 5 steepest price correction in the South. Median home prices dropped to $217,000 in 2025, or $10,500 lower than the year before, the report found.

Austin's housing prices fell 2.04 percent during the same time span, landing the Capital City in the No. 9 spot. The median price of a single-family home in Austin fell from $437,925 in 2024 to $429,000 last year.

Houston appeared just outside the top 10, ranking 11th out of 20 Southern cities, with housing prices falling by 1.5 percent during the one-year period. Houston housing prices in 2025 fell to $335,000, or $5,000 lower than the year before.

Surprisingly, San Antonio ranked near the bottom of the list with housing prices increasing by five percent year-over-year. Single-family homes in the Alamo City had a median price just under $300,000 in 2024, which spiked to $315,000 in 2025.

Housing market predictions in 2026
Zoocasa predicts the 2026 U.S. housing market is "poised for a steady revival" since mortgage rates have dipped nearly a full percentage point since this time last year. Current interest rates for a a 30-year mortgage are sitting at 6.16 percent, the study said.

The NAR report additionally found that pending home sales have grown by 2.6 percent year-over-year from 2024.

"Homebuyer momentum is building," said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. "The data shows the strongest performance of the year after accounting for seasonal factors, and the best performance in nearly three years, dating back to February 2023."

The top 10 Southern cities where housing affordability is improving the most in 2026 are:

No. 1 – Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, Florida
No. 2 – Dallas, Texas
No. 3 – Durham, North Carolina
No. 4 – Ocala, Florida
No. 5 – Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas
No. 6 – Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida
No. 7 – Jacksonville, Florida
No. 8 – Atlanta, Georgia
No. 9 – Austin, Texas
No. 10 – Raleigh, North Carolina

dallas real estate housing affordability real estate report housing prices