Where would you buy with 600k? (Dallas, Plano: loans, new home, neighborhood)

[avayan]

Originally Posted by throckmorton80

thanks, that was an awesome post!

what do you think about home values, resale and location to amenities in lucas/parker?

Glad was able to offer some insight!


To answer your resale question, please take the next with a grain of salt. My father might have been a real estate agent for decades, but would you trust me with your brain had my father been a brain surgeon? Granted that real estate is no brain surgery...


What I have seen is that homes pretty much anywhere close to 75 sell in days! Lucas, Parker, Fairview, it makes little difference. McKinney, apparently not so much. And Melissa, as well as anything north of this, does not appear to enjoy from this "rule".


In the aforementioned golden zones, however, prices have been going through the roof because of the simple reason that somebody will appreciate the "closedness" to 75, the great school districts and everything else which makes these neighborhoods desirable and agree to pay rates which may have seem demented four years ago. (note that homes in these regions with McKinney ISD seems to be having resale trouble, so you may want to ensure you check this up.)


So can you resale your home easily? Most likely yes! At a profit? Well that depends...


I am parting from the premise that the resale-ability has to do with you being able to recover your investment. Any house is sellable if you give it away for cents on the dollar!


Hence, the reality is it will depend on how long you plan on being there. If it is a year, then of course you may need to take a hit because prices in these regions have gone up considerably already. I hear about 40% in the past 4 years. Will they continue to increase at 10% per year? Most likely not... People seem to think it will whine down a little bit and maybe they will grow something like 5% to 7% if you are lucky. I will be blown away if it actually happens like that, but I will let 2018 prove me right or wrong.


Anyway, if you can stay in the house for at least five years (and there is no collapse in the economy between here and then), then you should be able to sell easily and nicely. But then again, I am no magic ball, or rest assured I would not be here sitting in front of a computer ;-)

[tcualum]

One thing to keep in mind is if where you move seems quiet and rural with lots of empty land then the sprawl will eventually catch up with you. I know plenty of people who experienced that. Back in 2000 my husband and I lived in the Fossil Creek area of Fort Worth (NW820 and I35W). When we moved to FC there were more cows than subdivisions between us and UNT where I was attending grad school. It's much more congested now. When my cousins moved to The Colony it felt like we were in the country when we visited. There's now a Nebraska Furniture Mart in The Colony.

Even if your town somehow prevents greater density in its limits the other towns along your commute may not. This is a big argument in favor of living somewhere like Plano or Richardson even if the housing stock is older.

[Lovejoy_family]

Originally Posted by CREW747

Agreed...We have lived in Prosper for the past 9 years and we have been thrilled with the town in general.If we could do it all over again we would still choose Prosper.I love having easy access to the Tollway and Mc Kinney/Frisco/Plano...but still living far enough away to really feel like I am driving away from all of it if that makes sense.Prosper will always be a 22 square mile town with a build out population of roughly 63,000 people surrounded by much larger cities.That is one of the many reasons we chose it.

If I were the OP I would go with Prosper...

Prosper may be 22 square miles, but Prosper ISD in 58 square miles.

Independent School District Sq. Miles
Lovejoy 19
Allen 29
Melissa 37
Wylie 41
Trenton 47
Prosper 58
Leonard 59
Princeton 60
Blue Ridge 62
Anna 63
Gunter 67
Bland 68
Van Alstyne 69
Whitewright 69
Frisco 72
Royse City 74
Farmersville 86
Community 89
Celina 95
Plano 108
McKinney ISD 109


Plus, Prosper will be stuffed to the gills before the second high school is built.

FAQ / Frequently Asked Questions

[edshaw4947927]

Frisco, TX - Official Website | Official Website Home Page
I don't know the details of school bonding.
This is a town that is attracting a lot of upscale, well-informed, people.
I wouldn't worry about Frisco running out of cash.
It's, like, the 7th most desirable city in the entire USA to live, in recent surveys.
Like I say, rent, first.

[UnfairPark]

Originally Posted by edshaw4947927

Frisco, TX - Official Website | Official Website Home Page
I don't know the details of school bonding.
This is a town that is attracting a lot of upscale, well-informed, people.
I wouldn't worry about Frisco running out of cash.
It's, like, the 7th most desirable city in the entire USA to live, in recent surveys.
Like I say, rent, first.

Read up. It's a lot of debt and lot of expenses. Something got to give so cutting down corners, rezonning regularly and letting new buildings sit empty because running them is not affordable.

[Allison81]

Have you considered Heath, TX? I love that area

[keribeth818]

Originally Posted by UnfairPark

Read up. It's a lot of debt and lot of expenses. Something got to give so cutting down corners, rezonning regularly and letting new buildings sit empty because running them is not affordable.

This is not an accurate description of what happened, as others have mentioned. Rezoning has to do with the incredible amount of growth in the City and building new schools. Tax base often lags population growth. The district has been opening approximately 4 new schools every year. The ISD bet on the state to fix the expiration of the school funding provision and then expected the tax payers to pick up the tab without any explanation. There were some special interest groups that spread a lot of misleading info while the ISD did nothing to make their case. There's $100 mill in surplus that they are dipping into to cover the loss this year and will make budget modifications for next year. They are hardly hurting for money. The new schools will open in 2018. Prosper is in the exact same boat but without all the media coverage.

Frisco was the fastest growing district in the state last year. Surely there will be growing pains. Meanwhile, they lost $30 mill in state funding and those funds were needed to hire the staff for the 4 new schools, already built and paid for from a separate infrastructure budget. I think they are doing a pretty decent job of maintaining the will of the voters to keep schools small in Frisco despite the unprecedented growth.

[Aceraceae]

Originally Posted by Allison81

Have you considered Heath, TX? I love that area

It is pretty there.

[edshaw4947927]

Originally Posted by UnfairPark

Read up. It's a lot of debt and lot of expenses. Something got to give so cutting down corners, rezonning regularly and letting new buildings sit empty because running them is not affordable.

That's why I would suggest renting. I find especially in the western USA that not telling the truth is completely acceptable. That's why I always suggest investigating to my friends. That way, if the situation was misrepresented, you just wait until the year is up. Moving is a pain, but if you follow that advice, it is almost certain that your ultimate choice would not be the first one you had though it was going to be.
You listen to someone, take their word, and later find out the comments were made to steer you
into an area they had interest in. Happens more often than not. The reasons this culture developed are very clear, but beyond the scope of this.
The fact a town voted down a school bond issue is not a negative in my book. It might be an indication the people are paying attention. I do know that my friends are very happy to have chosen Frisco. The mixed signal I am getting is one person says the town is on the rocks financially, and another says people are buying in droves.

[UnfairPark]

No one is saying that its a bad district or going belly up next year. Just telling to be careful and not believe everything you hear. When there is a lot of money involved, lot of people's interests are at stake and from subtle marketing to exxegerated news come into action. People paint things in color rosier than they should. You may want to think of tobacco companies.