Is South Lake worth the price premium? (Fort Worth, Grapevine: transplants, apartments)

[justsomeguy]

What is so great about it?

What would be minimum recommend HH income to afford a decent family home there?

How does Colleyville or Keller or any other nearby areas compare to South Lake?

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by justsomeguy

What is so great about it?

What would be minimum recommend HH income to afford a decent family home there?

How does Colleyville or Keller or any other nearby areas compare to South Lake?

I normally don't get too into suburb vs. suburb discussion since I moved away from DFW a few years ago, but my in-laws live in Southlake, and my wife grew up there and graduated high school there. We're back (in the normal, non-Covid world) at least every couple of months, and almost all of my time is spent there when we're back.

My thoughts:

1. Southlake has changed significantly in the last 15-20 years. It has gone from an upscale but slightly-rural feeling town with a slow pace to a rat race retail spot with real congestion on 1709. Whether this is worth it to you all depends on how much you care about shopping and eating at nice restaurants.

2. Every home there, except for maybe the mobile homes behind the high school, are decent family homes. The question is whether the $550k house built in the 90's that needs some updating meets your criteria, or do you want a $900k crib? Whatever income you need to afford a $550k or $900k home is your answer. To me, that's probably $250k per year on the low end and $400k on the high end, but I'm probably more conservative than most when it comes to the income needed to afford a certain house.

3. Southlake has a lot of spoiled, entitled b*tches. I mean that. It's as close to the Stepford Wives as you will find. My wife opted out of the high school and into a private school because she got tired of being around those kids (the private school was small and not prestigious). It's the land of Lululemon, Mercedes, brunch with the girls and lattes. You probably know whether you like this scene or not.

4. Southlake is insanely safe. You can't really speed through there because the cops have nothing better to do than write speeding tickets. Seriously, the amount of random, serious crime in Southlake has to be very, very close to zero.

5. Most of the things on this list are true about the surrounding suburbs, but Southlake is just wealthier. Keller and Colleyville are not wildly different. Anyone who says otherwise needs to go travel. Keller feels a little slower because it's less-developed, and it's also a little bit less wealthy. Colleyville, while wealthy, isn't as homogeneously wealthy as Southlake, but it's still pretty much the same thing. It's hard to really make big distinctions here because we're looking at several shades of pretty similar grays.


Do you like rich suburbs, high-end shopping and the crowd that flocks to Central Market in their GLK 350s, latte in hand? Do you like very safe, somewhat boring suburbs with mostly white people and rich Asians, including Indians (very, very few black people)? Can you comfortably afford a $550-900k house, depending on your tastes? If so, Southlake is for you, and it might be worth it.

My in-laws lucked out. They don't fit the above description at all, but they bought acreage on one of the most desirable streets in Southlake a couple decades ago for a little over $300k. It's probably worth $1.5 million now. They are well-off enough to build a new house on their land rather than cashing out, so they've decided to stick around instead of moving out to Argyle or similar. My point is simply that, even if you aren't exactly what I described, it's nice to have everything you need right there. I'm not sure I'd pay that premium unless those things really appealed to you, though.

[ChristieP]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

Do you like rich suburbs, high-end shopping and the crowd that flocks to Central Market in their GLK 350s, latte in hand? Do you like very safe, somewhat boring suburbs with mostly white people and rich Asians, including Indians (very, very few black people)? Can you comfortably afford a $550-900k house, depending on your tastes? If so, Southlake is for you, and it might be worth it.

I would also add:
Are you interested in an ISD with one of the winningest high school football programs in the nation, very competitive academics, and a theatre program that produces Broadway-caliber plays?

Speaking as someone who lives next door in Grapevine, this description of Southlake hits it right on the head. Personally, I can’t afford, nor would I have a desire to own, the fancy expensive houses in Southlake. I’m happy to shop at Central Market and Trader Joe’s occasionally, and the Southlake Town Square can also be fun, but the rest of Southlake is out of my league. However, there are many people who really love that lifestyle, and for them, Southlake is perfect.

[tcualum]

We considered moving to Southlake and opted not to for the reasons listed above. There's not much culture or diversity in Southlake so we opted to move to Fort Worth where we take advantage of the cultural offerings and the bigger variety of restaurants. My younger son goes to a private school but I feel that the parents are more down to earth than I'd find in Southlake and the student body is more diverse.

[TheProtege]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUNssEtAwr8


I've worked in Southlake for a few years and try to walk through the neighborhoods during lunch break. Of course this is an exaggeration, but I like to thinks that this video betrays a good number of the residents that I've seen. I still smile at the sight of loads of SUV's in front of the schools in the morning.

[turf3]

Isn't Southlake the one with the fake "urban town center" sitting on a small hill in the middle of three freeways, in a town where nothing else is taller than the water tower?

[mSooner]

Personally I'd choose a home nearby on a large lot in Colleyville zoned to Colleyville-Heritage High, but if you want to be in the thick of things, then Southlake it is.

[4Movingeast]

I live in Colleyville but a fair amount of my patients live in Southlake. Both areas are affluent, good school districts, and not super diverse as far as income. Southlake has more transplants I think. There are great families in both towns but there is just really no income diversity in Southlake. The mom crowd is pretty homogenous in SL whereas over here in Cville there are more 2 parent working families.

Southlake is pretty handy for me in terms of shopping- I like Costco and TJ's. I go to Nordstrom Rack some, and if I need a gift there are some high end boutiques that always have something nice. There's a good sushi place in a kind of generic strip mall funny enough- Sushi Zen.

I think if we would have bought in SL rather than Cville the "Keeping Up" aspect would weigh more heavily. We went through a rough patch where my husband was out of work for a year and we kept going with me adding work days and he had some consulting income but we had to adjust lifestyle. Since we bought at the low end of our budget we have weathered it pretty well although we are behind retirement and college savings goals. If we would have bought in Southlake we would have needed to sell and move and that would have made a hard time harder.

Southlake definitely has a more reasonable mayor- I'll give them that. Don't know a thing about their City Council. Colleyville's local govt is a garbage fire.

[TeamLynn]

Crime is probably pretty low, except for the random cartel murder in the daylight in Southlake Town Center.

[turf3]

Originally Posted by turf3

Isn't Southlake the one with the fake "urban town center" sitting on a small hill in the middle of three freeways, in a town where nothing else is taller than the water tower?

Yep, that's the one.


I think the fake urban town center with its three story buildings and apartments over shops, just like some bubble-ite's fantasy of New York City circa 1925 - all the while sitting out in the middle of the prairie with basically nothing on three sides and a bunch of warehouses and big box stores on the fourth side - pretty much sums up everything there is to know about Southlake.


I can guarantee you the subject matter in conversations you'll have with your neighbors will run the gamut from A to A.