Two years ago, I sat in Northern California with a laptop open trying to figure out which North Texas suburb to move my wife and son to. I had never stepped foot in McKinney before. I had never even heard of Celina, Melissa, or Van Alstyne. I made the decision off Google Maps and a whole lot of guessing.

Since that move, I've toured about every new construction community between McKinney and the Grayson County line. I know exactly what I'd do differently now. I know what I'd pick if I were younger, if I had a bigger family, or if I were buying my first home. And I know the real numbers behind each one, median prices, year-over-year drops, days to pending, and the tax districts that can add hundreds of dollars to your monthly payment without warning.

In this article, I'm going to walk you through the town I chose and what it's really like to live here. Then I'll tell you where I'd buy today if I were starting over, and which suburbs work best depending on your budget, commute, and whether you want a master-planned lagoon or five acres with no neighbors.

Table of Contents

• McKinney: Downtown Character and Established Neighborhoods
• Frisco: Jobs, Nightlife, and Corporate Campuses
• Prosper: Master-Planned Communities and Amenity Centers
• Celina: Builder Incentives and the Best Value in North Texas Right Now
• Anna, Melissa, and Van Alstyne: Space, Acreage, and No HOA
• Which North Texas Suburb Fits Your Priorities
• Conclusion

McKinney: Downtown Character and Established Neighborhoods

I live in McKinney, about 30 miles straight north of downtown Dallas, right off Highway 75. The median home sold for $504,000 in May according to Redfin, down 3.4% from a year ago. Zillow puts the typical home value at $515,000, down 3.9% over the last year. Homes are going pending in roughly 12 days.

When my wife and I were still in Northern California, we had a spreadsheet going. Frisco was on it. Plano was on it. Allen was on it. But every time we looked at photos of those places, everything looked the same, nice, brand new, and completely interchangeable. McKinney had something the others didn't. It had an actual downtown, a real courthouse square with brick streets, a hardware store that had been there forever, restaurants with patios, live music on the weekends. It didn't feel like it was built by a developer in 2019 because most of it wasn't.

I live on the west side of McKinney in the El Dorado neighborhood, a beautiful established area where everyone knows each other and you're right off the El Dorado Country Club golf course. Here's how the town breaks down. West McKinney closer to Custer and Stonebridge is the more established side, bigger trees, homes from the 2000s, Craig Ranch over on the southwest corner, the golf course, and all the trails. East McKinney off Highway 75 is older and more affordable. North of 380, places like Trinity Falls, is where most of the new construction is going up right now.

The commute was the other piece for us. From McKinney, I can be in Frisco in 20 minutes, in Plano in 25 minutes, to the DFW Airport in roughly 45 minutes with no traffic. When you're relocating, you don't always know where you'll end up working. That flexibility matters more than you'd think one day.

Now let me tell you what I don't love about McKinney. Number one, McKinney is not cheap anymore. At the median price of $504,000, you are paying for an established suburb price. If you're coming from California, that still feels like a bargain. I remember that feeling. But if you're moving here from inside DFW or from Oklahoma or Arkansas on a tighter budget, McKinney is going to be a stretch. Anna or Melissa won't.

Number two, values have gone down, not up. Redfin has the median price down 3.4% over the year and Zillow has it at 3.9%. So if you're buying here and expecting homes to be worth 15% more in a year, the recent data doesn't support it. What I will say is the demand has not disappeared. It's just no longer a market where anything sells for what you ask.

Number three, traffic on 380. The stretch of 380 across the top of McKinney has been under construction for what feels like my entire time here. If you buy north of 380 and work south of it, you're going to sit in that. It's manageable, but nobody mentions it in the listing photos.

Number four, property taxes. Texas has no state income tax, which everyone knows. What people don't factor in is MUD or PID. Those are special districts that pay for the roads, water lines, and infrastructure of all the brand new neighborhoods. A lot of these newer communities sit inside one. When that happens, your tax rate is higher than the neighborhood two miles down the road, and it shows up in your monthly payment every single month for years. This is the number one thing I check before I let a client fall in love with a house. Two homes at the exact same price could have monthly payments hundreds of dollars apart purely because of which district they sit in.

Frisco: Jobs, Nightlife, and Corporate Campuses

Where I live isn't where I'd tell my 26-year-old self to go. If I were single in my 20s working in tech or corporate and I wanted to actually have something to do on a Friday night, I'd probably be in Frisco.

Frisco has the highest concentration of jobs and nightlife anywhere in the northern suburbs. The Star is there, which is the Dallas Cowboys headquarters, and around it there's a whole district of restaurants and bars. Legacy West is about 10 minutes south with more of the same. Toyota, Liberty Mutual, and JP Morgan all have big campuses down there off the North Dallas Tollway. So if you're relocating for a corporate job in North Texas, odds are you'll be working within 15 minutes of Frisco anyways. What that means practically is you can live close to work, which in DFW is worth a lot.

Here's the honest part: Frisco is expensive. The median sales price in Frisco was $687,000 in May according to Redfin, down 1.5% from last year. Zillow has the average value at $673,000, down 2.7%. Homes there are going pending in about 8 days.

So how does a young professional make that work? Two ways. I see it done all the time. You buy an older, smaller home in East Frisco off Preston or Legacy. Prices there are lower than on the newer western side. Or you buy in a townhome community and accept less square footage in exchange for location.

What I tell you not to do is buy the biggest home in Frisco you can technically qualify for. I've watched people do that and then they're house poor at 28 with nothing left to actually enjoy in the town they moved to.

Prosper: Master-Planned Communities and Amenity Centers

Say I were buying today with a bigger family and more kids and I wanted the whole master-planned community experience where you never really have to leave the neighborhood. I'd look hard at Prosper.

Prosper sits just north of Frisco, west of McKinney, mostly along Preston Road. It's the one that gets described as the country club version of North Texas, and honestly, that's not far off. The draw is the master-planned communities. Windsong Ranch is the one everyone knows, and the reason it's famous is its lagoon, a five-acre crystal-clear swimming pool in the middle of the neighborhood with a beach, paddleboards, the whole thing. There's also Star Trail and Ladera for folks who want single-family homes with the yard work handled.

The communities themselves are built around the amenity center, pools, trails, a fitness center, food trucks on certain nights, neighborhood events year-round. If you're relocating from out of state and you don't know a single person here, that structure generally helps.

Now the numbers. Prosper is the most expensive town I'm covering. Redfin has the median sales price at $869,000 in May, down 3.4% year over year. Zillow puts the typical value around $789,000, down 5.8% over the past year. Homes are going pending in roughly 18 days.

In Windsong Ranch specifically, Redfin shows the median price at about $798,000. That's down 10.4% from the year before. Homes there are taking 118 days to sell compared to 75 days the year prior. So read that carefully, prices came down and homes are sitting twice as long. That means you've got more room to negotiate as a buyer than you had a year ago, which is exactly the point most people miss about Prosper.

Celina: Builder Incentives and the Best Value in North Texas Right Now

If you handed me my 2024 budget back and told me to pick again right now knowing everything I know two years in, I'd buy in Celina.

Celina is directly north of Prosper, straight up Preston Road. It's got a genuine old downtown square with a courthouse, local restaurants, and Friday Night Football, then a ring of brand new construction going up around it in every direction.

Here's why it's my pick. The median sales price in Celina was $495,000 in May according to Redfin. That's down 11% from a year ago. Zillow has the average value at $529,000, down 9.9% over the past year. Compare that to what I just told you, Frisco at $687,000, Prosper at $869,000. Celina is under $500,000 and it dropped harder than any of them.

I'm not going to sit here and predict the future because nobody can, but I'll tell you what that means practically. Builders in Celina right now are competing hard for buyers. And when builders compete, you get incentives, rate buydowns, closing cost help, appliance packages, blinds and fencing thrown in. I've walked buyers into brand new homes where the incentive package was more than $30,000.

With new construction, the sticker price is only half of the conversation. The incentive is the other half, and it changes month to month depending on what the builder needs to close out. This is why I run the monthly payment out loud on camera in most of my videos. Take a $520,000 home with a 4.99% intro rate and $20,000 in closing cost credit. That can cost you less per month than a $460,000 resale down the road. You will never figure that out from Zillow.

Celina is also where the tax district question matters the most because so much of it is brand new. Two communities a mile apart can have a very different tax rate. I check that before we walk into any model home.

One last thing I really want you to take from this: do not walk into a builder's model home by yourself. Do not sign in at the front desk before you've talked to an agent. Once you register on your own, it's very hard to bring representation afterwards. The builder sales rep works for the builder. That's their job. You want somebody on your side of the table running the numbers with you, and it costs you nothing to have that.

Anna, Melissa, and Van Alstyne: Space, Acreage, and No HOA

Some of the best conversations I have are with people who tell me they don't want any of it, no HOA, no amenity center, no neighbor 12 feet from their kitchen window. If that's you, I'd be looking north, Anna, Melissa, and Van Alstyne.

From McKinney, you get on Highway 75 and head north. Melissa is first, about 10 minutes up, then Anna , then Van Alstyne , which is actually just over the line into Grayson County. All three sit on the same highway, so you're on a straight road back down to McKinney, Allen, and Plano.

What you get there is space, real acreage, and properties where you're not sharing a fence line with anybody. Melissa has grown fast and it has its own school district and its own downtown area and a lot of newer construction going up around it. Van Alstyne is the smallest and most rural of the three. It feels like a small town in a way that McKinney did about 20 years ago.

The trade-off is straightforward. You're trading commute time for land and price. From Van Alstyne, realistically 45 minutes to an hour to the Plano job corridor depending on the time of day. And your dining and shopping options are thinner. You'll drive into McKinney for most of it. But if you're remote or your job is north, that math can work really well. Prices up this corridor are the lowest of anywhere I cover.

Which North Texas Suburb Fits Your Priorities

Here's how I'd break down the decision if you're relocating to North Texas and trying to figure out where to land.

Choose McKinney if you want an established suburb with an actual downtown, bigger trees, and a central location for commuting. You'll pay $504,000 median, and you'll need to check MUD and PID districts carefully because they can add hundreds to your monthly payment. West McKinney near Custer and Stonebridge is more established. East McKinney off Highway 75 is older and more affordable. North of 380 is where most of the new construction is going up.

Choose Frisco if you're single or in your 20s working in tech or corporate and you want nightlife and restaurants within 10 minutes. The median is $687,000, but you can make it work by buying an older, smaller home in East Frisco off Preston or Legacy, or by buying a townhome and accepting less square footage for location. Do not max out your budget and end up house poor.

Choose Prosper if you have a bigger family and you want the whole master-planned community experience, lagoons, pools, trails, fitness centers, food trucks, and neighborhood events year-round. The median is $869,000, the most expensive on this list. Windsong Ranch is down 10.4% year over year and homes are taking 118 days to sell, so you've got more room to negotiate than you did a year ago.

Choose Celina if you want the best value in North Texas right now. The median is $495,000, down 11% from a year ago. Builders are competing hard, and I've seen incentive packages over $30,000 with rate buydowns, closing cost help, appliances, blinds, and fencing. A $520,000 home with a strong incentive package can cost less per month than a $460,000 resale. Check tax districts before you fall in love with a floor plan.

Choose Anna, Melissa, or Van Alstyne if you don't want an HOA, you want space and acreage, and you're willing to trade commute time for land and lower prices. From Van Alstyne, you're looking at 45 minutes to an hour to Plano. Your dining and shopping options are thinner, and you'll drive into McKinney for most of it. But if you're remote or your job is north, this is the lowest-priced corridor I cover.

Conclusion

I live in McKinney. I love it. It's still down 3.4% from last year. But if I were writing my first offer in North Texas tomorrow, I'd be looking in Celina because that's where the builder incentives are the strongest right now.

That tax district question I mentioned earlier, MUD and PID districts, is exactly the kind of thing you can't figure out from a listing website, and it's different in every one of these towns. Get that wrong and it's a few hundred dollars a month, every month, for as long as you own the home on a 30-year note. That's real money you never planned for.

If you're serious about moving to North Texas, download my North Texas relocation guide. The link is in the description. Tell me what your budget is, your timeline, where you'd like to be commuting to, and I'll send you back a short list of communities that actually fit with real monthly payments and tax rates included.

I've made this exact move myself. I run the monthly payment before you fall in love with a floor plan. Call or text me directly at 214-326-2323 or book a 30-minute call using the Calendly link in the description and we'll map out your shortlist together.