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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Real Estate and Landlording => Topic started by: gillamnstr on August 05, 2017, 08:59:20 AM

Title: Which town/burb to move to on North Side of Dallas???
Post by: gillamnstr on August 05, 2017, 08:59:20 AM
Cool opportunity for me and Mr. Gillamnstr!

Husband got a new job that takes him around to small towns all over Texas. The company he works for recommend he eventually move to "north side of Dallas somewhere". I have to fly to work on occasion - but not enough to justify a specific location.

We're coming from not-Texas and know absolutely nothing about Dallas real estate.

Here's what we're looking for roughly:
-2 bedroom
-duplex or something we could partially rent out
-I've had a long-standing dream of living close to a Trader Joe's

Any recommendations on communities/towns that aren't crazy expensive in that area I should check out? I haven't had a lot of luck on Zillow.

Appreciate it greatly!!!
Title: Re: Which town/burb to move to on North Side of Dallas???
Post by: Psychstache on August 05, 2017, 09:07:17 AM
There are some great places, but they definitely don't fall into the not expensive category. There are about 200 jobs a day being added to the DFW area and housing construction is not keeping up. As a refence point, DW and I bought our house about 4 years ago, and it has appreciated about 50-60% in that time.

If you are interested in the north side of town, I recommend Richardson or Plano. If you want to be further up north, Allen is nice too. Frisco is a bit of a mess local gov wise and every neighborhood has an HOA which sucks.

Duplexes are hard to come by in most of the 'nicer' parts of the city. Since the only big advantage Texas has is that there is lots of land, SFR are the norm. Most of the duplexes I know about are in the 'shady parts of town' (aka generally safe and fine, but inhabited by lots of working class minorities).

What area of Dallas will y'all be working in? Do you have school age kids?
Title: Re: Which town/burb to move to on North Side of Dallas???
Post by: GizmoTX on August 05, 2017, 12:55:03 PM
We've lived in the 'north side of Dallas' for the last 46 years. Plan on driving everywhere. Suggest you rent for the first year, either a townhouse apartment or house, since you specify 2 bedrooms. Most houses have 3+.

Carrollton/Farmers Branch is closer to DFW airport than the other north suburbs mentioned yet you will also be reasonably close to Love Field/Southwest as well. We're currently in 'far north Dallas' which is adjacent to Richardson, Addison, & just south of Plano, all good suburbs. Housing prices there reflect the good quality of the schools & the rising value of the land. North Dallas is experiencing tear downs & flipping.   

There's a Trader Joe's 2 miles south of us at Belt Line & Preston Rd, another in south Plano at Preston & Park. There's another at Walnut Hill & Central Expressway, which is south of LBJ expressway; while this is north Dallas, anything north of LBJ is considered far north & delineates the suburbs.
Title: Re: Which town/burb to move to on North Side of Dallas???
Post by: jtraggie99 on August 07, 2017, 02:04:50 PM
Where are you moving from?  Define crazy expensive?  Do you have kids?

I live in north Dallas (actual Dallas city limits), but just south of Plano, and I'm in Plano schools (have 2 kids of my own).  This part of town and west Plano can get crazy expensive, compared to what it use to be.  But, tons of people are moving to north Dallas, Plano, Frisco, etc from the coasts where housing really is crazy expensive, and this area is probably a bargain for them.  I think I saw the other day that the west Plano zip codes median home prices are now over 300K on the low end and push well over 400K at the higher end.  That's median, but you would be hard pressed to find hardly anything under 300K.  You won't find 2 bedroom homes, so your most likely bet is to rent, if that is what you want.  Condo's tend to be sparse in this part of town, but some areas you can find them would be Addison or around the Shops at Legacy (far north west Plano, almost Frisco).  Most of the schools in this area are fairly solid, although the older parts of east Plano, not so much. 

Lastly, Love Field airport is pretty easy to get to from this side of town.  It's a straight shot down the north Dallas tollway.  Yes, traffic can really suck on there (actually it sucks every where around here now, this coming from someone who lived a few years in Los Angeles and knows what really traffic is like), but they are in the process of expanding a lot of it to help with the traffic congestion.