North Dallas Suburbs - Primary Residence/ Investment

[Dev Khosla]

Hi Everyone, 

We are planning to sell our home in Florida with about $130K in hand after the sale and move to Dallas with a target property range of 350K-450K. This will be a mixed investment and primary home situation that we intend to stay in at-least 5-10 years if not more. We will be looking for the highest rated school so it restricts us to north suburbs. Location is not an issue as long as I am 1.5 hours drive from DFW Airport. 

Q1: If you can suggest very specific areas in suburbs (Frisco etc) that fit the bill of a long term investor/primary residence where the market may not have peaked yet.

Q2: My other big concern is that I will be buying retail value at the top of the market. Does anyone here have a gloomy outlook that we may loose 20-30% market value over current prices during to sudden inflation that resembles the curve of previous crash? The reason I ask is to see if I should buy a more expensive home using all my cash $130 or hold back some and go for a 15 year loan instead of 30 years and keep some as contingency. 

Dave in FL

[Andrew Postell]

@Dev Khosla I would recommend rethinking your price point of a rental home here.  The average price of a home in DFW is about $280k.  A $450k home would significantly limit your rental ability in DFW.  Especially in the suburbs.  Most renters fall into the $150k-$200k threshold.  Buying a home as your primary home at $450k is fine if it benefits your family but no metrics we have here show that you will have a good selection of renters at that price point....unless you significantly reduce your rent amount....which isn't what we want to do.  If you are looking for the top rated school districts then you can broaden your scope to other places besides North Dallas.  Aledo, for example, is a top 10 school here and is West of Fort Worth. It fits the 1.5 hour drive you were looking for and very well might be a good market to fit your Q1.  But we have been on a 6 year 9% return on value here in DFW on houses.  With one exception...homes over $400k.  Those have really slowed in value over the past 12 months and a lot of metrics are showing the value is 0% in that period.  There's no guarantees in life but Texas has been on a rise for about 40 years now.  We have double our population in that time and 90% of that growth occurred within 50 miles of I-35.  If you are looking to get "value" we are still a great place.  We are the 4th largest metropolitan area in the country now...NYC, LA, Chicago...and then DFW.  And none of those other cities can brag about an average home price of $280k.  We are still a great value.  I hope some of this information was helpful.  Feel free to ask additional questions if needed. Thanks!