Last spring I drove out to a new subdivision just past the tollway in Frisco — one of those master-planned situations where the model homes have better landscaping than my entire block in East Austin. The sales agent was cheerful, the traffic was steady, and there was a whiteboard near the entrance listing “move-in ready” homes starting somewhere around $420,000. That number felt almost reasonable by Frisco standards. Then I asked about taxes.

That’s usually where the conversation gets uncomfortable.

What “Builder Strength” Actually Looks Like on the Ground

When the national housing trade groups talk about builder confidence being up in DFW, they’re not wrong, exactly. There are cranes. There are new model home parks along 380 in Celina and out toward Forney on Highway 80. Pulte, D.R. Horton, and a handful of smaller regional builders have been moving dirt.

But strength for a builder and affordability for a buyer are two different ledgers that don’t always add up the same way.

Builders are pulling permits and reporting closings, which makes their numbers look good. What those numbers don’t always surface is how many of those closings required mortgage rate buydowns, closing cost credits, or other concessions that quietly shaved the effective price without touching the list price. A house sold at $389,000 with a 2-1 buydown paid by the builder is not the same transaction as a house that sold at $389,000 clean. Not for a buyer trying to plan their next five years.

The Tax Rate Is Doing a Lot of Heavy Lifting Here

One thing I keep coming back to with DFW is the property tax situation. Texas has no state income tax, and that’s real money — I’m not dismissing it. But some of these newer suburbs are running combined tax rates of somewhere around 2.4% to 2.8% of assessed value, which is steep when you stack it against a home that’s already pushing $400,000.

On a $410,000 house in certain Collin County MUDs, you could be looking at $9,500 to $11,000 a year in property taxes before your insurance even shows up. That’s $800 or more a month on top of a principal and interest payment that, at current rates, is already stretching budgets.

And the MUD fees — the Municipal Utility Districts — add another layer that first-time buyers sometimes don’t notice until they’re reviewing their closing disclosure. I’ve seen buyers surprised by this at the table. It’s worth asking about explicitly before you fall in love with a floor plan.

Who’s Actually Buying, and Who’s Getting Priced Out

The buyers who seem to be making it work in the new construction suburbs right now tend to fall into a few buckets:

  • Dual-income households earning combined somewhere around $130,000 or more
  • Buyers relocating from higher-cost states (California, New York, Illinois) where DFW prices still feel like a discount
  • Investors and small landlords, though that group has pulled back some compared to 2021–2022
  • Move-up buyers who already have equity from a previous Texas home to bring to the table

First-time buyers who grew up in the Metroplex and are trying to stay close to family in, say, southern Dallas County or the older parts of Tarrant County — they’re getting squeezed from both ends. Older resale inventory in those areas has barely budged on price, and the new stuff is built where the land is cheap, which means longer commutes and higher tax rates.

There’s a real tension building there, and it’s not unique to DFW, but this market has always prided itself on being the “affordable” alternative to the coasts. That story is fraying at the edges. The connection between new density and affordability is more complicated than it looks in practice, and DFW is proving that out in real time.

Days on Market Are Telling a Story Too

As of recent data I’ve been watching, days on market in parts of North Texas that were trading at 15 to 20 days in 2022 have crept up to somewhere in the 45 to 65 day range, depending on the submarket. That’s not a collapse. But it’s a shift.

When a house sits, a builder has carrying costs. When a resale sits, a seller gets antsy. Both of those conditions eventually produce negotiation room — which is something buyers haven’t had much of in this market for years. It’s starting to come back, unevenly, block by block.

I’d also keep an eye on the foreclosure picture. FHA and VA loan stress has been pushing foreclosure numbers up across Sun Belt markets including DFW, and that inventory, when it surfaces, tends to hit the lower price points first — which matters a lot for first-time buyer affordability.

What to Actually Do With This If You’re a Buyer

If you’re trying to buy in DFW right now, here’s what I’d tell a friend over coffee:

  1. Get the full payment number first, not just the price. Run the actual taxes for that specific address — not the county average, not what the sales agent quotes from memory. Look up the MUD district, the school district levy, everything.

  2. Ask the builder directly what concessions are on the table. Rate buydowns, closing cost assistance, appliance packages — these are real money and they’re more negotiable than the list price right now in many communities.

  3. Don’t skip the inspection because it’s new construction. Seriously. New doesn’t mean perfect, and in a market where builders are moving fast, mistakes happen. Understand your rights around the inspection period before you sign anything.

  4. Run your number at today’s rate, not a hoped-for future rate. Rates may come down. They may not come down on your timeline. Buy a house you can afford at the rate you can actually get today.

The DFW market isn’t broken. Builders are building, and people are buying. But “the market is strong” and “this is a good time for you personally to buy” are not the same sentence, and right now more than ever, the difference matters.