Most affluent Dallas suburbs?

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by Altongirl

Wow I grew up in Dallas -presto hollow area and am amazed at the one upmanship sense from this forum! Long story short I have lived all over in past 20 yrs and moving back to Dallas is getting a ton of house for the $$$$ .

Typical Dallatude at work. Growing up in PH (as I did) you should be familiar with that mindset! Not saying you have it, I certainly don't, but I'm sure you'll have seen a lot of it growing up where we did.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

The average lot size in Plano is .15-.2 acre- outside of a tiny selection of West Plano with "estate sized" lots.

For most affluent parts of the country, that qualifies as "on top of another." The other affluent areas - spare the Park Cities- have larger lot sizes - think Preston Hollow, Lakewood, most of North Dallas, Southlake, Westlake. These areas have 1/3-1/2 acre lots on average and much larger when you have the $$$.

TC not all of this is aimed at you despite the quote.....


I think lot size is an weak metric vis a vis this topic.

I'd also argue about the .15/.2 acre lots size in Plano as average and what that means. I lived in Plano for a lot of years my lot was .33 acres And the house was a small footprint 4,000 ft2 two story. The yield being we had a big (67,000 gallon) pool with a lot of surrounding deck, back porch/deck five oak trees and a lots of grass to boot. I assure you I did not live on an estate. Moreover my neighborhood had 700+ homes not one of them had a .15 acre lot.

The notion that everyone in Plano is broke or a "$40k per year millionaire" is just silly. The notion that lot size has much to do with affluence and quality of life is a similarly silly canard.

[Gravy2012]

What about cedar hill

[hbdwihdh378y9]

Originally Posted by lukeache

Can anybody give me the list of the top 5 most affluent suburbs in Dallas? I am considering a move to Dallas and it would be nice to live in a nice suburb, but I am not really into "nouveau rich" attitudes and BS. Like here in Minneapolis, we have a couple nice "old money" suburbs where life is good, ppl are well off but they dont need to show it off..thats the kind of place I am looking for.

There are no old-money suburbs outside the Dallas city limits, and I count the Park Cities as within Dallas city limits.

[barnabasc]

Old and big money - HP, UP, Preston Hollow and Lakewood. Not Plano.

[BCB]

Plano is definitely a "Look at us! We have so much money! I just leased a Lexus IS" type of suburb. Not saying that's bad, but that's the way I view it. Everybody in DFW knows that the Park Cities are real money. Lesser-known Preston Hollow has even bigger homes, some over $40M. Southlake is much nicer than Plano, which people often compare it to, as the city planning and standards are much higher, not to mention the $230K income. Homes in Southlake go up to around $9M and will get you over 20,000sqft, but they aren't on the market. Westlake is, well West, of Southlake and is big money. Homes start from $1M. Hope that helps.

[GreyDay]

Originally Posted by BCB

Plano is definitely a "Look at us! We have so much money! I just leased a Lexus IS" type of suburb. Not saying that's bad, but that's the way I view it. Everybody in DFW knows that the Park Cities are real money. Lesser-known Preston Hollow has even bigger homes, some over $40M. Southlake is much nicer than Plano, which people often compare it to, as the city planning and standards are much higher, not to mention the $230K income. Homes in Southlake go up to around $9M and will get you over 20,000sqft, but they aren't on the market. Westlake is, well West, of Southlake and is big money. Homes start from $1M. Hope that helps.

Agreed. PH is either people looking for a bigger property and land per dollar (knowing they'll have to deal with private school) OR it's people with so much money they don't care but need the size lot (and security/privacy) that Preston Hollow offers.

Schools aside, PH has nice-sized lots, is fairly close to most things in the city and you can get a nice spread for the money.

[TheOverdog]

Of course Plano and Frisco are "new money." Plano has only been around since about 1970 and Frisco since about 2000.

I also completely agree with the comment that Southlake and many other affluent suburbs look better, but if you read the history of the developers of Plano (and most of Dallas north of 635), they didn't have a clue nor give a darn about space planning, parks, nature, wildlife, or anything else, as there was a housing bubble going on (with NYC and LA in down periods) where the land in Dallas was among the most valuable in the country. That's why the show "Dallas" was created, and that's the mindset which created Plano.

It's hard to put money to parks or nature or art when the price of land is rising exponentially, so developers put a cheap generic structure on it and just let the guy you sold it to improve it. But the music stopped and that guy didn't have any money. Go check out the inland empire in CA and Phoenix for examples of what it does to an area today.

There were even buildings in downtown Dallas that sold several times in one day! That's why downtown is a wreck and is only starting to recover. Of course the crash occurred, and for a few years in the 1980s, Plano led the nation in suicide rate.

That Plano has done as well as it has is a testment to relatively strong city management throughout that period. It easily could have become a wasteland of half built-out street and infrastructure and half completed houses. Many of the other suburbs and the western half of Plano have the advantage of more natural growth and normal real estate prices. When you can't count on 100% price appreciation y-o-y, then you have to build more to bring customers in and hold them there, and that's a good thing.

[Obamney1]

Look at El Ranchero Estates, Willobend Country, Willobend Place etc in West Plano so you know what you are talking about.