Cost of Living in Southlake Texas

What does it cost to live in Southlake, Texas? If you're considering a move here to the Dallas Fort Worth area, and you have your eye on Southlake, we want to get into a little bit more about what it costs to live there, what the cost of homes is, and what some of the things in Southlake have to offer so that you can be prepared for what you may be needing to spend.

Home Prices in Southlake Texas

So first up the cost of a home in Southlake. Right now, as of the middle of 2022, the median home price in Southlake is 1.2 million. So on the higher side of, what homes cost around here, you can find a couple. There's, there are a few homes for sale in the upper $400,000 range.

You can find them in the $800,000 to 900,000 range for instance, but typically in Southlake, if you're finding a home, I guess you could say it's because it's older, it needs a lot of updating. It's just, that there's a lot that you might need to do to that house, but even in the eight, $900,000 range. It's not that you can't find a home with, some good bones, but maybe the home doesn't have that much land, It's not on that big of a lot. It still needs the updating and maybe it's just not in one of those newer neighborhoods. So yes, you can find homes below a million, but people are moving to Southlake because of the communities because of these beautiful neighborhoods, and because of the school district. But you can find homes, multiple homes in the $2 to $8 million range, and currently there is a home listed in Southlake for $24.5 million, it's called the Sunshine estate, and if you want to Google that, you can find beautiful videos on that property. So something to check out, if want to look at some beautiful homes in Southlake, but yes, there are beautiful roads that you drive up and down and see a lot of these beautiful estates.

When we moved here to Texas, we loved seeing the difference in homes out here, people do lots of stonework and brickwork and now that a lot of these homes are being built here in Texas, you are getting a lot more of those modern looks to some of these homes as well.

But in Southlake, if you're moving there and you want a new build, you're not gonna find any new build communities. You can find a few little pockets where people are building some new build homes, but typically. Those are custom, currently, right now, there are two new builds, being offered up for sale and they're 2.4 and 3.5 million. They are in a very small, exclusive gated community and they are on over half an acre. Which is another good value of moving to Southlake. In some of these bigger, beautiful homes, you have a lot more room to spread out.  Like I've always said in multiple videos, we love the trees here in Texas and Southlake is no exception. There are beautiful tree-lined streets, and people really, truly take very good care of their homes. But people are moving to Southlake, frankly, because they can afford a slightly higher price point and there are no apartments in the city of Southlake. So rentals are very low. You can find a few short-term rentals. You can find a few homes for lease and even leasing a home in Southlake. You're looking at anywhere. $2,800 upwards you could even spend $10,000 a month on a beautiful five, 6,000-square foot home.

So they do have those options in Southlake, but rentals for the most part are quite low. Most people own their own home in Southlake. 

Property Taxes in Southlake Texas

Speaking of owning your own home let's get into what we all love to talk about here in the great state of Texas our property taxes. And yes, we complain about it all the time, how high our property taxes are. If you're going to move to Southlake and get a much more expensive home, you're going to pay a lot more in property taxes. That's just how it is. Our property taxes are based on the value of our homes. Thinking about moving to Southlake and you have, let's say a million-dollar property.

Let's just keep our numbers quite simple for you because sometimes they need to be simple for me, but a million-dollar property here in Texas. If it is your primary residence, you can have a 20% discount on your property taxes because. Filing for a homestead exemption. So when you file for a homestead exemption here in Texas, and you get the 20% exemption, you're only having to pay the property taxes on $800,000, and currently in the Southlake market, if you're paying property taxes of, a property valued at $800,000, you're looking at, close to $18,000 per year on your property taxes, and when we moved here from Arizona, That was a huge shock. People told us we're gonna pay more in property taxes, Texas property taxes are so high, but having owned our own home in Arizona for 11 years and realizing we were moving to Texas, it was pretty much about the same size, the same cost of the home.

When we first moved here that first property tax bill, was a shock. So as home values have gone up and our property taxes go up,  that's a big difference here, but in Southlake, just because you're buying a home for over a million dollars,  that sticker shock could.

 It's something that people work into their mortgage payment, they know what to prepare for because you just might not be able to own the same size or cost of the home that you could, where you came from. But also if you've come from some of these other states that do have high property taxes, California, New York, or anywhere in between, and if you already are used to those high property taxes, it's not a huge shock for you, but you do get to file that 20% homestead exemption here in Texas. Something to think about is our high property taxes,  something to be prepared for when you move.

Homeowners Association Dues

Also when you move to Southlake, we are going to have just a whole lot of other communities. There's gonna be a lot of these neighborhoods that have HOA dues. And if you're moving to Southlake and you think you're moving into a great neighborhood that has, maybe $2,000 HOA dues, it doesn't necessarily mean you're getting a whole lot for that monthly HOA fee that you're having to pay. There are a couple of communities in Southlake where you do have the clubhouse and you do have the community swimming pool and tennis courts and things like that. But also if you're going to move to some of these very exclusive neighborhoods Like Saddleback Ridge, for instance, it's a gated custom community where the homes are valued well, over a million dollars and their HOA fees are $3,500 for the year.

But what are you getting for those fees? Pretty much a gate and some landscape maintenance. So they're not offering all of those amenities that some of these HOAs are offering. When you think of paying those higher dues. There are some around there, and there are quite a few areas where you're not even having to pay for those HOA fees. Some of the older neighborhoods don't have HOAs in them, but also if you're building a big custom home, if you do want to move over there,  and have this, big, beautiful house, it's like a custom property on a custom lot. And so you're not part of an HOA, so you don't have those HOA dues, something think about where, what are you, what is it you're looking for in an HOA? If you're just hoping that somebody's gonna make sure everybody keeps their yards nice, and you're not gonna have a whole bunch of extra cars parked out on the street, moving into an HOA can be a bonus for a lot of people just knowing that they're going to, make sure that the neighborhood is, kept up and, things aren't going to fall in disrepair, just let trailers and boats and who knows what being parked all over. So something to be concerned about when you're moving into Southlake and your HOA fees.

In the city of Southlake, they also have one country club called the Timeron Country Club. It does have a beautiful 18-hole golf course, they do have a beautiful event, a space and bar and grill, and places where you can go hang out with friends. They have a tennis center and a swimming pool. So if you want to be part of, like I said being in a country club atmosphere, they do have that there in Southlake. Maybe you don't necessarily need everything that the country club has to offer. And you just want a great community center to be involved in. That is something that we have found here in Texas. Most of these cities and areas around have these great community centers that you can join and Southlake actually has its own, but it is probably a step up from some of the ones that we have seen, it's called the Champions Club at the MARQ, and they do have an amazing fitness facility indoors with tons of fitness classes and fitness equipment. They also have an indoor turf and an outdoor turf, an indoor pool with multiple, I think two water slides. They have an outdoor splash pad for the little kids, but also Cabana, as you can rent if you sit and plan a party and go hang out outdoors. They also have event space. You can rent, but just, it's big, beautiful, modern, and updated. A community center that you can go and join. And the dues there, whether you're a senior citizen, whether you're an individual or a family, you can also get corporate memberships to join there as well and they can start anywhere from $36 a month and only up to about $125 a month. And that includes your entire family being able to go and enjoy all of the facilities there. So something that is there to be offered for everybody and just a great community center where you can take your kids, meet up with friends, and just, enjoy those types of things right there in the heart of Southlake.

But maybe you don't have a bunch of kids or you don't think that you're going to use all those facilities. Southlake also does have a lot of fitness opportunities. Whether you wanna just join a 24-hour fitness or you wanna join the F45 gym or Orange Theory, they have multiple options throughout Southlake that you can join as well.

Cost of Activities & Sports for Kids

let's get into the cost of sports. Here in Texas, we quickly realized when we moved here with four kids,  times everything by four, that was, something to get used to sports and activities for your kids are a huge deal here and in Southlake, you can join the local, city league sports, whether it's for soccer or football or lacrosse. We do love that when we moved here to Texas, there is every single sport that you can find. You can find them for club sports and a lot of options through a lot of these schools. So in Southlake, you can join your city leagues, but you can also work your way up into the high school programs.  Here in Texas, we also learned rather quickly that if you're going to progress through high school, you are going to need to truly focus on if you love soccer. If you are gung ho in cheerleading or football and you join the club teams to be able to do that because you want that extra practice. You want that extra exposure and experience to be able to get that much better in your sports because to make these sports teams here in these high schools, they're highly competitive and you need to be prepared. So getting your kids into sports in high school is also another expense that you need to be prepared for. When our daughter first went to high school, she made the high school cheerleading team. Granted, we thought it was fun. They borrowed a uniform. That was quickly $1,500 for the year to join cheer. But it did include her shoes and her hair bows lots and lots of t-shirts her backpack and the use of their uniforms, but it also made sure that it went to, food before games and different opportunities that these girls were participating in for the school.

But then our boys came up and entered high school and they were in track and the track dues were only $250 for the season. Just included the uniform and snacks at some of these track meets. So a huge range.

Then we had friends who joined the baseball team and you joined the football team and their due and their dues are quite a bit more. So depending on which sport you are in high school, you have to be prepared for those fees, even when you start going to their games in middle school.

So from middle school and high school, you have to pay to watch your kid play every single sport. It seems here in the high schools, you have to go to watch your kids in the track meets. You have to go watch your kids in your middle school basketball games. On Friday nights, you pay $10 per person to get into the high school football game. A lot cheaper for the students to go typically $5 per game because they're a student, everybody's having to pay to go to these football games, baseball games, soccer, basketball, volleyball, and everything in between. So another cost of when you're moving there and especially we learned here in Texas, Everybody goes to these football games. People go, tailgating, and people go support their friends' kids. And going spending $10 to go watch a football game, is not that big of a deal compared to a lot of other expenses, but when you get into the club side of things and you're off-season, it seemed cheer went all year long. They do competitive cheer. They're doing competitions all the time and those expenses can. Quite high, it's not just your typical $200 a month for practice. It ends up turning into travel expenses hotel expenses and food expenses based on where you're going.  but then your kids get off-season on soccer or baseball and they're playing club sports back when our daughter was young and she first started doing club volleyball, it was $1,500 for the season. But then we learned that some of the friends were in these highly competitive teams and they were traveling on top of it and they were paying $5,800 just for the one volleyball season. Granted it could last six, or seven months and they could go to nationals and then have to pay for that on top of it. But just for the season, counting, all their uniforms, all their practice times, it can get very expensive based on how high your kids are in these sports. And there's a big range based on what sport your kids are playing. But sports here in Texas seem to be. Quite a bit more than, when we moved from Arizona, back in the day, we were asking our friends what they were having to pay, and it was significantly less than what we were paying here in Texas. So sports, if you have multiple kids and your kids wanna be prepared for college sports and they, and you need to sign 'em up and send them to, our friends who are doing.

Football camps all summer long so that their kids can be prepared for college sports next year, and hopefully get a scholarship to play well, their kids are paying for all of these camps all summer long, where they go to these colleges and they get to be coached by some of these college coaches and just get to be noticed you're paying hefty expenses and being able to afford your kids to have these opportunities. So here in Texas with kids and families, you're going to be paying a lot more and needing to budget that in, to pay for your kids.

Sports opportunities but say you move here and you have little kids and you need daycare. You need, somebody to watch them after school and you need preschool options. Southlake does have some of those options. Just like in a lot of the other cities that we learned about when we moved here, they do have a couple of options in some of these churches.

Child Care in Southlake Texas

So there's a great big. Southlake also offers an amazing preschool program, but they also offer private school, infant care, preschool, kindergarten care, and afterschool care as well. So that could range anywhere from $200 a month, based on how many hours you need, or upwards of, a thousand dollars a month if you need all daycare school care, or whatever you might need for your kids. So there is a huge range of options there in the city as Southlake, but you can get as elite and as a private school, as you need.

Dining & Entertainment in Southlake Texas

If you truly love living in Southlake and of all of the things that Southlake has to offer Southlake does have some great dining and shopping options too. There is not tons of what you would call, fine dining within the city of Southlake. A lot of people say that you have to travel outside the city a little bit more, maybe down into Dallas, but they do have a couple of really nice restaurants. you have Truluck's seafood grill and Kirbie’s steakhouse. Just to name a couple of the higher-end restaurant dining options in Southlake, they also have tons of everyday options and low-cost options. You can go to Brio or the cheesecake factory, multiple Mexican restaurants, pizza restaurants, and some of our favorites, and well, actually what our kids are always asking for is, we have everything from Chipotle and Anamias and Torchy's tacos, just to name a few. Southlake does have tons of options. If so many great restaurants are going in there, there's truly something for everybody. We love going over to Southlake because of the number of options that they have. They have a really good Costco, of course, but that's also where the nearest Trader Joe's is in the central market and everything. Nordstrom racks over to the Lululemon, anthropology, Williams & Sonoma there's even a well, there's also an apple store and a Peloton store as well as a Tesla showroom.

So right there in the Southlake town square are tons of dining and shopping options, which just gives you a lot of, opportunities to not have to leave Southlake. You can get everything from TJ Max home goods to a Marshall’s and an REI. So truly if need your one-stop shop and you don't want to leave Southlake that often, or just order stuff in from Amazon. So many great areas right there in the Southlake community, you have the higher end and you also have just, shopping for everyday people who want to come over to Southlake and just. Get shopping, go shopping, and maybe eat out and meet friends for lunch.

So we love Southlake and yes, the cost of living's a little bit higher over there when you're thinking of the price point of homes. But other than the price point of homes and what's going on over in Southlake, there are a lot of great options, no matter what you need to get your kids involved in, whatever your families want to be involved in, and shopping-wise.

So other than that, if you are looking for other opportunities outside of Southlake, if you want to know, maybe you want a little bit more land, maybe you want something that isn't quite so busy. There are options throughout the DFW metroplex that we have been to, that we have researched and we have helped clients get into.

So if there are ever any questions that we can do to help answer. What we can do to help you make that move here to the Dallas Fort Worth area, that much easier. Don't hesitate to reach out and let us know what we can do to help you make that smooth move here to the Dallas area.