Living in Dallas Texas - All of Dallas Explained

So you're thinking of moving here to the Dallas, Texas area, and you are not quite sure where it is that you want to go. Dallas is obviously a considerable metroplex. It's currently the fourth largest city area in the entire United States. So it can be very overwhelming.  So today we actually want to jump into the map and kind of show you all around the Dallas Fort Worth area so that you can get a, feel more of what it is you're looking for, what areas might be right for you and what the draw is for a lot of people relocating here to the Dallas, Texas area

So here we are jumping into the map and showing you this whole Dallas Fort Worth area, and as you can see Dallas and Fort Worth it all is one and the same, but at the same time, they're totally different, they're completely separate. So the fact that it is, one of the largest metroplexes here in the country, It's right at about, they're saying 9,286 square miles, something like that. And we're up to about 7.6 million people here in the metroplex. So all this white area is pretty much what's been established and the green area is the amount of growth that can be done. In every direction, all around Dallas, Fort Worth and growth is still happening because people are moving here because of our cost of living. Prices are a lot more affordable here in Dallas compared to a lot of other places and people like our, slower way of life. Sometimes, especially if you're going to move to some of these outskirts of the Dallas Fort Worth area, but specifically people moving here, it depends on where it is and what it is you're looking to do.

If you're working downtown. Maybe living all the way up north in Prosper, isn't gonna be for you. If you're working more over here on the Fort Worth side, you're not going to be living. On the east side of Dallas because traffic and freeways are always insane. And it, because of the growth, there's so much construction always going on. It seems all of these freeways, so many of these roads are under construction but say you're working in and around the Dallas area. This 635 freeway is, this main it's not even the 635 the whole way around. But it's one of these main loops here and around the Dallas area, depending on where you're coming from, and back when we first moved here, it was under construction. It was crazy and it went on, like eight years that we were living here, it seemed, and they turned this 635 freeway right here into this double Decker freeway that HOV lanes were down below and now the regular just highway roads are up above. It's a little bit nicer if you're going to be stuck in traffic and during rush hour, if you wanna pay for those HOV lanes, because this freeway is massive now, and now construction's going on down around, over here, trying to create carpool lanes, or HOV lanes and so massive construction over here. But I think the biggest thing I learned moving here to Dallas is If you need to get to Fort Worth if you need to get up north. But especially for me, driving down into Fort Worth, there's all of these crazy freeways and so much construction going on that seriously. It gives me panic attacks half the time because you have to change freeways all the time and if you're not gonna get on the right one, you could be complete upside down and turned around, especially if you're going over in. Just depending on which direction you have to go up and down and around or through the city construction, one of the, one of the draws of living here in Dallas, it's always, something's always gonna be under construction because Dallas is huge, but say, you're moving here. 

Frisco Texas

People ask us all the time about Frisco people, it's one of their first go-to's. They think there's so much to do. There are so many great areas like schools are fantastic. We wanna move to Fris. So moving up in here, Frisco is great, but there's definitely a lot of master plan communities in here, but one of the draws for people moving to Frisco is they have so many high schools here. So many schools actually do that, they really pride themselves on keeping their schools smaller. So no matter where it is, you're moving. If you want the country club life, you could be down. In stone Brier country club, but there are a lot of golf course communities here. There are a lot of master plan communities and a huge draw for activities and, sports and all things like that. But if you're moving here specifically with a family, because you wanna get your kids into. High schools, high school sports, and that kind of thing. They keep the schools smaller. And that way it gives more opportunity to a lot of these kids being able to participate in football, in baseball and soccer, and any of these other activities in the high schools, because they're not quite as big as some of these others, we didn't realize quite how crazy huge a lot of these high schools were here. When we first moved to Texas because our kids weren't in high school yet, but realizing that it is extremely competitive, and based on where you live you're gonna be paying through the nose for your kids in club sports. If you wanna have a chance to play High school sports as well.

To us, it was almost like the NFL draft or College recruiting, because it was so extremely competitive, but with people moving here into Frisco, there's tons to do. This is where the Cowboys have their practice facility down over here at the Ford center. And you can actually go tour it. It's not a huge facility indoors, actually, our son's high school graduation during COVID was there because it was a little bit more spread out.

During the holidays, there's this massive jumbotron out there that you can always see something going on with the cowboy, with the Dallas Cowboys and. At Christmas time, they had this, this fun holiday spectacular going on out there with the Dallas Cowboys, cheerleaders, and, fireworks after, but there are restaurants and there's a little bit of shopping out there that you can meet up. It's a great place, even if you're meeting up. For work during lunch, but also on the weekend's things to do great bars, great restaurants just a great community. And you have the Cowboys facility there also, but right here on the Dallas, north tollway is sorry. You have the rough riders field over here, which is the minor league baseball team. This Comerica center star center. That's where the legends minor league basketball team practices. They host events and concerts and basketball tournaments. They have an ice skating rink in there, and then you travel up here a little bit further north in Frisco, and then you have FC Dallas over here in, oh, sorry.

They have the FC Dallas, a professional soccer team, but over in here, soccer fields, huge soccer fields. And it just seems that all sports tons of club sports, tons of areas over in here. This is where everybody ends up congregating half the time the Frisco field house here is a gigantic indoor basketball facility. They do basketball tournaments, they do volleyball tournaments, and it's pretty much where all the city basketball programs are. Here in the Fieldhouse doesn't mean that they don't use some of the schools as well, but it's just, that this whole area and Frisco has lots of shopping as well.

When you come down here to the stone Briar mall, that's where, your Nordstrom is your Dillards just your regular mall, but you also have Ikea and then you come in over here.  and you have everything from target and Nordstrom rack and your Ross and your TJ max, and your home goods kind of everything you need, like all shopping right around here and that goes up along Preston as well as you can see tons of shopping, it's super busy, obviously because of the freeway and just everything is in and around here, you even have your Sam seat, but then when you get to the south of the 121, this is.  then you're into the Plano area and tons of shopping down and around in here too.

You have Granite Park, which is like a boardwalk area where you can go hang out on the weekends. It has a beautiful fountain outside a lot, your cute Adirondack chair, Adirondack chairs out along here, but the restaurant's a great place to hang out. And then you come over here into legacy west and you have tons of restaurants as well, shopping as well as the shops at legacy over on the east side of the freeway.

But in this legacy food hall, everybody can pick whatever food they want to eat. And on Friday nights they have great concerts that you can pay sometimes $5 great cover bands and hang out there as well. But the master plan community, if we wanna get back up and outta the shopping a little bit up here in the Frisco area, there's tons of them. Frisco's actually quite large when you see how big Frisco is. It's just, in fact, not only that this whole PGA area up in here is growing. So Frisco's even bigger than what it's showing right now. But you zoom out. Everything you wanna do is here in Frisco. We have the national video game museum indoor skydiving, but this whole Stonebriar country club is down here.

If you want the country club living, there are multiple areas here in Frisco to live if you want. I mean there are medical facilities. Like anything you do, if you're working, living, doing, and wanna hang out, your kids are highly involved in things living in Frisco. Definitely a huge draw, but you can also live in Frisco and work down in Plano, but some of these communities here in Frisco are fantastic. The only thing that we haven't loved is being here in Frisco unless you're taking all of these toll roads, which are pretty much the only freeways you can take here in Frisco from the Dallas north tollway. And then this 121. These roads in and through these neighborhoods and around are getting so busy because Frisco has grown so much. And yes, there's still a little bit of new build going on in here. Not any really crazy big master plan communities because that's not where it's going anymore, because, for the most part, most of those are built out. Some small, smaller, little communities are being built here in Frisco. But the price point's going up if you want a new build,  you can find homes, maybe in the low 400 S they're probably older, outdated, but they do seem to have a lot of great communities, which you're looking in the million dollar range, upwards of high seven, $800,000 because of some of these communities that we have and Frisco also is getting as I had. A minute ago, the PGA headquarters. Actually, they did get the PGA headquarters and this great big, huge Omni hotel and resort should be done in the spring of 2023, but two championship golf courses. They're bringing a huge event center, dining, eating, and shopping areas over here in, the north Frisco area. So yet another draw for so many people moving here to Frisco. But if you don't care necessarily about always having to be down to Dallas or drive down to Dallas, yes. You're gonna have to take these toll roads to get there. Yes. This toll road is super busy during rush hour. Traffic is a total beast to get down to Dallas, but there is, it's like you can live and do everything you need to in Frisco, and because of so many communities in here, we actually, not only that some of these communities have community pools and like I said, the golf courses pretty much everything you need to do. And if you don't need to necessarily go too far outside, down here along the toll road is where a ton of stuff is going in as well. We even have the Hawaiian falls water park over here, you. Top golf over here, but tons and tons of restaurants down along here. And you're not even having to really go too far outside of your comfort zone. We, as I said, the only thing that people have said that they are not loving about living in Frisco is the traffic and, just going to the grocery store can be quite busy based on where it is that you live and where you're going, but traveling on the weekends to take your kids to games and that kind of thing. It's just so busy over here, up in this area. 

Prosper Texas

But if you have, if you travel a little bit further north, where tons of the growth is happening here in Dallas, people are loving the Prosper area and a lot of growth. So everything's newer up over here in Prosper. Not everything, but a lot of things are newer.

They have a lot of great master plan communities over here and when you get up here on Preston road this is where, all of your shopping, dining, everything. The high school isn't too far off as well. They have just recently opened their second high school in Prosper. These high schools are actually quite amazing, but one of the top communities that people are asking about all the time because they've seen it, they've heard about it and it's just a matter of how far out our, how far out are you going? 

Blue Lagoon

It's Windsong Ranch. And if you want that blue lagoon feel if you want that brand new community. Pretty much. Everybody knows everybody. You can drive your golf cart around. If we click on here, it glows like that's how amazing it is.

So this Windsong Ranch community, and this blue lagoon, if you click on it, we should be able to get in here. Oh. And you can see, but it's a great community. And. It's having that beach living so you can seek. There are no trees or technically I guess these pictures were done in the wintertime where the tree, when the trees didn't have all their leaves on them, but at the same time, because it's newer, you don't have these big, huge trees as you have in some of maybe these more established areas of Dallas and I think that's what we loved a lot about moving to Dallas, where the number of trees and, getting in older established neighborhoods, you see a lot more of. But look, these homes are all newer. They have smaller trees, so it's not, give them about 10 years, but they live right across the street from the lagoon.

So they can go out and enjoy spending their day at the lake the Blue Lagoon and paddle boarding. You can do that out there, go swimming and that kind of thing, if that's what you're looking for, sometimes people don't necessarily want this whole brand new community.

They love the trees like we did, and they want to live in some of these areas that are a little bit more established. And that's why you can find a lot more of that down here in the Frisco area because some of these communities are older and they may be, I think when we moved here, 

we realized Texas is d lot more traditional than some of the area, other areas that we had lived, but.

Plano and Richardson Texas

Maybe you need to update your home a little bit more. You're still paying through the nose, but, but that's like the great feel of actually living in one of these communities. And that's another thing that we had found down over here in the Plano area. Say you wanna be down a. A little bit closer to Dallas, or maybe you work over in Richardson in one of these tech areas. Some of these neighborhoods down here in Plano are just beautiful and some of them could, be older.

You can get a little bit more for your money, maybe over here on the east side of Plano, because it's older, but some of these communities down here in Plano are fantastic as well. They also have a country club. They also go shopping. They have great community events that go on and, That's another thing that we love about Texas. We have parks gore, and it seems in every city you're in, there are always community events going on everywhere you go, whether it's the 4th of July, whether it's community parade, whether it's an art festival or a food festival, or a hot air balloon festival there, they have great ones in Plano.

They have great ones in Frisco. They have great ones over in Flower Mound and any number of other cities here around Dallas. But one of probably our favorite features of moving to Texas is the lake life that you can also have and just within the DFW area, we have these four huge lakes and you can go live on the lake and have more of that lake life as well.

Lake Life in Dallas Texas

When we moved here, we lived closer over here to Grapevine Lake and we thought it was, we knew it wasn't huge, but because it's a lot more open you can have a ton of boats out there and not feel crowded at all. Because we came from Arizona we went up into the canyon to the lakes, and that would get crazy on the weekend when people were trying to avoid the heat, but here in Texas, these big, huge lakes, you can see a ton of boats out there. And like I said, just do not feel crowded and you can also live on the lake. So if you wanna get over here in, whether it's Grapevine Lake or Lewisville Lake, you can be over here in Little Elm. You can be in Highland Village, as I said, Flower Mound, Southlake, Grapevine area, but then you even have it on the east side. So you have multiple options based on where it is you may be working or living or what it is you're looking to do, and you can get out to the lake and whether it's, 15, 20, 30 minutes, and you can even keep your Boat on the lake, but there's a lot of neighborhoods that you can have that lakefront living and just the beautiful views around.

So if you get here into, say you're working in the tech corridor in Richardson and down here along the 75 freeway is where tons of these tech jobs have been coming in. you can zoom in a little bit more, if we go in here, you can almost see oops. Zoom in here and see a little bit more of how it's more in, this whole tech, multiple warehouses, big, huge companies are coming in down all along through here on the 75.

And so if you want to live work, and do everything in the city. You don't love commuting. It's right here off the freeway, or maybe you do live somewhere further out and you don't necessarily wanna live in Richardson. It's nice to be able to get there because of where it's located on the freeway. You can be up here into Allen and McKinney, but when you drive down the 75 down into Richardson, you have that work opportunity.

Great Schools

But there are also a lot of great neighborhoods here in the Richardson area as well. Some of the fantastic schools down here. That of those things that we loved about Texas when you're talking about great school districts and where everybody wants to live, whether it's Frisco or Plano or Allen you can be over into Flower Mound and Argyle and Southlake and just multiple options for great schools.

So when you're thinking of, you moving here for schools, you want your kids to have a great school district. If we move a little bit further down here into Dallas the top-rated school district here in Texas is the Highland Park school district. It's made up of the Highland Park and University Park communities. They all meld together. But University Park is called that because that's where SMU University is a beautiful campus. But down here in this area, it is a public school,  but the Highland Park school district. And if you live down in here, think you are looking at, millions of dollars for a home.

University & Highland Park  - Park Cities

It's some of these homes that you have just, It's just these beautiful homes, nothing looks the same. IIt'ssad. Some of these homes are being torn down. Maybe they're older, it's completely outdated kind of things falling apart and they're completely tearing them down and building these big, huge, amazing homes. They may not have a lot of land necessarily anymore. They're building a 10,000-square-foot home on a smaller lot to fit everything in, but they're gorgeous. You can drive up and down all of these streets here in Highland Park. They're beautiful. Tree-lined, it's super well established. So it's almost like hardly any sun is peeking through when you're out walking through these streets.

Otis, but it's very walkable and very family-friendly. And despite how big some of these homes are, everybody knows everybody. That's what we've heard because depending on what street you are on, they know who's located who's doing what neighborhoods, what neighbors have the block parties, and the events that they do down there are just a little. Top-notch, they have a community pool, but you can rent cabanas to go spend the day out at the community pool and you have to be a member of Highland Park or University Park to use them. And if it's the tennis center, you have to have that as well. But the walking trails down here along Turtle Creek are absolutely beautiful com these huge, massive trees out there, tons of areas where you can just sit and have a picnic sit on the park bench, and watch the river.

but it's just a great, beautiful community and if you ever get down there and just want to drive through, some of these areas, I wish I could remember the street that we had been down specifically, but if you come in here, look at all the trees, look how huge they are. They're so big, you can almost barely see these homes, but then when you see, how they've.

Stuck these big, massive homes here into these neighborhoods. Nope. We're gonna get straight on the street, but you can just see how quaint, how beautiful these streets are. And people take very good care of their yards. There always seems to be somebody having cars down here doing you.

Construction work maintenance work because people take, being down here to the next level. Yes. In this one, you can see the front of the house, but driving up and down these streets is just absolutely beautiful. We love doing it. If I'm down in the area, I'll purposely turn down a couple of streets just to get through.

But like I said, you can see the number of trees down here and. You know how well established it is and the location is great too. Especially if people are working downtown, they don't wanna have to drive very far. Getting downtown is quite easy. You have super easy access to get over here to Dallas Love Field.

Downtown Dallas

One of the two airports here in the Dallas, Texas area, it's pretty much where Southwest. A few other airlines go out of, but not as big as DFW airport, but it's still quite big. And then. Lots to do here in downtown Dallas, super walkable. And if you get here, say you want a little bit more of the nightlife, you don't wanna have to travel quite so far.

Deep Ellum right here practically to the center of downtown is a great area for dining at restaurants and hanging out with drinks after work. It's almost like where you go down and listen to music at night and you go out to hang out. You're not just gonna grab a quick bite and leave because there is, it's just that great vibe downtown.

You can walk. Walk, hang out all night long, and just some of these areas down here as well. It's not really, maybe for us, the homes might be older. They're all definitely closer together. So you have Old East Dallas and lower Greenville, super popular areas down here. But that way, as I said, it's walkable. It's not like where you see all of your chain restaurants. But you still have access to multiple things, your local coffee shops, your local, pizza place, and your local taco shop. Granted, we love Trader Joe's. We love whole foods. And guess if you're desperate, you can go to Raising Canes.  it's not top on my list, but it's just so many things that you can get to.

You can walk to your dentist. You can walk to your eye doctor when we are down there.  Looking at a house for one of our clients, that's specifically what she said. She's I wanna be able to have everything in my neighborhood and find the guy that I like the most, but a lot of these neighborhoods, as I said, are established, and none of the homes look the same.

You might have a cute little bungalow. Home down in here, you might have somebody who's knocked everything down, completely remodeled it next door. And, but it's when the homes come on, the market, they're coming off quite quickly because people just love living in downtown Dallas. But like I said, if it's not for you, if you want more space, you don't necessarily work downtown.

You don't wanna feel super cramped. If you wanna be a little bit more spread out, then you move out to the suburbs. Highland Park, like I said, is the number one school district here in Dallas. 

Southlake Texas

Number two is Carol ISD. We talk about it all the time. It is the school district right here within the town of Southlake and talking with a friend of mine. She grew up in Highland Park. I hadn't realized it cuz I knew she'd lived in Southlake for a long time and after they were married, she said her husband forced her to leave, to move to the suburbs. And I thought that's sad that he forced you to move to Southlake.

She has a beautiful home. It's almost two acres. It's about 7,000 square feet spread out. And her daughter horseback rides. There's horseback riding. It's great. Stables here in Southlake.  but I thought that was unfortunate. She had to leave the city to move to the suburbs and her house was probably a little bit cheaper when they moved out.

Compared to the home. She grew up in Highland Park, but it was bigger and had more land, which huge draw for moving out to Southlake. Yes. The Southlake price point is high right now. It's averaging at about 1.2 million. Whereas Highland Park is about 2.4 million. So you're gaining so much more land and just saving so much money by moving out to Southlake.

But it borders right here along the south side of Grapevine Lake. If you want parks and hiking trails, horseback riding, like I said, and they still do have a country club here in Southlake. The Timon country. But they do also have a lot of great master plan communities. You might have a little bit more room and some of these areas might have some older homes, but you're still looking at the probably upper $800-900,000 for an older home here in Southlake.

But you're looking at least like I said, 1.2 million is the average price point, but Southlake also has multiple great communities. The master plan communities. Most of them may not have your community pools that some of the other areas have, but they do have a Southlake community center that you can go join that has your indoor FCI, fitness facilities, and outdoor splash pads for kids. And it's all around where, tons of parks and baseball fields, soccer fields, and that kind of thing. So Southlake does have something for everybody.

They have their shopping with the Southlake town square everything from your Apple store, your anthropology always loves Lululemon. Victoria's Secret B and body works so great outdoor shopping here in your lake town center. And they even have a Tesla showroom and a Peloton store, but tons of dining and shopping here in Southlake, all along with, getting some great communities you can also get right here off the 114 freeway, which takes you over to the DFW airport, which is right here. Great major, it's one of the top airports here in the country, and, being able to get to the airport, if you're commuting for work is super great for a lot of people who may not wanna live so far out of town.

Farther Out Areas of Dallas

Say you don't necessarily need to worry about airport and traffic and commuting. There are also a lot more areas that you can pick all around DFW. And if you move over here to the west side, over here into the North Lake area and this 35 west freeway. So the 35 goes all the way up here into Oklahoma.

But when it gets down here to Denton, it breaks off into the 35 West, which takes you down into Fort Worth, or the 35 East, which takes you into Dallas. Eventually, it comes through Dallas, it comes through Fort Worth. And then when you head south, like towards Austin, They both meet up again, but they've branched off into these two freeways because they're both kinds of heading in the direction, but one goes to Dallas and one goes to Fort Worth but when you go up here to the 35 west a little bit further north towards Denton and you get up into the North Lake area, we zoom in a little bit more. We have Texas Motor Speedway down here off the 114 and just west of Texas. Motor Speedway. They're building another huge master plan community, which is Wildflower Ranch.

They do have a few communities over here. The Northwest ISD area is a great school district, so this whole west area is growing. We have school districts, and we have great schools over here as well, but it's a different feel. And if people are moving over to the west side, they're doing over here for work. A lot of factories and employment and jobs are coming in. So the growth that is happening here along the 35 freeway is quite massive and when you see right here getting off. On the 35 freeway, we have Texas Motor Speedway here, as I said, but we have Buckie's if you've never been to Texas, you've never been to Buckie's, it took us years to finally go to Buckie's. Buckie's wasn't up here in the Dallas, Texas area. When we first moved here, it's just come in the last few years, but. They just kept saying, you've gotta step at Buckie's. I'm like, it's a gas station. It's no other gas station you've been to. It's almost like anything you could ever imagine. Whether it's Texas-wise, food-wise, you gotta stop into Buckie's, but they have these Tanger outlets over here as well and a lot of restaurants and things are going in right here along this 35 freeway. But when you get in here and we pull out the layers a little bit and you see what's going in, see how you zoom out and, this is where a lot of these, big companies and warehouses and things are coming in as well and so it's growing massively over here on the west side. So tons of jobs coming in and it's, making it a great area for people to wanna move to. But you still do have great schools out here as well and like I said, you have to call us. Dallas is so big. You may not think of these things. If you're working over here off the west side, you're certainly, probably not really gonna wanna be living over here in the Frisco area. We were talking with one of the guys who worked in one of the sales offices and he actually worked in Frisco, but he worked out at Wildflower Ranch and he just said his commute was just crazy and he hated it. Reach out to us. I know it's, we've barely touched the surface here when talking about the Dallas, Texas area.

There are so many great neighborhoods and there's something for everybody. If you're single if you're a family if you want country living if you want downtown living. And it's just a matter of where, what it is you're looking for, maybe you do wanna be out on the lake. Every single weekend, but you wanna be able to get to work easily during, Mon your Monday through Friday job so let's find somewhere for you to do that as well. So people reach out to us. That's why they call us. And if you schedule a Zoom call with us and you're thinking about it. Leaning toward a certain area. We can pull up these maps in some of these neighborhoods and show you around why the freeway system is good, why the shopping is good, and what exactly it is you're looking for.

So if you want any more information about what it's like living here, if there's anything we can do to help make that move that much easier, reach out to us, call us, text us, send us an email, and let us know what we can do to help you make that move here to the Dallas, Texas area. That is much easier.