$600K New Homes in Dallas, Texas: What a New Construction Home Buys in 5 Suburbs

Short answer: a $600K house in the Dallas suburbs buys anything from a 2,163 sq ft paired townhome in Frisco to a 3,259 sq ft detached home in Celina. The bigger difference, though, isn't the city. It's the neighborhood you pick inside it: two example homes had an estimated $533/month property tax difference, largely driven by a special taxing district.

I gave five North Dallas suburbs the same challenge: show me what about $600K buys brand new. Here's what I found, what each costs every month, and how I'd decide.

By VJ Muthuraman, EverKin Realty Group · Brokered by eXp Realty. Updated Q4 2026.

The quick comparison: $600K new construction homes in Dallas suburbs

Monthly property tax figures below are estimates for a $600,000 home, using 2025 adopted tax rates, assuming it's your primary residence and you qualify for the $140,000 school-district homestead exemption (no other exemptions). Your actual bill depends on the parcel, its appraised value and any other exemptions.

City	What ~$600K new buys	Est. monthly property tax	School district (as listed)	The catch
Frisco	A paired townhome: 3 bed, 2,163 sq ft, $599,990 (Lexington)	~$719	Frisco ISD	Shares a garage wall. The cheapest new detached home I found in Frisco ISD was about $649K.
Prosper	The same townhome plan for $515,990 (Dominion at Brookhollow)	~$833	Prosper ISD	Every new home I found on the MLS at $700K or less was attached. Cheapest new detached I found at Windsong Ranch: $889,900.
McKinney	31 new homes between $575K and $625K, all detached	~$745 (Painted Tree, west McKinney)	McKinney, Prosper, Celina or Melissa ISD	One city, four school districts. Check every address.
Celina	61 new homes in the same band; 3,259 sq ft at Ramble for $619,990	~$1,252 at Ramble · ~$867 with no special district	Mostly Celina ISD	A special district (MMD) can add ~$385/mo. Longer weekday commute.
Melissa	Only 1 new home in the band ($619,847); most nearby list in the $520s–$570s	~$812 (neighborhood with no special district)	Melissa ISD	$600K was above most of the new-home listings I found.

Inventory counts are from my NTREIS MLS searches for this video (homes built in 2026, active listings, $575K–$625K). Prices are builder or listing prices at the time of filming, and quick move-in homes change price often.

Frisco: what $600K new gets you in Frisco ISD

From the street, it looks like a house. Walk around the side and it shares a wall with the neighbor. It's a paired home: two homes joined along the garage wall, no shared living-space walls. The builder says so on its own website.

The example I filmed is a Landon Homes D420 quick move-in at Lexington, east Frisco: 3 bedrooms, 2,163 sq ft, $599,990. On the MLS, the only 2026-built Frisco ISD homes in my $575K–$625K band were two townhouses in that community.

If Frisco ISD is the whole point, this is how you get it at this price. The cheapest brand-new detached home I found in Frisco ISD was about $649K (a 3,101 sq ft quick move-in at Hazelwood).

One footnote: a Frisco address doesn't always mean Frisco ISD. Detached new homes near $600K do exist inside Frisco city limits at Villages of Creekwood, which is Little Elm ISD on the Denton County side.

What you pay for in Frisco: the location, and the lowest tax bill of the five homes in this comparison, about $719 a month. What you give up: a yard and a wall of your own.

Frisco vs Prosper: the same house, $84,000 apart

This is the part that surprised me. The exact same floor plan from the same builder, the Landon D420 (3 bed, 2,163 sq ft), was listed at:

• $599,990 in Frisco (Lexington)
• $515,990 in Prosper (Dominion at Brookhollow)

That's $84,000 for the same house, one city north. It's one plan on one day, with each home's own options, so treat it as a snapshot, not a market-wide "Frisco premium."

So $600K in Prosper finally gets you a yard? Not when I looked. On the MLS, every 2026-built Prosper home at $700K or less was attached, and between about $551K and $700K I found nothing new at all. (One option under $600K was a 55-plus community, so I left it out.)

Want a new detached home with a yard in a place like Windsong Ranch? The cheapest current starting price I found was $889,900 (Southgate Homes, 71' series, 3,279 sq ft).

Prosper's estimated tax at $600K: about $833 a month on the Collin County side (1.950%). Denton-side communities like Windsong total about 1.905%.

McKinney new construction: where $600K opens up

McKinney is where the budget starts to breathe. On the MLS when I searched, 31 new homes were listed between $575K and $625K, and every one was detached.

Here's what almost nobody tells you. Among the McKinney listings in this price range, I found homes listed in four different school districts: McKinney ISD, Prosper ISD, Celina ISD and Melissa ISD. Same city on the mailbox, four different districts, so verify the school assignment for each specific property.

So the yard you couldn't get in Prosper is possible with a McKinney address in Prosper ISD. At Aster Park, in far northwest McKinney off FM 1461, both builders state it's Prosper ISD with no MUD or PID. (The MLS tags a few Aster Park listings as Celina ISD, so confirm the lot.)

Frisco vs McKinney on tax

At Painted Tree in west McKinney (McKinney ISD, no MUD or PID per the builder), the 2025 rate is 1.747%: an estimated $745 a month on $600K, about $26 above the Frisco townhome. One example from the builder's page: 5 bed, 3,445 sq ft, $619,490. Aster Park runs a little higher, about 1.857%, because of Prosper ISD's rate.

I walked two Painted Tree homes in my last video: Watch the Painted Tree McKinney tour

Celina TX new homes: the most choice at $600K

Keep driving north. Celina had 61 new homes in the same $575K–$625K band, the most choice of any city in this comparison. Almost all of them are detached.

At Ramble, a 3,259 sq ft, 4-bed home was listed at $619,990. That's about the same price as the Frisco townhome, with roughly 1,100 more square feet and a yard that's yours.

So why isn't everyone buying in Celina? Look at the tax line.

• Ramble sits inside Celina MMD No. 2, a special district with its own 0.77% rate. Total 2025 rate: about 2.786%. Estimated tax on $600K: about $1,252 a month, roughly $533 more than the Frisco townhome.
• A Celina neighborhood inside city limits with no MUD or MMD totals about 2.016%. Estimated tax on $600K: about $867 a month.

Same city. A $385 a month difference, and that difference is the special district. Every estimate here uses the same $600,000 value, not each home's actual list price.

Prosper vs Celina vs Melissa: the tax myth about driving north

I expected the tax bill to climb the farther north I drove. It didn't.

Melissa is way up north, beyond Frisco, Prosper and McKinney. A Melissa neighborhood with no special district (2025 rate about 1.909%) works out to about $812 a month on a $600K home. That's basically the same as Prosper's $833.

So it's not how far north you go. It's which neighborhood you pick.

Melissa TX new homes at $600K

Melissa surprised me in another way. In my $575K–$625K search, I found just one new home, listed at $619,847. Not because Melissa is expensive, but because most of the new homes near this price were listed below it, in the $520s to $570s. In Melissa, $600K doesn't stretch you. It puts you near the top of what I found.

Melissa also has what TikTok called the "Texas dream": an H-E-B and a Buc-ee's in the same shopping area, with a Taco Casa right there. H-E-B's own account even commented.

What is a MUD, MMD or PID in Texas? (Special districts, explained plainly)

Many new Texas communities pay for roads, water and sewer through a special district. Three names to know:

• MUD (Municipal Utility District) and MMD (Municipal Management District) add a tax rate on top of the city, county and school rates. Because it's a rate, it scales with your home's value and can change every year. Example: Light Farms (Celina ETJ) carries Collin County MUD No. 1 at $0.89 per $100 in 2025, for a total of about 2.335%.
• PID (Public Improvement District) is different. It's a property-specific assessment, usually paid in annual installments and billed separately from property tax, that repays the bonds used to build the neighborhood's infrastructure. Amounts and terms vary by district and lot. Example: a 70-ft lot in Mosaic's Improvement Area #2 (Celina) carries a 2025 installment of $7,152 a year.

Does a special district mean higher taxes? On the total bill, usually yes. Is a special district a bad thing? Not automatically. It just means you should know it's on the bill before you fall in love with the house.

I know this from my own mistake. I live in Viridian, in Arlington. I bought there for the space, the lake and the pools. I wasn't a realtor yet, and I didn't know my tax rate was about 3.1% until after I bought. My neighborhood has its own special district, an MMD, and nobody walked me through that number before I bought.

The mistake wasn't the neighborhood. It was not knowing what I'd pay. Knowing what I know now, I'd still choose it. I ride bikes and kick scooters with my son by the lake, and there's a park across from my house. For me, the lifestyle is worth it. That's why the tax line is one of the first things I show my buyers now.

The commute: the payment that never shows up at closing

Every listing gives you a drive time. It hits different at 7:40 on a Tuesday morning. Here's what Google Maps estimated with typical traffic to Legacy West in Plano:

From	Sunday, 2:00 PM	Tuesday, 7:40 AM
Ramble (Celina)	typically 26–40 min	typically 30 min to 1 hr 5 min
Frisco townhome (Lexington)	—	typically 16–35 min

These are Google Maps typical-traffic estimates, not timed drives. That's the other price of the extra house, paid in minutes every weekday.

Resale vs builder: buying where they're still building

In a neighborhood that's still building, you're buying new. Great. But if you sell while the builder is still selling, you're not just competing with other resales. You're competing with the builder.

Here's a real example from one street in Hillside Village, Celina:

• A 2025-built home, listed by its owner: about 1,515 sq ft at $398,000
• A few doors down, a brand-new builder home: about 2,103 sq ft at $419,990, already cut from $440,974

That's about $22,000 more for nearly 600 more square feet, and it's new. (Both are list prices, not sale prices. That neighborhood also sits inside a city PID, another line worth checking.)

That doesn't mean don't buy there. It means find out when the builder will be done building before you buy.

Lifestyle vs investment: how to choose between Dallas suburbs

So the bigger house isn't automatically the better deal, and the lower tax bill isn't either. You need a way to decide.

I've lived in 7 states across 20+ homes, and I've been the buyer, the seller and the investor. Every one of those decisions came down to one question: are you buying a lifestyle or an investment?

• Lifestyle is what you're willing to pay every month for the life you want now.
• Investment is what you won't compromise on, because one day you'll have to sell.

Every home is some of both. The real question is which one wins when they conflict.

Where I'd start: if you told me "$600K, brand new, I want a yard, and I don't want a big special-district bill," I'd start in west McKinney. Detached, around 3,000 sq ft, about $745 a month in estimated tax, barely above Frisco. That's where I'd start, not necessarily where I'd finish. It depends which of those two buyers you are.

Browse current options: New construction homes in DFW

FAQ: Moving to Dallas and buying new at $600K

How much house does $600K buy in the Dallas suburbs?

In the five North Dallas suburbs I compared, about $600K new ranged from a 2,163 sq ft paired townhome in Frisco ISD to a 3,259 sq ft detached home in Celina. McKinney had 31 new detached homes in the $575K–$625K band and Celina had 61.

Which Dallas suburb has the lowest property taxes?

Of the five homes in this comparison, the Frisco townhome had the lowest estimated bill, about $719 a month on $600K (2025 rate 1.675%, Collin County side). But rates vary by neighborhood, not just city. West Frisco's Hazelwood, on the Denton County side, totals about 1.631%. Always check the specific parcel on the county appraisal district's site.

What is a MUD tax in Texas?

A Municipal Utility District (MUD) is a special district that adds its own tax rate on top of city, county and school taxes, usually to pay for a new community's water, sewer and drainage. Because it's a rate, it rises and falls with your home's value. An MMD works the same way. A PID is a property-specific assessment, usually paid in annual installments, instead.

Does a special district mean higher taxes?

Usually, yes. At Ramble in Celina, the MMD's 0.77% rate is the main reason the estimated bill is about $1,252 a month versus about $867 in a Celina neighborhood without one. That isn't automatically bad. It's a cost to weigh against what the community offers.

Is Celina or McKinney better for new construction?

It depends what you're optimizing for. Celina had more new homes near $600K (61 vs 31). McKinney's Painted Tree example had a lower estimated tax bill (about $745 vs $867–$1,252 in Celina). And by Google Maps estimates, a weekday commute from Ramble to Plano can run over an hour.

Is Frisco worth the higher price?

At $600K new in Frisco ISD you're buying a paired townhome with less space. In return you get the Frisco location, the lowest estimated tax bill of the five homes compared, and a shorter weekday drive to Legacy West (typically 16–35 minutes per Google Maps). It depends on whether you're buying for lifestyle or investment.

Can you buy a new detached home in Prosper for $600K?

Not when I searched. Every 2026-built Prosper home on the MLS at $700K or less was attached. The cheapest new detached home I found at Windsong Ranch started at $889,900. A McKinney address zoned to Prosper ISD, such as Aster Park, is one way to get detached new construction near $600K.

Thinking about living in Dallas, Texas? Let's run your numbers

Quick move-in prices change weekly and tax rates reset every year. The process doesn't change: compare the home, the tax line, the special district, the commute and the resale picture before you fall in love with the house.

Buying a home is one of the biggest decisions you'll make. You deserve someone in your corner — I work for you, I represent buyers like you.

• Book a call: bookacall.everkinrealtygroup.com
• Call or text VJ: 214-727-6680
• Email: vj@everkinrealtygroup.com

Tell me in the comments on the video: lifestyle or investment, and which city you're looking at. I'll tell you where I'd look.

VJ Muthuraman · EverKin Realty Group · Brokered by eXp Realty
Vijay Muthuraman, TX License 835180
Tax figures are estimates based on 2025 adopted rates for a $600,000 home with the $140,000 school-district homestead exemption only, and are not tax advice. Confirm any specific property's rates and special districts on the county appraisal district's record. Prices are builder or listing prices at the time of filming and are subject to change.