Currently live in Plano.  Looking downsize house to 2 bedrooms and maybe smaller town. Willing to drive 45 min in very early AM.  Leave at 0500.
Any towns locales come to mind?
Don't care about schools.

What kind of down payment is customary on houses now?  We bought our current one in 2007. Things may have changed.

Any info appreciated

ETA:

WIfe likes Forney.

Ferris, Palmer, Bristol, Combine.

Those are all pretty nice places within 30-40 minutes of Downtown.

Went wandering around some with the author of this story, it is a good read on Bristol/Palmer/Ferris:

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2011/august/bristol-texas-where-the-wine-tastes-like-jolly-ranchers/

Thank you !!

I havent lived in Waxahachie for very long now, but I do enjoy it thus far.  I got a 3/2/1 for $140K.  I know there are some smaller houses, 2/1 that go for around $90K.

We moved from Lake Highlands area to Caddo Mills and we fucking love it here.

45 minutes from Downtown Dallas and 55 minutes to DFW Airport.

Van Alstyne, Anna, Melissa, Howe. Hwy 75 construction is almost complete but the commute through Plano can be iffy at times. Still small towns that are starting to grow.

I agree. My wife grew up in Palmer. Nice little town. And if schools are not an issue, Ferris would be my choice. Small town feel but closer than Palmer. Waxahachie is nice, too, but growing way too fast in my opinion.

Forgot to mention that the TDSA range is just east of Ferris, too. I used to be a member and loved it there. Only reason I'm no longer a member is because I joined another private range that's more affordable, albeit farther away. But if I lived in Ferris, the convenience of TDSA would definitely be worth it for me.

Thanks guys

Evan,

Keep in mind, in 5 years these so-called "small towns" aren't going to be small anymore. I work in the construction industry and we're starting to see a lot of multi-family and retail projects going up in a lot of those towns.

Just watch the schools. One of them ranked lower than Dallas, I think it was Palmer.

There's not much development along that corridor yet, so there's a limited number of amenities. No large grocery store, no Walmart, no Lowes or Home Depot. You end up having to go to Red Oak, Waxahachie, Ennis, Seagoville. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just realize if you need something, it's not a 10 minute trip around the corner.

That said, my doctor is in Ferris. My old dentist was in Ferris till he moved to Red Oak, but his daughter moved her practice back to Ferris, so there is medical stuff there that's decent. New dentist is in Ennis. My wife works in Ennis, it's not a bad town. Used to be a Czech town but it's slowly turning hispanic, schools aren't as good as they used to be. We go there for the Polka parade and Christmas parade, stuff like that. And there's a new hospital there, but if you have anything really wrong with you, they'll transport you to Dallas anyway.

Forget Red Oak, it's on the slide. My parents still live there, even my mother says she's moving if my father dies before her.


Is that lee's gun range still open?

True buti can only go so far out

I'm looking for small house
Hopefully small town will
Provide

Any real estate people or people who recently purchased?

What's the down payment situation. 5-10 Percent?

I have good credit.

I think we put down 5% on first house 1 year ago. Under 20% gets pmi. 

~790/806/796 scores got 3.675 iirc on 30yr. I think it would have been around 3.25 if we put 20% down on 15yr, but I can't remember. 

Eta: I shopped around and probably took 5 hard credit pulls before going with a local lender who beat our cu. Excellent and fast service to get us closed super quick. Will definitely use again. Pm me if you want her info. 

Ithanks!!!

Talk to me about Forney.

It's actually a nice little town on up.  It is getting bigger, faster than anything east of Dallas.  

I hate the idea of using US80 as my main mans of ingress and egress.  When I lived in Dallas, I would take it coming back from business in East Texas, and in the afternoon there was ALWAYS a3 mile+ backup at the Dallas/Kaufman County border.

Italy and Maypearl might be places to look as well.  Lots of houses being built out there.  If you lived in Italy, you could always buy a geo-dome.

Thank you

You can cut over to I20 from Forney in like 10 minutes, but it's blowing up. They just built a huge highschool and stadium on that side of town, so no telling what that's like during school.

Cutting over to I30 is more of a chore. We cut through from Rockwall to Terrell one day, it was long and windy.

Italy is a freaking mess right now with small town politics. They just elected a new mayor, decent home town guy, hopefully he can clean it up some. It was ugly there for a while. They also got a new firestation and there's talk of a Denny's on the highway. There was some turnover in the police department, I dunno if there will be more. They promoted a patrol officer who let two patrol cars get stolen, one of which led to a stand off on I35. I heard he left because he didn't want to get caught up in the politics.

They have a small Brookshire's Bros grocery store, which has the basics, but the staff is, well, just the kind of people you'd imagine working in a small town grocery store. The kind of people who have a hard time going to the bathroom without getting the front of their pants wet.

My sister-in-law lives outside town and my wife lived out there before we got married, still owns half her mother's house in town. The county water supply is completely unreliable. Sometimes it's just out. It was a good excuse for my then girlfriend to come to my house to shower. Sister-in-law had limited water last week. They would turn it on in the morning and night for a few hours, but she said it was so muddy, she didn't want it in the bathtub. If you buy out there, I'd have a well or a rain collection system put in so you can flush and wash up a bit.

I work very early
And get off very late but on other days I guess it could be an issue.

Thanks

Looks like a no go

Thanks

It's looking like Forney.  First exit coming from Dallas.

The rush hour traffic on hwy 80 in and out of Forney can be a bitch at time since 80 is only two lanes each way but there is a Walmart and some decent places to eat.