Buying in Dallas-Fort Worth: the full guide

What homes cost

The median sale price in the city of Dallas was $448,703 across all home types in the three months to August 2026, 0.07% lower than a year earlier. The median price per square foot was $237, which is about $2,550 per square metre, roughly a third of the figure for Boston. Homes took about 50 days to sell on average, and in August 2026 they sold for 96.9% of the asking price, so buyers have room to negotiate.

That is the figure for the city, not the metro area. Fort Worth, Plano, Frisco and the outer suburbs each have their own medians, and new-build estates sit at different prices from older streets. Check the median for the specific town and school district before you set a budget, and treat any single number for the whole region with caution.

Property tax is how Texas pays for local government

Texas does not have a personal income tax, and it has no state property tax either. Schools, cities, counties, colleges and special districts each set their own rate, and the appraisal district in each county sets the value they apply it to. The result is a sizeable yearly bill.

Frisco shows how it stacks up. The City of Frisco lists these rates per $100 of value for fiscal year 2027: city 0.4255, Collin County 0.1514, Collin County Community College 0.0812 and Frisco school district 1.0194. Together that is about 1.68%. By our arithmetic, on a $500,000 home with no exemption it comes to about $8,390 a year. Frisco also spans Denton County, where Little Elm school district charges 1.2252, so the same house in that district costs about $1,030 a year more in school tax alone. The school district is the number to look up first.

Homestead exemption and the 10% cap

Texas reduces the bill for people who live in the home. A residence homestead exemption takes $140,000 off the value on which school tax is charged. To qualify you must own the home and use it as your principal residence, and you must state that you claim no other homestead anywhere, in or outside Texas. You apply once to the county appraisal district, generally before 1 May. The exemption is not available on a second home or a rental.

For a homestead, the appraised value cannot rise by more than 10% a year, apart from new improvements. The cap starts on 1 January of the year after you first qualify. A buyer who lives in Europe and uses the home as a holiday house gets neither the exemption nor the cap. Non-homestead property valued at $5 million or less has a looser 20% cap, which the Comptroller says expires on 31 December 2026. You can protest the appraisal to the county's appraisal review board.

New communities: MUD and PID charges

Newer estates can sit inside a municipal utility district. A MUD provides water, wastewater and drainage, and with voter approval it can issue bonds and levy an annual property tax on every property in the district to repay them, based on appraised value. That tax is on top of the city, county and school rates above. A seller in such a district usually has to give the buyer a notice stating the bonds authorised and issued and the current tax rate, when the contract is signed. Read it before you commit.

Some communities are also in a public improvement district, where the city levies a yearly assessment to pay for local infrastructure. It is paid in annual instalments, and a missed payment can bring penalties and a lien on the property. Ask the seller for the district notice and the annual amount, and include both in your monthly budget.

Hail, wind and insurance

North Texas hail is a cost of ownership rather than a rare event. In September 2025 NBC DFW reported that complaints to the Texas Department of Insurance about non-renewals more than doubled, from 79 in 2023 to 190 in 2024. It quoted an expert putting a roof in North Texas at $20,000 to $30,000, which is why roofs are the insurers' main concern.

For a buyer, four questions matter. How old is the roof and what is it made of? Will the policy pay replacement cost or only depreciated value? Is the hail deductible a flat sum or a percentage of the insured value? Will the insurer write the policy at all? A lender will insist on cover, so get quotes during your option period and treat them as part of the price. An impact-resistant roof can make a difference to availability and cost.

How a purchase closes in Texas

In much of Europe a notary completes the sale. In Texas the equivalent is a private title company that holds the money and documents in escrow and closes the transaction through a licensed escrow officer. You have the right to choose the title company. Title insurance premiums are set by the state insurance commissioner and are identical at every company, so competition is on service, not price. Sellers customarily pay for the owner's policy and buyers for the lender's policy, though both are negotiable.

An attorney is not required for the transaction itself, according to the Texas Land Title Association. For a buyer in another country who will not be at the closing, an independent attorney who reads the contract, the title report and the survey is a sensible extra cost, not a legal requirement.

The 2025 Texas law on foreign buyers

Senate Bill 17 took effect on 1 September 2025. It bars certain people and companies from buying real property in Texas, which the law defines to include residential property. The restricted groups include governments of designated countries, companies headquartered in or controlled from them, and individuals domiciled in them. US citizens and lawful permanent residents are exempt, and so are leases of under a year.

A designated country is one named in at least one of the three most recent Annual Threat Assessments of the US intelligence community, or one the governor designates. The statute names no EU or UK state, so a European citizen who lives in Europe is not caught by it as such. Two points call for care. The governor can add countries, so confirm the position when you buy. And a citizen of a designated country who lives in another country and has not naturalised there can be caught, whatever the country of residence. Anyone in that position should take Texas legal advice.

Financing in Dallas-Fort Worth

The conforming loan limit for 2026 is $832,750 for a one-unit home in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties. It is comfortably above the Dallas median, so most purchases here fit standard lending. A lawfully resident non-citizen can obtain a conventional loan on the same terms as a US citizen, because Fannie Mae buys mortgages made to such borrowers on the terms it offers citizens, subject to the lender's own rules. Visa holders should plan for the points in our guide to borrowing without a US credit score.

If you remain resident in Europe and buy for visits or letting, expect a foreign national loan with a larger down payment and a higher rate. How those loans work is explained separately. Whatever the route, the lender counts the full monthly cost, including property tax, insurance and any MUD or PID charge, so the tax rate of the district affects how much you can borrow.

If you plan to let it

The two big cities have different positions, and the suburbs have their own rules.

A homeowners' association can forbid letting even where the city allows it. Texas also applies a state hotel occupancy tax to short stays in houses and condominiums, which the owner or the platform must collect.

Taxes if you do not live in the United States

Texas collects no personal income tax, so there is no state return on rental income and no state tax on a gain when you sell. Federal tax still applies. Rental income that a non-resident owner receives from US property is taxed at 30% of the gross amount unless you elect to be taxed on net income and file a US return, which usually matters if there is a mortgage and running costs. When a foreign owner sells, the buyer must generally withhold 15% of the price, with an exception where the price is $300,000 or less and the buyer will live in the home. A foreign seller can ask the IRS for a certificate that reduces the withholding.

For inheritance, Texas has no tax of its own: the legislature repealed its inheritance tax in 2015. The federal estate tax can still apply to a non-resident's US property. The IRS filing threshold for a non-resident is $60,000 of US-situated assets, and a treaty between your country and the United States may change the result. Take advice from a cross-border tax adviser before you buy.

Getting home

Dallas Fort Worth International is American Airlines' largest hub. For summer 2026 American added nonstop flights to Athens, daily from 21 May, and Zurich, from 21 May to 4 August. Both were seasonal. We could not verify the full list of other European routes and carriers from the airport itself, so check the DFW Airport and airline schedules for the city you need.

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