McKinney is my favorite city to search for a home with my buyer clients. First of all, there is a lot of inventory, so the options are many and the prices are very competitive. But McKinney has so many attractions that other surrounding cities don’t. For example, I always take an out-of-town shopping customer into downtown McKinney and buy them a meal in the plaza. For brunch I take them to Spoons and for lunch or dinner I like Mama Amelia’s or if we feel like it we go to Rick’s. How many cities with a population of over 125,000 have an ancient plaza in the center with a 100-year-old granite courthouse in the center of the plaza?

Also most impressive are the antebellum homes throughout Louisiana on the way to McKinney and in Virginia on the way out. McKinney is the county seat of Collin County. McKinney has a history. It is not just a large old cotton field that has developed like so many adjacent towns in the last few decades. One piece of information that people like is when I tell them that this city and county were founded by a man named Collin McKinney.

Most buyers today don’t want or can’t afford the care and maintenance of a historic-type home. So, we left the old McKinney and headed southwest to the new McKinney. I guess 80% of the houses in McKinney are located west of Highway #75 and south of Highway #380. That quadrant contains at least 40 subdivisions that provide an incredible variety of housing. Some subdivisions like Stonebridge Ranch have homes ranging from $250,000 to more than $1 million.

There are 3 excellent golf courses in McKinney and the homes that line them are selling at a premium. The signature course is Pete Dye’s course called Stonebridge Country Club, not to be confused with the Stonebridge Ranch course, which is also very nice. The third notable course is Craig Ranch, which is a TPC course. They are all private clubs surrounded by beautiful houses.

Lastly, I like buying homes in McKinney because of its suburban location. This is very attractive to people moving to the Dallas area because the #75 North Central Expressway runs north-south and of course the #121 now called the Sam Rayburn Tollroad runs east-west. Downtown Dallas is a good hour away during peak times and DFW Airport is 45 minutes away.

It’s easy to understand why McKinney is one of the fastest growing communities in Texas. Where else in Texas can you live in a big city and enjoy a historic area as vast and beautiful as McKinney?