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Fort Worth Tops List of Best Places to Live in Texas

DFW: Fort Worth has landed at the top of the list of the best places to live in the Lone Star State. Travel + Leisure magazine ranked Cowtown at the top of its 10 Best Places to Live in Texas because of its quality of life, culture, entertainment, green spaces and other amenities, including its vibrant real estate market. Dallas, Houston and Austin did not make the list, but many of its suburbs did, as well as San Antonio. Fort Worth surpassed the 1 million population mark last year, up nearly 10% over the past five years. With growth in various parts of the city, including master-planned communities, and with commercial and industrial construction in The Alliance of Texas area, it recently was ranked No. 5 by CoworkingCafe.com for its economic momentum. 

U.S.: Eleven of the country’s top cities are now listed as buyer’s markets. Realtor.com gave the designation to those cities with six months or more of housing inventory. Seven cities entered the summer as buyer’s markets: Miami, Austin, New York City, Houston, Tampa, Jacksonville, Florida; and Riverside, California. Enter autumn and four additional metropolitan areas are also buyer’s markets: Orlando, Nashville, Denver, and Raleigh, North Carolina. Economists used the reported sales of existing and new homes along with other data to compile the list and designations. On the other hand, according to Redfin, there are a few seller’s markets, including Newark, N.J.; Nassau County, New York; Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; New Brunswick, N.J. and Cleveland. A seller’s market occurs when there is less than four months’ housing inventory. A balanced market has an inventory of between four and six months. 

DFW: City officials in Terrell have approved a master-planned community from Main Square Development of Plano that will have a total value of $3 billion when completed. Terra Nova will be the company’s first master community and will encompass 1,530 acres on FM245 and Griffith Road. The development will be completed in several phases over the next 20 years, but when finished will include more than 4,000 housing units, including single-family homes and apartments, a city square, public schools, and about 200,000 square feet of retail space in a nearly 50-acre mixed-use area. Developers will set aside nearly 150 acres for green space, parks and trails. Infrastructure work on the site will begin soon and the first model homes are expected sometime in 2027. Terrell, located about 45 minutes east of Dallas and with a population of about 24,000, sits in Kaufman County, one of the fastest-growing counties in the country. 

U.S.: It’s getting a little tougher for some homeowners across the country to pay their mortgages. After sitting at lows for numerous years, foreclosure starts were up 6% in October from the previous month and 20% higher than October 2024. Completed foreclosures in October were up 32% from the previous year. Attom, a property data and tech company, said that the number of filings in the foreclosure process has increased monthly over the past year. The most completed foreclosures have been recorded in Texas, California and Florida. The silver lining: Less than 0.5% of mortgages are in foreclosure now, compared to more than 4% during the Great Recession and below the normal average of 1% and 1.5%. And only 4% of mortgages across the country are in the delinquent category, compared to nearly 12% recorded 15 years ago at the height of the financial crisis.

LALALAND: Actor Rob Lowe finally has sold his Beverly Hills mansion after a year on the market and at a huge discount. The Brat Pack member, now 60 years old, had listed the three-bedroom, four-bath home in July 2024 for $6.6 million. He continued to drop the price over the past year and apparently found a buyer willing to pay around $4 million for the property. The home was built in the 1950s but has been remodeled extensively with high-end appliances, a home gym, bar, a pool and spa, outdoor dining and lounging areas, a putting green and other amenities. It also was one of the smaller homes that he had lived in during his time in Hollywood. Lowe has purchased and sold numerous properties in the Los Angeles area over the years, including the $45 million sale of an estate in 2020.

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