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Celina Retakes Fastest-Growing U.S. City Moniker

DFW:  Celina is once again the country’s fastest-growing city, and other Dallas suburbs are not far behind. In fact, four Collin County suburbs where housing communities and mixed-use developments have exploded in recent years are now ranked in the Top 5 of the fastest-growing cities of at least 20,000, the U,S. Census Bureau says. The government agency said that Celina now has a population of 64,427, having grown approximately 24.6% from the middle of 2024 to the middle of 2025. Nearby Princeton, which was the previous No. 1, is now in third place with an 18.1% growth rate in the same period. It is followed by Melissa at a 14.5% growth rate and Anna at No. 5 with a 10.2% growth rate. The growth in the suburbs is part of the larger population boom throughout the Metroplex. Although the growth rate for the region was down from 2.3% in 2023-2024 to 1.4% growth last year, it was good enough for the second-largest population growth in the country. While Dallas’ population was basically flat, Fort Worth’s population rose 2% and is now the country’s 10th largest city with a population over 1 million

DFW: It’s official, Y’all. The Texas Stock Exchange has signed a lease in the still-under-construction 30-story Bank of America Tower at Parkside near Klyde Warren Park in Dallas’ Uptown district. But there’s a catch. As part of the deal, city officials would need to approve a zoning change that would allow for a continuous outdoor digital ticker to display stock prices and fluctuations, similar to one at The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. State and local leaders have welcomed the Texas-based exchange and various institutional investors have championed and supported it with commitments of more than $270 million. The TSE plans to launch trading this summer prior to its initial public offering sometime next year. The location of the Texas Market Center near the new Goldman Sachs campus, Texas Capital Bank and other financial institutions has led to its recognition as “Y’all Street.” Plans for the TSE call for executive offices, a Texas business museum and a studio to stream daily opening and closing ceremonies. The Dallas area is the second-largest financial services region in the country behind New York City. 

DFW: One North Texas city has welcomed them, while another county is saying, “not so fast.” They are data centers, the gargantuan tech structures that take up swaths of former ranch land and are the work horses for anything IT that power countless companies’ data services, including artificial intelligence tasks. In a controversial vote after an hours-long public session in mid-May, city leaders in Red Oak, about 20 miles south of Dallas, approved Compass Data Centers’ plans. It calls for a new campus that would sit on more than 800 acres. Residents had opposed the project, citing concerns for the electric grid, increased noise and the potential lowering of residential property values. Meanwhile, about 50 miles south of Red Oak, Hill County Commissioners voted to pause any new data center construction for the next year while the county evaluates similar concerns. More than 60 cities and counties across the country have either paused or rejected new data center construction. Maine has placed a one-year moratorium on such construction, the only state to do so. 

U.S.: Hopes of lower mortgage rates dimmed in mid-May on the heels of geopolitical concerns and higher costs for food, gas, and other goods. Inflation rose to 3.8% on those worries and ramifications of the war in Iran. The benchmark 30-year fixed rate was around 6.4% in mid-May with little sign of it easing. More than 50 million homeowners across the country currently have a mortgage. Industry experts estimate that a one-quarter percentage point increase in the mortgage rate prices more than 1 million out of the housing market.

LALALAND: Steve Harvey, the funny and popular host of “Family Feud,” has listed his Sandy Springs, Georgia mansion for sale.  The Top 4 answers on why he’s slashing his price from $5.1 million to $4.75 million after just four months: 1. It’s not selling quickly enough! 2. He’s not living there anymore! 3. He already has a larger estate he purchased from Tyler Perry six years ago! 4. He has positive equity and what’s a few hundred thousand dollars to a man whose net worth is over $200 million! He bought the six-bedroom, 17,000-square-foot home for $3.38 million in 2010 but hasn’t lived there for a while. That’s because in 2020 he bought an estate from Perry. He’s now living in that nine-bedroom, custom-built home, which Perry sold to him for $15 million, $6 million below the original asking price of $21 million.

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