Moving to Plano, Texas: homes, taxes, commute and jobs

Yes, if you want an established house close to the jobs or a train into Dallas. Zillow's typical Plano home is $497,714 (September 2026), about $142,000 less than Frisco's. For that you get the Legacy office district, where Toyota, JPMorgan Chase and Liberty Mutual sit and AT&T is building, and three DART rail lines inside the city limits. Frisco, Allen and McKinney don't have DART rail.

Say no if a brand-new house is the point. The city is close to built out: its long-range plan, Plano Tomorrow, keeps the remaining undeveloped land for skilled employment ahead of new housing, so nearly everything you'll tour was built in earlier decades. In that case, read our new construction homes in Plano and nearby page and compare Frisco, Prosper and McKinney before you book flights.

The timing works for you. The typical value is down 3.33% in a year and about 9% under its May 2024 peak of $545,864, which means sellers are negotiating again. Over ten years it's still up 55.71%, so this is a dip inside a long rise.

Moving to Plano for a Legacy job

If your offer letter says Legacy Drive, Headquarters Drive or Communications Parkway, start with Deerfield ($800,944) and Kings Ridge ($820,827), or the Legacy area itself, and you can skip the tollway entirely. The catch is price: those homes sit about $300,000 above the city's typical value. If that's too far, central Plano is the next ring out, a longer drive for a lot less.

Moving to Plano for a Dallas office

Buy near the rail on the east and central side. Parker Road Station has the Red and Orange lines and free parking, and ZIP 75074 around it is the cheapest part of Plano at $362,198. The catch is the age of the houses, so put real money behind the inspection: roof, HVAC and foundation.

Benefits of living in Plano, and the catch

• Price for the location. A typical home costs less than in Frisco, Murphy, Coppell or Prosper, with the same tollway access to Legacy.
• Rail. As one of 13 DART member cities, Plano has the Red, Orange and Silver lines stopping inside the city.
• Jobs on your side of the metro. The biggest employers here are banks and insurers as well as Toyota, so a move to Plano often shortens a commute.
• No state income tax. Texas doesn't tax wages; you pay it back in property tax, covered below.

Living in Plano TX pros and cons

Pros: a lower price than its northern neighbors, rail, and the jobs. Cons: older houses that need inspection budgets, very little new construction, and a 2026 property tax rate of about 1.7% before exemptions (about 1.3% with a homestead). If you can live with the cons, start your search here.

Do these in order. Each one cuts the list of neighborhoods and saves you a tour.

1. Get the office address. It picks the side of the city. Legacy points to the northwest; a Dallas office points to the rail stations in central and east Plano.
2. Decide new or established. If new, look north of Plano. If established, stay: the typical home here is $142,000 below Frisco's.
3. Check the county and district on the exact address. Most of Plano is Collin County and Plano ISD, but the far west edge is Denton County and some addresses are in other districts. Our where is Plano page shows the county line.
4. Work out the all-in monthly cost. On the typical $497,714 home with 10% down at 7.4%, principal and interest is about $3,100 a month, and property tax after a homestead exemption adds about $540. Then add an insurance quote and any HOA dues.
5. Rent first if the start date is fixed and the search isn't. At a typical asking rent of $1,736 a month, six months of renting while you learn the commute costs about $10,400.

After you close, file your homestead exemption, then work through the Texas license and registration deadlines in the order on our moving to Texas checklist.

Why some owners are leaving Plano

Zillow's figures point to price and stock, not one cause. The typical value has fallen 3.33% in a year, and with little land left for new homes, owners who want new construction or a bigger lot move north to Frisco, Prosper or McKinney. Those are the listings you want: established houses whose sellers already have somewhere to go.

Prices step down from west to east, and this year's drop runs the other way: the most expensive ZIP barely moved, and the cheapest fell most. So the side of the city you choose also decides how much room you have on price.

If you want the discount, it's in 75074 on the east side, down 4.48%. If you want an address that holds its price, Willow Bend and Lakeside on Preston rose slightly this year while the city fell, which means you'll pay close to asking there. The full table with a map is on our Plano ZIP codes page.

Plano neighborhoods at each budget

Under about $450,000, look at East Plano and Downtown Plano, where the rail stations are. Between $450,000 and $650,000, central Plano and Whiffletree. Around $800,000, Deerfield and Kings Ridge near Legacy. Above $1 million, Willow Bend, Lakeside on Preston and Normandy Estates. If you only tour one part of the city, make it the middle band: it sits between both commutes, and its two ZIPs fell 3% to 4% this year. Our guide to Plano neighborhoods by price and trade-off sorts all eleven.

Plano home prices over ten years

If you plan to stay, here's the reassuring number: the typical Plano value is up 15.12% over five years, level with Frisco's 16.16%. So Frisco's extra $142,000 hasn't bought its owners faster growth. Richardson (19.83%) and Coppell (26.92%) grew faster; Allen (12.65%) and McKinney (10.25%) slower. None of it predicts next year, but buying near the May 2024 peak was the expensive moment, and this isn't it.

Renting first in Plano

The typical asking rent is $1,736 a month, up 0.55% in a year (Zillow's index includes apartments). Rents are flat while prices fall, so renting for a few months costs you little in missed gains and buys you time to drive the commute.

Making an offer in Plano this year

Freddie Mac's 30-year average was 7.4% in the week of October 15, 2026. At that rate, a seller credit toward a rate buydown can be worth more to you than the same amount off the price.

Across the Dallas-Fort Worth metro, 34% of listings have cut their price and homes sell at 98.0% of list (August 2026), after 64 days to pending. Those are metro figures, not Plano's, but they say the same thing: you can ask. The Plano housing market page tracks it each month.

Texas doesn't tax your wages, so property tax does the work. On Plano's typical home it's about $540 a month after a homestead exemption: the biggest bill after the mortgage, and the one to price into every offer.

Plano property tax rate

For tax year 2026, a Plano home in Collin County and Plano ISD pays four units (Collin CAD's 2026 entity list):

On the typical $497,714 home that's about $8,476 a year before exemptions and about $6,476 once you live there and file the homestead, an effective rate of 1.30%. The worked bill and due dates are on our Plano property tax page, and the Plano property tax calculator runs your own price.

Sales tax and other Texas costs in Plano

DART runs on a 1% sales tax in its member cities, Plano included. That's the reason the trains stop here and not in the cities to the north. The full sales tax, vehicle tax and the no-income-tax rule are on our Texas taxes for new Plano residents page.

A Plano budget beyond the mortgage

Add homeowners insurance (quote the specific house), HOA dues where there's an association, electricity from a retail provider you pick, and city water and trash. The cost of living in Plano page turns those into a monthly budget.

Let the commute choose your Plano neighborhood before price does. There are two directions: south to Dallas, and inward to the Legacy district in the northwest, where the big corporate campuses are.

DART rail from Plano to Dallas

Parker Road Station, on Park Boulevard near US-75, has the Red and Orange lines and 2,020 free parking spaces, and Downtown Plano Station is one stop south. The Silver Line opened on October 25, 2025, running 26 miles from Shiloh Road in Plano to DFW Airport. Every one of those stations is on the east and central side, so if you'll take the train, buy east of the tollway.

Driving from Plano: Dallas North Tollway, US-75 and SH-121

West Plano drives the Dallas North Tollway (NTTA tolls) and the President George Bush Turnpike; east Plano uses US-75. SH-121 runs along the northern edge toward Frisco and DFW Airport. Our Plano to Dallas commute guide compares the routes, tolls and rail.

Working at Legacy after moving to Plano

Live in Deerfield, Kings Ridge, Willow Bend or the Legacy area and the drive to a Legacy campus stays off the tollway. Before you shortlist, check the exact campus on the major employers in Plano page: Legacy covers several.

District lines don't follow city lines, and this is the easiest mistake to make here. Most Plano addresses are in Plano ISD, which covers about 100 square miles: 66 inside the City of Plano plus parts of Richardson, Dallas, Allen, Murphy, Garland, Wylie and other cities. Some far-west addresses aren't: Kings Ridge, in the Denton County part of Plano, lists Lewisville ISD schools on its HOA site.

Plano ISD school finder

Ignore the school field on a listing. Put the exact address into the Plano ISD SchoolFinder, or the other district's own locator, before you make an offer. In the Texas Education Agency's 2025 ratings, Plano ISD received a B (82) and Frisco ISD an A (90); both are averages across many campuses, so the address lookup tells you more than the letter. How ratings work is on our Plano school districts page.

The fourth-largest city in Dallas-Fort Worth and the ninth-largest in Texas (Plano Economic Development) runs on banks: JPMorgan Chase (11,133 employees) tops the EDC's list, ahead of Bank of America and Capital One, with Toyota Motor North America (5,143) fourth. If your move starts with one of those offers, find out which campus before you look at a single house.

Plano corporate headquarters

Toyota moved its 100-acre North American headquarters here from Torrance, California, in 2017, and Frito-Lay is at 7701 Legacy Drive. Two more are coming. AT&T said on January 5, 2026, that it will build its global headquarters at 5400 Legacy Drive, consolidating nearly 6,000 workers, with partial occupancy as early as mid-2028. In June 2026 Samsung Electronics America said it is moving its U.S. headquarters from New Jersey to its existing Plano campus by the end of 2026. If you're on the AT&T move, you have time to rent first and buy without a deadline.

What Plano, Texas is known for

Those campuses and the Legacy West district around them, and Downtown Plano, the older town center beside the DART station at 15th Street and Haggard Park. Each employer, its campus and the closest neighborhoods are on our companies in Plano page.

Here's when to pick a neighbor instead. Pay Frisco's $640,131 typical price only for a newer house or Frisco ISD's A rating: its 2026 Collin County rate, about $1.68 per $100, is barely lower than Plano's, and you give up DART rail. Pick Richardson ($437,432) if you want rail for less and can take an older house. Allen ($487,619) and McKinney ($472,867) cost about what Plano does, sit farther from Dallas and have no rail, so they win only if a newer house at Plano's price is the goal.

Plano vs Frisco

This is the closest call for a Legacy job, because both cities sit near the campuses. Our how Plano compares with Frisco page works through price, tax, districts, commute and the age of the houses, with a monthly cost for each.

Other Dallas suburbs to compare with Plano

If you haven't settled on a city, our best Dallas suburbs ranking scores eleven of them on rail, monthly cost, tax rate and district rating, and gives a pick for each budget and commute.

Linda Bale is a North Texas Realtor® with Bale Real Estate Group at eXp Realty who helps buyers relocate to Plano. If you're still in another state, the search can start remotely: an MLS search sent by email, FaceTime tours of the homes that make the list, and one short trip to see the finalists.

What a Plano real estate agent does for a relocating buyer

1. A written agreement first. Since January 1, 2026, Texas law requires a written agreement with a buyer before an agent shows any home. It must say what services you get, when it ends and how the agent is paid, and that broker compensation is not set by law and is fully negotiable.
2. A private MLS search. Homes that fit your budget, district and commute arrive directly, with no portal sign-up.
3. Remote tours. Video walk-throughs that show the roof line, the street and the backyard as well as the staged rooms.
4. Offer and option period. Texas contracts include a paid option period for inspections; our Plano closing costs guide explains it.
5. The move itself. Utilities, a Texas driver license and vehicle registration all have deadlines after you arrive.

Choosing among real estate agents in Plano

Ask any agent you interview three things: how many buyers they've represented in Plano ISD and the other districts here in the past two years, whether they'll tour by video before you fly in, and how they're paid under the written agreement. If you'd like to start with Linda, the private Plano home search takes your criteria in a few minutes, and she can tour the first homes with you on FaceTime.