Six hours after my last Grayson County post went up, someone found it searching for the best new subdivisions here, and I did not have a real answer for them. So here it is, the way I would give it across my kitchen table: not a copied list of every community with a price next to it, but a working agent’s ranking of which new neighborhoods are worth your money, plus the one line on a builder contract that can wreck the payment even when the sticker price looks great. Two things decide that, and I will show you both.
What are the best new subdivisions in Grayson County right now?
Here is my rule, because it is not the aggregators’ rule: I do not rank by who has the biggest master plan or the prettiest pool. I rank by what you feel five years in, the school grade, the commute to the fabs, whether a MUD or PID is riding on the tax bill, and whether resale comps next door support what the builder is charging. If you made me put the currently-selling communities in order, this is it.
- Bel Air Village (Sherman) is my top pick for most buyers: close to 300 acres in town, minutes from the fabs, with Chesmar, D.R. Horton and Brightland building and Phase 2 underway. Active listings run roughly $285,000 to $365,000, the most attainable of the marquee communities. Closest to the work, most established amenities.
- Mantua Point (Van Alstyne) wins if you weight schools. It is the flagship master plan, roughly 2,000 acres by developer Risland with David Weekley, Perry and Highland, a resort pool and miles of trails, feeding B-rated Van Alstyne ISD. It is a step up in price, active listings roughly $420,000 to $745,000, and about 20 minutes more to the fabs.
- Heritage Ranch (Sherman) is the mid-market pick with its own new school: Highland and K. Hovnanian, active listings roughly $325,000 to $450,000, and Sherman ISD opened a new elementary (Parker Elementary) on land within the community for 2025 to 2026.
- Thompson Farms (Van Alstyne) is a premium community in the B-rated Van Alstyne district, Highland around a private pool and cabana, active listings roughly $515,000 to $710,000.
- Gateway Village (Denison) is the wooded-lot, lake-adjacent step-up: Highland on greenbelt lots, active listings roughly $420,000 to $670,000, minutes from Lake Texoma.
If your budget is tighter, the best-value new construction right now is in Sherman: Lennar’s Luella Crossing (active listings roughly $219,000 to $234,000), Meritage’s Westmoor (roughly $275,000 to $344,000), and D.R. Horton’s Three Oaks (roughly $282,000 to $306,000).
Your number one is not automatically mine. Weight schools and Mantua Point moves up; weight commute and Bel Air or Heritage Ranch wins; weight the lake and Gateway Village leads. That weighting is the conversation I have with every buyer.
Here is the fuller field, priced from real active listings on HAR as of July 2026, so you can compare what people are actually paying at a glance.
| Community | City | 2025 ISD grade | Builders | Active listings (HAR, Jul 2026) | Drive to TI fabs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luella Crossing | Sherman | Sherman (C) | Lennar | ~$219K–$234K | ~15 min |
| Westmoor | Sherman | Sherman (C) | Meritage | ~$275K–$344K | ~15 min |
| Three Oaks | Sherman | Sherman (C) | D.R. Horton | ~$282K–$306K | ~15 min |
| Bel Air Village | Sherman | Sherman (C) | Chesmar, D.R. Horton, Brightland | ~$285K–$365K | ~10–15 min |
| Pebblebrook | Sherman | Sherman (C)* | Brightland, CastleRock, DRB | ~$320K–$400K | ~15 min |
| Heritage Ranch | Sherman | Sherman (C) | Highland, K. Hovnanian | ~$325K–$450K | ~10–15 min |
| Gateway Village | Denison | Denison (C) | Highland | ~$420K–$670K | ~15–20 min |
| Mantua Point | Van Alstyne | Van Alstyne (B) | David Weekley, Perry, Highland | ~$420K–$745K | ~20–25 min |
| Thompson Farms | Van Alstyne | Van Alstyne (B) | Highland | ~$515K–$710K | ~20–25 min |
| Grayson Ridge | Van Alstyne | Van Alstyne (B) | Riverside (1-acre lots) | ~$580K–$750K | ~20–25 min |
*Some Sherman-area ZIP codes split between Sherman ISD and S and S CISD; I confirm the campus for the exact address. Ranges are active HAR listings as of July 2026 and move weekly. Sanford Park (K. Hovnanian) and Greywood Heights (HistoryMaker) have recently sold out of new construction, so only resales remain there. I pull the live listings on whatever community you are weighing.
What are the biggest master-planned communities coming to Grayson County?
This is where buyers get dazzled and I get cautious, because the three largest developments in the county are also the three earliest, and “planned for thousands of homes” is not the same as “you can move in next spring.”
Preston Harbor is the giant: a roughly 3,100-acre, 7,500-home development on the Denison and Pottsboro shoreline of Lake Texoma, led by master developer Craig International with Centurion American as a residential partner that broke ground in October 2025. The $6 to $7 billion plan includes a Margaritaville resort and a 900-slip marina, with first homes projected around 2028. Platinum Ranch in Gunter is a Centurion American plan of nearly 2,000 acres and about 4,200 homes, with excavation begun in late 2025. Cottonwood, southwest of Sherman near Dorchester, is another large Centurion American project, and it already has municipal utility districts established.
I am not talking anyone out of these. They are the county’s future. But a first-phase lot in a development still building its own roads carries risks a finished community does not, and that is a conversation worth having before you put money down, not after.
Which new Grayson County communities have the most luxurious homes?
For the top of the new-construction market, a few names matter. Gateway Village in Denison sits on wooded greenbelt lots that feel nothing like a flat production field, with active Highland listings roughly $420,000 to $670,000. Grayson Ridge in Van Alstyne puts new homes on full one-acre lots, active listings roughly $580,000 to $750,000. The custom Enclave section of Chapel Creek in Van Alstyne runs past $600,000, and the top builder lines inside Mantua Point reach into the $700,000s.
The real luxury story has not delivered yet. Preston Harbor on Lake Texoma is being built to carry the county’s most expensive new homes once its waterfront and marina come online later this decade. One catch worth knowing now, before you go touring: at most builders you keep your own representation only if your agent registers you on or before your first visit. Walk a model alone and you can lose it. So tell me which communities you want to see and I will get you registered first, while it still counts.
What do new homes in Grayson County cost, and what is the MUD or PID trap?
First, understand the two prices you will see. Builders advertise a “from” price, and it is a real number, but it is the smallest floor plan with no upgrades and no lot premium. Heritage Ranch, for example, advertises from around $294,000 (K. Hovnanian), while the homes actually listed for sale there right now run roughly $325,000 to $450,000. That gap is not bait: it is what a real house in that community, with the finishes and the lot buyers actually pick, costs on the open market, which is why the ranges in the table above come from active listings, not the flyer. Across the county, advertised starting prices sit in the high $200,000s, but the homes on the market run from about $220,000 (Lennar’s Luella Crossing in Sherman) to more than $750,000 (the premium Van Alstyne communities). The same money still buys a considerably larger, newer home than it does an hour south in Collin County, and I quote you both the base and the real listing so you are not blindsided at the design center.
Now the line the flyer does not lead with. Third-party estimates put Grayson County’s effective property tax rate around 1.7 percent (Ownwell), lower in dollars than Collin County because home values are lower here. But many master-planned communities layer a MUD (municipal utility district) or PID (public improvement district) assessment on top to pay for their roads and utilities, and that does not show up in the base price.
Here is what that does to two identical $300,000 homes:
This is not hypothetical. I have had a buyer ready to sign on a new build until we pulled the community’s tax detail and found a MUD adding a few hundred dollars to the monthly payment. They chose a different community, glad they saw the real number before signing instead of after. And it is not rare here: Cottonwood near Sherman is set up with PID assessments, Bel Air with a PID, Heritage Ranch and several Van Alstyne communities with MUDs, and more districts are added every year. So before you fall for a model home, send me the community you are looking at and I will pull its real tax rate and any MUD or PID assessment, so you are comparing the true monthly cost and not the sticker.
Which Grayson County school district should I focus on?
It is one of the biggest value levers in the county, and it moves in a few miles. In the Texas Education Agency’s 2025 A-to-F accountability ratings, released in August 2025 after a multi-year legal delay, Van Alstyne, Pottsboro and Howe ISDs each earned a B, while Denison, Whitesboro and Sherman ISDs each earned a C. School grade drives resale demand, which means it drives your future price whether or not you have children in the system.
That B-rated tier is a big part of why Van Alstyne leads my list even though Sherman has more inventory and sits closer to the jobs. The public ratings are a starting point, but they will not tell you which community hits the grade you want at a price you can actually pay, and a listing will not always get the campus zoning right, since some Sherman-area ZIP codes split between Sherman ISD and S and S CISD. Tell me the grade you need and your number, and I will show you where the two of them meet and confirm the exact campus for the address before you write an offer.
New construction or resale, and how do I avoid overpaying?
Both can be right; it depends on your timeline and whether you want new or settled. New construction gets you a warranty, current finishes, and builder incentives that can be significant in the balanced market we are in now. But the builder’s sales contract is written to protect the builder, and the friendly agent in the model home works for them, not you. I represent you through that, read the contract, and price the incentives against the open market so a number on a flyer turns into real value. Incentives tend to run richest on finished inventory homes near the end of a builder’s quarter.
If you want the full breakdown of which incentives are worth taking and which one quietly costs you the most, I wrote a separate guide on builder incentives in North Texas, and a companion on whether you even need your own agent for new construction. The short answer to the second one is yes, and it usually costs you nothing.
How close are these communities to the Texas Instruments fabs and Dallas?
Close to the work, far enough from Dallas to save real money. The Texas Instruments and GlobalWafers campuses sit on Sherman’s north and east side, so most Sherman and Denison communities are within about 10 to 20 minutes of the fabs, and Van Alstyne adds roughly 20 minutes while buying you the county’s best school grade. Downtown Dallas is about 60 to 65 miles and an hour south of Sherman down US-75, with Van Alstyne the closest of the group to the metroplex for anyone still commuting south. Lake Texoma is minutes north of Denison and Pottsboro.
If you are weighing a move here, start with how I work with people relocating to North Texas, read the deeper story on moving to Sherman for the Texas Instruments jobs, or look at the towns: Sherman, Denison and Van Alstyne. When you are ready, tell me your budget, the school grade you want, and your commute, call or text me at (903) 568-6626, or book a 30-minute consult. I will map you to the two or three communities that actually fit, and name the ones I would skip. The right community for you is a specific answer, not a list, and finding it is most of my job.
About the author. Nychole Baxter is a licensed REALTOR® (Texas License #0801351) with Bachman Realty Group, brokered by Real Broker, LLC, working with buyers and sellers across Grayson, Collin, Denton and the surrounding North Texas counties.
I am a REALTOR®, not a tax advisor, financial advisor, or school official, and I do not speak for Texas Instruments, GlobalWafers, or any builder or developer named here. Community, price, tax, school-rating, and job figures are drawn from public reporting, builder and developer materials, and government sources, and they change frequently. Prices and sales status shift monthly; county lines, school zoning, and MUD or PID assessments must be verified for a specific address with the builder and the Grayson Central Appraisal District. In keeping with the Fair Housing Act, communities here are described by market facts (price, location, schools, amenities), not by the people who live in them. Confirm current figures with the relevant authority and a professional before you rely on them. Current as of July 2026.