Van Alstyne, Texas: Anna’s Neighbor to the North
Van Alstyne sits on US 75 directly north of Anna, in the southeast corner of Grayson County, with a small piece of the city reaching into Collin County. It was founded in 1873 along the Houston and Texas Central Railway and still has a historic downtown. It is also one of the fastest-changing small cities in North Texas. The 2020 census counted about 4,400 residents. City leaders have since planned for thousands of new homes, and local projections suggest the population could grow several times over in the coming years.
For many of my clients, Van Alstyne is the next stop after Anna. It offers the same US 75 access, new-construction options at a range of price points, and a slightly quieter pace a few more miles from the Dallas crowds.
Homes for Sale in Van Alstyne
The newest listings in Van Alstyne, updated daily from the MLS. There are 270+ active homes here right now — use View All Results below the grid to see every one.
Van Alstyne at a Glance
- Where it is: On US 75 in the southeast corner of Grayson County, directly north of Anna, with a small piece of the city reaching into Collin County.
- Population: 4,369 in the 2020 census. The city estimated about 10,000 as of January 2026. City officials project more than 30,000 by 2030.
- Size: 5.33 square miles, against Anna’s 16.44.
- Schools: Van Alstyne ISD, six campuses, 2,857 students. One high school.
- Median sale price: $417,490 for single-family homes in August 2026, per HAR. Anna’s was $350,000 in July 2026.
- Active listings: 274 active residential listings inside the city as of 23 September 2026, from my own MLS search.
- PID or MUD: Some communities have one, some advertise neither. This is the single most important thing to check here.
Amy’s Take on Van Alstyne
Van Alstyne is where I send buyers who liked Anna but wanted a little more room and a little less crowd, and who are willing to trade a few minutes of commute for it. The historic downtown is real, not a marketing line, and the city is spending money on it right now.
Two things I say to every buyer looking here, and neither one is in a brochure.
First, Van Alstyne is not a PID-free town. I hear that a lot and it is not true. Mantua is in a Municipal Utility District. Oaklawn and Churchill are in one. The city adopted a formal PID policy in August 2026 and has been approving new districts since. A few communities do advertise neither, and that is a legitimate reason to choose them, but it has to be checked lot by lot rather than assumed.
Second, this is a small city catching up on its own infrastructure. There is roughly $13 million of water and sewer work underway, the wastewater plant upgrades are split across future bond packages, and when a 236-acre development came before the city in August 2026 staff told the developers a water tower and a lift station would be needed and construction could slip eight to twelve months. None of that should scare you off. It should tell you the growth here is real enough that the pipes are the bottleneck.
The resale market is soft at the moment, which is good news if you are buying. Redfin has the median sale price down 5.3% year over year, and two sources put days on market over 100. With Mantua still selling and Highpoint Village bringing 2,200 more homes, new construction is going to keep competing with resale for a while.
New Construction Communities in and Around Van Alstyne
Most new-home building here runs along the US 75 corridor. Prices, plans and incentives below are what builders advertised in September 2026 and they move constantly, so treat them as a starting point and call me for what is actually happening this week.
Mantua and Mantua Point
The flagship. Roughly 2,000 acres spanning about five miles along Highway 75, developed by Risland US Holdings, and large enough that it straddles the Grayson and Collin county line. It is planned for several thousand homes at full buildout.
Four builders are on the developer’s own roster: David Weekley Homes, Highland Homes, Perry Homes and Risland Homes. David Weekley’s Mantua Point Classics sit on 55-foot homesites, roughly $447,990 to $513,990, 1,885 to 2,843 square feet across eight plans. Perry Homes is on 65-foot lots from the $540s, 2,400 to 3,700 square feet. Highland has a section here, though its availability has been shown as coming soon rather than actively selling, so ask before you drive out. Community-wide, the developer advertises homes from the $360s.
Amenities that actually exist: The Veranda community center with a resort pool and splash castle, The Commons, playgrounds, pickleball, community gardens, a dog park and trails. Still planned: a welcome center under construction, 25 miles of trails and about 275 acres of parks at buildout, a lake district and on-site retail. HOA runs about $975 a year per the developer, and David Weekley publishes $1,052 for its section.
Mantua is in a MUD. The developer says so plainly and quotes an estimated total tax rate around 2.673% for the Grayson County portion. David Weekley independently publishes 2.67% for Grayson and 2.45% for Collin. Two sources agreeing is about as solid as builder tax disclosure gets, but get the Notice to Purchaser for your specific lot.
One correction worth making, because I have heard buyers repeat it: the school being built inside Mantua is an elementary, not a high school. It is Charles and Beth Williams Elementary, and Van Alstyne ISD has it operational for the 2026-27 year.
Thompson Farms
Off US 75 and FM 121. Highland Homes sells two product lines here, 50-foot lots from the $390s and 60-foot lots from the $510s, with plans from 2,317 to 3,458 square feet. DRB Homes starts around $359,990, roughly 1,970 to 3,050 square feet. Brightland Homes is also listed in the community.
Amenities include open green space, hike-and-bike trails, a park and a private pool with cabana. Zoned to Sanford Elementary, Van Alstyne Middle and Van Alstyne High.
This community advertises no MUD and no PID. I want to be precise about that wording: the claim comes from the community’s own marketing, not from a public record I could pull, and DRB’s standard financing disclaimer mentions PID and MUD dues generically the way national builders’ legal text always does. If the absence of an assessment is the reason you are buying here, make the title company confirm it in writing.
Rolling Ridge
The entry-price option, and honest about it. Cambridge Homes runs roughly $344,990 to $419,250, 1,800 to 2,908 square feet, with an HOA of about $700 a year. K. Hovnanian starts in the low $300s, around $309,900 to $368,900, 1,826 to 2,659 square feet across four plans.
Amenities are a community pond with fountains. That is it — no pool, no amenity center. The trade is a low HOA and the lowest entry price in town. Cambridge publishes a 2.23% tax rate here, which is consistent with no MUD in the stack.
Tinsley Meadows
Cambridge Homes only, marketed as the larger-yard alternative to its own Rolling Ridge. Roughly $358,990 to $482,860, 1,600 to 2,950 square feet, three to five bedrooms, HOA about $900 a year, with pond access. Zoned to Partin Elementary.
Worth noting: Cambridge publishes a tax rate for Rolling Ridge and does not publish one for Tinsley Meadows. That is not evidence of anything, but it is the first question I would ask here.
Oaklawn
Early phase, and the amenities are on paper. M/I Homes is selling from the high $200s, around $265,990, on 40-foot homesites, 1,349 to 2,451 square feet, with a cottage-style streetscape and full brick. First Texas Homes is pre-selling from about $294,950 to $427,785 across seven plans, HOA about $700 a year. The amenity center with a pool and walking trails is planned, not built.
Oaklawn is in Van Alstyne MUD No. 3. This one is well documented — a $22.07 million MUD receivables transaction in January 2026 names Oaklawn and its 772 homes directly. First Texas publishes a 2.62% tax rate here, which is what a full MUD in the stack looks like.
River Ranch
Three builders, the most of any Van Alstyne community. Pacesetter Homes runs about $368,900 to $511,310, 1,603 to 3,093 square feet. Windsor Homes and Stonehollow Homes are also selling. Amenities are walking trails, a pavilion with picnic tables, a cornhole court and green space — no pool. Pacesetter notes the Van Alstyne ISD campuses are within walking distance of many homes.
I could not find a PID or MUD disclosure from any of the three builders here. Ask.
Churchill
This one is a quirk worth knowing. Churchill carries an Anna, TX 75409 mailing address but is zoned to Van Alstyne ISD, with its own on-site Van Alstyne ISD elementary. It is an 817-home community with Beazer Homes from about $274,563, on 40-foot and 50-foot product, plus Brightland, HistoryMaker, DRB and Impression Homes. Amenities include a pool, pickleball, a playground and an amenity center.
It is in Van Alstyne MUD No. 3, the same district as Oaklawn.
What Is Still Coming
If you are buying here, what gets approved next affects your resale. These are the projects moving through the city as of late summer 2026.
- Highpoint Village — the second-largest project in town and the one most buyers have not heard of yet. 667 acres, planned for roughly 2,200 single-family homes, developed by Centurion American. Mattamy Homes is listed as coming soon and D.R. Horton is in. Planned amenities include two amenity centers, pocket parks, an athletic field, a small lake, trails and an on-site Van Alstyne ISD elementary. All planned, none built.
- Creekline — 64 lots at roughly an acre each. The city created a PID for it on 5 August 2026. The assessment rate was not disclosed.
- Lone Tree — a PID plan came before council on 25 August 2026. See the numbers in the next section, and note they are preliminary.
- Hayden — about 236 acres and roughly 730 to 742 lots, proposing a Municipal Management District, which is a third instrument most buyers have never encountered. City staff flagged water and sewer complications.
- Remington Ridge — 80 acres north of US 75, where the developers have proposed reducing single-family in favor of mixed-use and retail frontage.
PID, MUD and Your Real Monthly Payment
This is the section to read twice. In Van Alstyne it matters more than almost anything on a spec sheet, and it is where I see buyers get hurt.
A MUD is a Municipal Utility District and a PID is a Public Improvement District. Both are ways of financing the streets, water, sewer and drainage for a new community up front, then repaying it through the homeowners. A MUD shows up as a tax rate. A PID shows up as an annual assessment installment. Either way it is on top of your regular property taxes, it runs for decades, and it is separate from your HOA dues. You pay all of it.
Here is the arithmetic, using the 2025 rates published by the Grayson Central Appraisal District. This is my own math, it excludes homestead exemptions, and it is illustrative rather than a quote for any specific address:
- Inside city limits, no MUD: school 1.1748 + city 0.5537 + county 0.3051 + junior college 0.1460 = about 2.18%
- In a MUD, outside city limits: school + county + junior college + MUD 1.0000 = about 2.63%
- Both city and MUD: about 3.18%
Those reconcile closely against what builders actually publish — 2.23% at Rolling Ridge, 2.62% at Oaklawn, about 2.67% at Mantua. On a $450,000 house, the gap between 2.18% and 2.63% is roughly $170 a month. That is real money and it has changed which house a family of mine could afford.
Van Alstyne MUD No. 1 and MUD No. 3 both carry a rate of $1.00 per $100 of value on the 2025 county chart.
On the PID side, the only community with published dollar figures is Lone Tree, and these are preliminary — council had not taken formal levy action when they were presented on 25 August 2026, and they can change. As presented: about $11.27 million in total preliminary assessments, a gross rate of 97 cents per $100, a net initial rate of roughly 67 cents after a developer buy-down, and an average annual payment of about $4,879 per home. First assessment bills would go out 1 October 2027, due 31 January 2028.
One more thing that tells you where the city is headed: on 5 August 2026 Van Alstyne adopted a formal PID policy, raised its PID petition and review fee from $5,000 to $15,000, and set a $2,500-per-lot community benefit fee paid at closing. The city is not discouraging districts. It is standardizing them.
Ask the builder for, in writing: the district name and the service and assessment plan; the current annual obligation for your specific lot, not the community average; whether it can be paid off in a lump sum and what that costs; and how many years remain. If a salesperson cannot produce those, that is information too.
The document you actually want is the Notice to Purchaser of Real Estate. It is a required disclosure and your title company can get it. Van Alstyne MUD No. 1 posts its notice here, and the Grayson Central Appraisal District publishes the annual tax rate chart every fall.
Schools: Van Alstyne ISD
For a lot of my buyers this is the whole reason they are looking here. Van Alstyne ISD has 2,857 students across six campuses and one high school. Anna ISD, for comparison, has 6,724 students across ten campuses and two high schools. If a small district is what you want, that is the fact that matters, and no amount of touring will tell you as clearly.
The six campuses are Partin Elementary, Sanford Elementary, the new Charles and Beth Williams Elementary, Van Alstyne Middle School, Van Alstyne Junior High and Van Alstyne High School.
What is being built:
- Williams Elementary — built on a site inside the Mantua subdivision, west of US 75, operational for 2026-27.
- A second junior high — land purchased, design starting in summer 2026, targeted for 2029.
- High school Phase 2 — about 500 additional student seats.
- The district projects the middle school and high school reaching capacity in 2028-29, and enrollment growing from roughly 2,512 in 2024 to about 4,529 by 2030-31.
Enrollment is up 92.8% since 2016. That kind of growth is why the next point matters.
Elementary attendance boundaries changed. On 17 November 2025 the school board adopted new elementary zoning, effective for the 2026-27 year, to manage capacity as Williams Elementary opened. If schools are driving your decision, do not trust a builder site or a listing sheet — confirm the assigned campus for the exact address with the district, and ask about the next few years while you have them on the phone. The district posts its boundary map and accountability reports here.
On ratings, let me be careful, because builder marketing runs ahead of the record. Van Alstyne High School holds an A rating from TEA, and the district posted a 90% accountability score for 2022-23, the joint-highest in Grayson County. I have seen “A-rated 2024” on builder sites and I could not verify that specific claim, so I am not going to repeat it.
And one genuine trap: a Van Alstyne mailing address does not guarantee Van Alstyne ISD, and an Anna address does not rule it out. Van Alstyne ISD reaches down into northern Collin County, which is how Churchill ends up Anna-addressed and Van Alstyne-zoned. Going the other way, some homes with Van Alstyne addresses are zoned to Howe ISD. Verify per address, every time.
Getting Around
Van Alstyne sits on US 75 between McKinney and Sherman. McKinney is about 17 road miles south. Downtown Dallas is about 45 miles. I am deliberately not publishing drive times, because the honest ones depend entirely on when you leave — check your own commute on a Tuesday at 7:30am before you fall in love with a floor plan.
The thing to know is the US 75 and FM 121 interchange, which is the city’s worst chokepoint. There is a $67.2 million fix with tier-one priority on TxDOT’s ten-year plan: widening from one lane each direction to two, adding U-turn lanes, and replacing the aging US 75 bridge. Engineering is expected complete in the first quarter of 2027, construction is targeted to start in the fourth quarter of 2027 pending funding, and the build runs about two years. Van Alstyne committed $4.5 million of local money, Grayson County $1.5 million.
So: funded, prioritized, and several years out — with construction in between. That is the real answer.
Water, Sewer and Why a Buyer Should Care
Not glamorous, but it is the constraint on everything else here. The city has about $13 million of water and sewer work underway — sewer lines, manhole replacement and the wastewater treatment plant — and is partnering with Anna to connect to a regional wastewater facility. The plant upgrades are being delivered in packages, and the headworks, flow equalization and disinfection work is waiting on a second bond package.
This shows up in real decisions. When the 236-acre Hayden development came before the city in August 2026, staff noted that water service is held by South Grayson SUD under a CCN, that a water tower and lift station would be needed, and that permitting timelines could push construction out eight to twelve months. If you are buying in an early phase anywhere in this city, ask what utility work has to finish before your section is complete.
Anna or Van Alstyne?
I sell in both and I do not have a favorite. Here is the honest split.
- Size. Anna had 16,896 residents in the 2020 census and an estimated 35,245 by 2025. Van Alstyne had 4,369 and roughly 10,000. Anna is about five times larger and pulling away.
- Schools. Van Alstyne ISD: 2,857 students, six campuses, one high school. Anna ISD: 6,724 students, ten campuses, two high schools.
- Price. Van Alstyne’s median single-family sale price was $417,490 in August 2026 against Anna’s $350,000 in July 2026 — roughly a 19% premium. Different months, same source, so read it as mid-2026 rather than a head-to-head.
- Assessments. This cuts both ways and it is the row most people get wrong. Anna’s PIDs are documented and heavy — in Villages of Hurricane Creek, one lot type carries a total assessment of $29,389 with annual installments around $2,742 running to 2048. Van Alstyne has districts too, and new ones being approved. What Van Alstyne has that Anna does not, as far as I have found, is a few communities that advertise neither.
- Lot sizes. I am not going to tell you Van Alstyne lots are bigger as a blanket statement, because I cannot find data that supports it. What I can tell you: new-construction lot widths here run from 40 feet at Oaklawn up to 65 feet at Perry’s Mantua section, and the city is entitling one-acre subdivisions like Creekline. If acreage is what you are after, Van Alstyne is the more likely place to find it.
- County. Most of Van Alstyne is Grayson County, which means different county tax rates, a different appraisal district and a different set of offices to deal with than Anna’s Collin County.
- Commute. Van Alstyne adds a few minutes going south toward McKinney and Dallas, and saves time going north toward Sherman’s job centers.
Downtown and Things to Do
The historic downtown is the thing people fall for, and the city is actively investing in it. Van Alstyne’s raised sidewalks were built 100 to 130 years ago so people could step off horse-drawn carriages above the mud, and they are being lowered to street level with ADA ramps. Phase 1 on South Preston Avenue is complete and Phase 2 on Main Street and East Marshall is underway.
The town was founded in 1873 along the Houston and Texas Central Railway and still has the bones to show it, including the Van Alstyne House and the Van Alstyne Homestead. There is a city History Commission, and Grayson County College runs a branch campus here — something almost nobody mentions and a real convenience if you have a high schooler looking at dual credit.
Three Honest Cautions
- Do not assume “no PID” because someone told you Van Alstyne does not have them. Mantua, Oaklawn and Churchill are all in a MUD. Creekline and Lone Tree have brand-new PIDs. Verify your lot.
- Price the home on what exists, not the rendering. Oaklawn’s amenity center and all of Highpoint Village’s amenities are planned. Buying an early phase can mean paying HOA dues for a year or more before a pool opens, and completion depends on how fast lots sell.
- The resale market is soft right now. That is good for you as a buyer and worth understanding as an owner. With Mantua still selling and 2,200 more homes planned at Highpoint Village, new construction will keep competing with resale here for years.
Want to Walk It With Me?
I live in Anna and I tour new construction up this corridor most weeks. I read PID and MUD paperwork line by line, not because it is fun, but because that is where the money is.
If you are looking at Van Alstyne, talk to me before you walk into the first model home. Many builders will not honor agent representation once you have signed in alone, and it costs you nothing to bring me — builders budget for it whether you do or not.
Amy Thompson, Realtor
(469) 344-8111
Send me a note
Figures on this page were current as of September 2026 and are drawn from builder and developer websites, the Grayson Central Appraisal District, Van Alstyne ISD, City of Van Alstyne council records, HAR and my own MLS searches. Builder pricing, incentives, district assessments and school boundaries all change frequently. MUD and PID obligations and school attendance zones are assigned by parcel — confirm the Notice to Purchaser with your title company and the campus assignment with Van Alstyne ISD before you write an offer. Nothing here is legal, tax or lending advice.