What’s So Special About Anna, Texas?
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There’s a cute little Collin County community tucked along U.S. Highway 75 between Dallas and Grayson County that isn’t quite on the radar for big tech companies and families seeking a new home — but it’s about to be, city leaders say.
In fact, Anna, Texas, quietly increased its population by 2,100% since 2000 and is ranked among the top five fastest-growing cities in North Texas. Maybe we should be talking about Anna.
Fair warning: This story is going to sound like a paid advertisement for Anna. It’s not. The city was highlighted in a recent “Bisnow Morning Brief” newsletter and it prompted our CandysDirt.com team to dig a little deeper into the housing options available there. We were pleasantly surprised.
According to Interim Economic Development Director Bernie Parker, little ol’ Anna (our words, not his) has added more than 100 new businesses, created over 500 jobs, and finalized agreements for commercial and residential projects representing investments of over $3 billion since 2019.
“Strong partnerships with leaders in neighboring towns in Collin and Grayson counties are also spurring Anna’s growth as projects like Texas Instruments’ semiconductor plant in Sherman come to life,” Parker says on the city’s Economic Development Corporation website.
Anna Real Estate
More than 600 listings appear in a search of Anna on Realtor.com. There’s a lot of land in this best-kept secret just 45 minutes from downtown Dallas and 20 minutes from Sherman.
Over the next five years, over 14,000 new single-family households are expected in the “Anna Trade Area,” according to the city’s EDC website.
Here are a couple of our favorites.
A $1 million new build at 2403 Old Ironside Ave. offers four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and 4,535 square feet, including a four-car garage, gourmet kitchen, and a covered patio with a fireplace. The modern farmhouse is in the popular Capitol Hill neighborhood with no homeowners association.
Mark Cope of Cope Realty has the listing.
Another unique gem at 2925 Winding Oaks Trail features three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and 4,052 square feet on a 1.5-acre lot. We like this home so much that we featured it in 2022.
“The contemporary open living room features vaulted ceilings and a concealed loft area. [Insulated Concrete Form] construction ensures impressive energy efficiency, providing a comfortable living environment year-round,” the listing states. “Enjoy outdoor living with over 2,000 square feet of concrete patios, perfect for relaxing and entertaining.”
The home is listed by Realtor Drew Burgess with Keller Williams Realty Dallas Preston Road for $899,000.
And if these hot picks are out of your price range, there are plenty of homes in Anna in the high $200,000s.
Downtown Anna Master Plan
The future is bright in Anna, Texas. Through its 2050 Downtown Master Plan, the City of Anna is reimagining its downtown area into a thriving community hub with a modern 37,000-square-foot municipal complex, city hall, and police and fire stations, the EDC website states.
“Recently, 3 Nations Brewing opened at the gateway to Downtown Anna, and the city also kicked off construction on a new $22 million library and $3.5 million city plaza,” promotional materials announced. “By creating a vibrant downtown filled with retail, dining, and entertainment, Anna’s enhanced lifestyle offerings will attract visitors, sustain high-quality employment opportunities, and draw new businesses.”
For those who want to live on the land and experience country life with city amenities, you may have met your match.
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Anna has gorgeous ETJ areas with homes ranging from modest to neat mobile homes to old nicely kept farm houses to some upscale homes. It is esential that the rural ETJ areas be developed thoughtfully according to the 2021 Comprehensive Plan that pinpointed these ETJ areas as homes on acreage and/or very large lots. This will attract corporate management and professionals, who may want some space. Many peope also want to keep horses. Anna has enough mutli-family and rental. We also have a nice selection of small homes on small lots. I ask developers who are interested in building on lovely land homes with room for a few horses to come see our ETJ, especially west of 75. We need your attention now! Such development will also avoid creating more heat island of concrete and keep Anna and this area cooler. Thank you for this wonderful article. Betty (Elizabeth) Sharp
I would love to see the developers keep more trees like Eldorado did in McKinney. Too much natural beauty is being destroyed for progress. It becomes a cookie cutter development to just mow down everything.
I had a really hard time selling my very affordable listing in Anna last year. People are always complaining that there is no affordable housing. There is in Anna, but unless something has changed, people aren’t buying homes there in a big hurry. This was a perfect starter home and we so hoped to sell to an individual or individuals as a primary homestead. But, sadly we sold to an investor after 120 days on the market. Maybe things have changed in the past 10 months.
What is missing from this article is how the city is ignoring the Master 2050 plan. The plan that was developed in 2021 has 3176 apartments planned by 2050. As of the last council meeting, they have approved over 17,000 units in just 4 years with two lane roads throughout most of the city. They just approved an annexation of 1000 acres with houses on 40 foot to 60 foot lots that are 10 feet apart on the west side of 75. The houses listed, as far as I know, are not part of a development. There are several houses in the area that were NOT built by developers but are built by individuals in the ETJ and not in the city. The city has no interest in keeping the Anna country life. They want density according to the City Council. Traffic in Anna is disastrous with long back ups at lights even in the middle of the day. Since Anna does not have any industry, residents have to travel to other cities for work which creates a very slow commute to other cities. I do agree that this article is like a sales pitch we hear from the EDC and the city but it does not reflect what is really going on.