If you have been comparing homes in McKinney on price per square foot alone, you have probably run into a number that does not make sense. A hundred-year-old cottage two blocks from the Square is asking more per square foot than a brand-new house with twice the closet space out toward Trinity Falls. That is not a pricing error. It is what happens when one city median tries to describe three markets that do not behave the same way.
Before we get to the pricing puzzle, there is a friction point worth flagging first, because it can derail an offer faster than any square-footage math.
The Address That Splits a School District
Craig Ranch reads like a single community. One entrance sign, one HOA identity, one golf course wrapped around the neighborhood in the form of TPC Craig Ranch, which hosts the PGA Tour's AT&T Byron Nelson each year. Buyers searching for Craig Ranch homes often assume that name settles the school district question too.
It does not. Craig Ranch sits at the seam where McKinney, Frisco, Plano, and Allen all meet, a spot longtime builders have called the Four Corners. Sections of Craig Ranch have been marketed and sold explicitly under Frisco ISD, including builder phases like Ashton Woods and The Fairways, while other sections of the same master plan fall under McKinney ISD. Real estate professionals who work the area routinely field the question directly: which district actually serves a given Craig Ranch address depends on the specific section, not the community name on the entrance monument.
This is not unique to Craig Ranch. Across McKinney, some addresses inside the city limits are zoned to Frisco ISD, Prosper ISD, or another neighboring district entirely, even though the mailing address says McKinney. If a floor plan and a lot both check every box, the district boundary is the one thing worth confirming by parcel before you get emotionally attached to the house.
If a community name is doing the work of telling you which school your child will attend, verify the address against the district boundary map before you write an offer, not after.
What the City Median Is Actually Averaging Together
As of the three months ending July 2026, McKinney's median sale price sat at $511,000, with a median of $205 per square foot, down 4.5 percent and 2.4 percent respectively from the same period a year earlier. Homes were taking about 45 days to sell on average. That is the number most buyers see first on a portal search, and it is accurate. It is also an average of markets that pull in opposite directions.
Here is roughly how three of McKinney's most searched submarkets compare to that citywide figure:
| Submarket | What's driving price | General price range | Price per square foot |
|---|---|---|---|
| McKinney citywide | Blend of all housing stock and ages | Median around $511K | Around $205 |
| Historic core near the Square | Scarcity, walkability, small monthly sales volume | Varies widely month to month | Frequently runs above the city median |
| Trinity Falls | New construction, 2,000-acre master plan, builder inventory | Roughly mid-$300s to mid-$600s | Frequently runs below the city median |
| Craig Ranch | Mix of starter, mid-range, and estate sections under one HOA | Roughly $400K to high $800s depending on section | Varies by section and builder |
The historic core is the volatile one, and understanding why matters more than memorizing a dollar figure. In a recent month Redfin tracked for the McKinney Historic District, only 16 homes sold. When your entire dataset for a submarket is a little over a dozen closings, one large estate sale or one modest fixer can swing the median by tens of thousands of dollars. Compare that to a master-planned new-build community, where a single builder might close dozens of homes in a month across several floor plans. That volume produces a steadier, more predictable number. Thin inventory does not.
Why Scarcity Beats Size on a Price-Per-Square-Foot Basis
New construction in Trinity Falls has opened in recent phases from the mid-$300s for two-story townhomes up through the $600s for larger one-story single-family plans on the community's premium lots. You are buying scale there. Trinity Falls spans roughly 2,000 acres along the Trinity River, with a resident clubhouse called The Club, a 350-acre natural park with an 18-hole disc golf course, and more than 20 miles of trails. Builders marketing new phases point to two large additions expected to open nearby in 2027, a large-scale outdoor amphitheater and a surf park, both still under construction rather than finished amenities.
That distinction matters for how you think about the price. When you buy new construction in a growing master plan, part of what you are paying for is infrastructure still being built out. The trails you walk on day one are finished. The amphitheater and surf park are not, and their completion timeline is the developer's, not yours.
Walk two blocks off the Square in the historic core and the math flips. There is no HOA amenity roadmap because there is no more land to develop. What is there is finished, decades old in many cases, and not being replicated. A buyer who wants a five-minute walk to dinner on the Square and a home built before 1940 is competing for a fixed and shrinking supply. That scarcity is what pushes per-square-foot pricing above the city median even when the house itself is smaller and older than what new construction offers for the same total price.
Craig Ranch sits between these two stories. It has scale like Trinity Falls, with sub-communities ranging from starter-priced sections in the mid-$400s to larger estate sections priced into the high $800s. But it also has an age advantage over the newest master plans further out, since its first phases opened well over a decade ago, meaning mature trees and an established feel that brand-new communities have not caught up to yet. That combination, established landscaping plus a still-active building pipeline in newer sections, is part of why Craig Ranch shows up on so many relocation shortlists as a middle path between historic character and new-build predictability.
What This Means for Your Search
If you are comparing homes across these three pockets of McKinney, the median price on a portal listing page is a starting point, not a verdict. A few questions worth asking before you fall for a specific address:
- Which section of the community is this home actually in, and does that section's school district match what the listing implies
- If you are looking at the historic core, how many comparable homes have actually sold nearby in the past few months, since a thin sample changes how much weight to put on any single comparable
- If you are looking at new construction, which amenities are open today versus still under construction, and does the HOA structure fund the amenities you are paying dues for now or the ones planned for later
- Does the price per square foot you are comparing across neighborhoods account for lot size, garage capacity, and finish level, or just the raw number
None of these questions have a universal right answer. They depend on what you are actually optimizing for, whether that is walkability, resale liquidity, lot size, or a specific school assignment. The point of separating the median into its parts is not to declare one submarket better. It is to make sure the comparison you are making is the one you think you are making.
A Few Questions Worth Settling Early
Is Craig Ranch zoned to McKinney ISD or Frisco ISD? It depends on the section. Craig Ranch spans multiple school district boundaries, and some phases have been marketed and built specifically under Frisco ISD. Confirm the district by the specific parcel address rather than by the community name.
Why would a smaller, older home near Downtown McKinney cost more per square foot than a larger new-construction home further out? Scarcity and low monthly sales volume. The historic core has a small, fixed supply of homes, and when only a handful sell in a given month, the price per square foot tends to run higher and swing more than it would in a high-volume new-build community.
How do I verify a school district assignment before making an offer? Confirm the boundary against the district's own attendance zone map using the property's specific address, not the neighborhood or subdivision name, since district lines do not always follow HOA or marketing boundaries.
If you are weighing a historic property against new construction, or trying to figure out which section of a master-planned community actually fits your family's timeline and school priorities, that is the kind of comparison worth working through with someone who tracks these submarkets closely. Krista Cheatham works with buyers and sellers across McKinney and the broader Collin County corridor every day. Let's Connect.
