Best Affordable Suburbs: South

(page 2 of 2)

Lewisville is older and more industrial, while strict commercial zoning laws in Flower Mound keep the community quiet and mostly residential. "[The citizens of Flower Mound] have been very careful not to let the builders come in and ruin their town," says Curry.

Many residents of Flower Mound and Lewisville work at the airport, or in nearby downtown Dallas, which is about a 30-minute drive away. Texas Instruments (TXN) and ExxonMobil (XON) are headquartered here. Others commute to the northern suburb of Plano, the home base of companies such as JC Penney (JCP) and Countrywide Financial (CFC).

The bounty of major companies in Texas contribute to the state's gross domestic product of over $1 trillion—the second highest in the U.S. last year after California. Even so, Texas housing is generally less expensive than in the rest of the country due to the state's less speculative market. Low taxation and limited regulation of business also keep the cost of living relatively low. Flower Mound is no exception—the median home price here is just $249,900, and the cost-of-living index is 98.8.

"It's just a unique little town," says Curry. "And it's one I've never had trouble selling in."

Cary in My Mind

North Carolina, now the 10th most-populous state in the U.S., is one of the South's more recent success stories. The state's gross domestic product grew 3.9% in the 2005-06 fiscal year (July 1 to June 30), outpacing the nation's 3.5% rate. In 2006, it added 120,000 jobs—about 20,000 in construction, and 10,000 in financial services at companies such as Charlotte-based Wachovia (WB) and Bank of America (BAC).

The town of Cary, N.C., in the Raleigh-Durham area, exemplifies these recent changes in the state's population and economy. Due to its proximity to Research Triangle Park—a large and prominent high-tech research and development center that rivals Silicon Valley—Cary's population has exploded in recent years. Since 2000, the population has surged more than 24%, to 117,442, as many Northerners have relocated to the region for jobs with tech companies such as Lenovo and Red Hat (RHT), both based in Raleigh.

Despite the boom, Cary still doesn't feel like a big city. Maybe that's because it lacks big-city prices—half of all the homes in Cary are priced below the median home price of $375,000. "The affordability is spread across town," says Cary real estate agent Jaquish. "There's a lot of more expensive new construction, but I can show you a nice, 1,300-square-foot ranch for about $175,000."

Even Martha Stewart wants a piece of Cary. The domestic diva designed a line of KB Home-built (KBH) houses in the town's Twin Lakes community that range in price from the low $200,000s to the mid-$400,000s. Martha fans might also be pleased to know that Cary students score an average of 13% higher than the North Carolina average on high school standardized tests.

"I've been here for 10 years, but wish I'd been here for 20 years," says Jaquish, who moved to Cary from Pennsylvania. "It's not an up-and-coming place—it has arrived."

Click here to see the 25 Best Affordable Suburbs in the South.

Roney is Real Estate writer for BusinessWeek.com.