One subdivision — Pecan Plantation — is 12% of every sale in Granbury. And the newest houses here sell for less than the ones built fifteen years ago. Both facts break the usual rules, and both change the appraisal.
Granbury is roughly an hour southwest of central Fort Worth. Acreage and waterfront inspections take longer on site, so travel and time are built into the quoted fee rather than billed separately.
Pecan Plantation accounts for 424 of 3,516 Granbury sales — 12.1%, at a median of $445,000. Canyon Creek and its phases add another 10.7% between them. DeCordova Bend Estates carries 2.4%.
That concentration is the opposite of what happens forty minutes north in Weatherford, where 990 subdivision names split 3,247 sales and nothing exceeds 1.6% of the market. Here, a handful of large communities dominate the record, and the rest of the county is thin.
The appraisal consequence cuts both ways. Inside Pecan Plantation or Canyon Creek there is a genuine comp set and the grid can be built from the same community. Outside them — on acreage, on the lake, on an unplatted tract — there is almost nothing, and a comparable pulled from a gated community with its own amenities, access control and assessments is not a substitute.
A community with controlled access, its own utility arrangements and its own assessments does not trade like the ground outside its gate, and the difference is not an adjustment you can lift from a cost manual. It has to come from paired sales inside and outside.
This is the finding that catches people, and it runs directly against the assumption built into most appraisal intuition.
| Year built | Sales | Median price | Median $/sf |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1980 | 365 | $335,000 | $190 |
| 1980–1999 | 752 | $379,500 | $190 |
| 2000–2014 | 713 | $435,000 | $201 |
| 2015 and later | 1,686 | $333,125 | $187 |
Houses built 2015 or later have the lowest median price and the lowest price per square foot of any age band in Granbury. The 2000–2014 cohort, fifteen years older, sells for roughly a hundred thousand dollars more.
That is not a statement about construction quality. It is composition. The recent building here is production housing on small lots in subdivisions on the edges of town, while the 2000s stock includes a great deal of Pecan Plantation and similar ground. Age and value are not aligned in this market, and an age or effective-age adjustment applied mechanically will push the number the wrong way.
It is the clearest local example of a general problem: a feature that looks like it should carry a premium often turns out to be standing in for location, and the only way to tell is to compare inside the same subdivision rather than across the city.
Granbury has a rural reputation and a suburban median lot. Only 13.5% of sales sit on an acre or more, and the median lot is 0.22 acres — because the volume is in platted communities rather than on ranchettes.
| Lot size | Sales | Median price | Median $/sf | Median days to contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under a quarter acre | 1,924 | $307,500 | $182 | 59 |
| A quarter acre to an acre | 1,117 | $419,000 | $197 | 62 |
| One to five acres | 409 | $645,000 | $236 | 71 |
| Five acres and up | 66 | $730,000 | $269 | 74 |
Where there is acreage the usual pattern holds: price per foot rises from $182 to $269 as the lot grows, which means the land is contributing on top of the improvements rather than simply carrying a bigger house. What an acre is worth covers why price per acre falls as tracts grow even while total price climbs.
Lake Granbury frontage is a separate question again, and one the MLS handles poorly. Frontage length, water depth at the bulkhead, bulkhead condition, boat access and whether the lot is on open water or a cove all move the number and none of them are recorded in a usable field. On a waterfront assignment those get measured and described rather than assumed.
Hood County shows a workshop premium of about 2.8% on 185 sales, which does not separate from zero statistically — so unlike Parker County to the north, a shop here is not something to assume carries a reliable premium. It still has contributory value on the right property; it simply is not a figure that can be quoted county-wide with confidence.
What the record does not carry is the size of the building, its eave height, the roll-up door dimensions, the slab, whether it is insulated or climate controlled, or whether there is finished space inside. None of that appears in any field, and all of it moves the number — a shop with electrical service contributes roughly double one without.
So on an assignment with outbuildings I measure them rather than estimating them, and I record the door and the power. The full analysis is in what a workshop adds to a property.
If this is an estate or a date-of-death valuation, the retrospective search has to be wide enough to find genuinely comparable property, and the reasonable exposure time for this market is a median 62 days to contract, and longer on acreage or waterfront. Both belong in the report rather than in a conversation afterwards.
If this is a divorce, the contested number is usually the part the record describes worst — land, outbuildings, or condition — rather than the house itself.
If this is a tax protest, the district resolves the same comparability problem described above with mass appraisal. An individually developed opinion that isolates the land, the outbuildings and the condition is a different document.
If you are selling, write down what the record will not carry: outbuilding size, door, power, slab and finish; renovation scope and dates; anything about the land that a search cannot see. If you do not put it in the remarks, no buyer’s filter and no appraiser’s grid will find it.
Land and residential
“Terrence is very knowledgeable on the DFW market, and provides thorough appraisal reports. I'd recommend Terrence for any residential and land appraisal needs.”John Staab · Google review
Yes. Granbury and the surrounding Hood County area are a regular part of my coverage, along with Tarrant, Parker, Johnson and Hood. Assignments are one-to-four unit residential and residential land, consistent with a Texas Certified Residential credential.
$360,000 across 3,516 closed sales, at a median $190 per square foot, on a median 1,937 square feet of living area and a median lot of 0.22 acres. 13.5% of sales sit on an acre or more.
A median 62 days to contract market-wide, though it varies sharply by lot size. Acreage takes materially longer. For an estate or a divorce where a reasonable marketing period matters, the figure for the relevant lot band is the one that belongs in the report.
Market segmentation. Gated-community, waterfront, production-subdivision and acreage sales are four different markets sharing one mailing address, and year built does not order them. That is the problem the assignment has to solve, and it is the part a form filled from the nearest four sales gets wrong.
Hood County shows a workshop premium of about 2.8% on 185 sales, which does not separate from zero statistically — so unlike Parker County to the north, a shop here is not something to assume carries a reliable premium. It still has contributory value on the right property; it simply is not a figure that can be quoted county-wide with confidence. Size, eave height, door dimensions, slab, insulation and finish are not recorded in the MLS at all, so they have to be measured on site.
It depends on the property and the assignment, and acreage with outbuildings takes longer on site and longer to research. I quote a written fee and a firm delivery date before any work begins, usually within one business hour, and the fee is never contingent on the value reported.
Written fee quote, typically within one business hour. Send the address and the reason you need the value — estate, divorce, tax protest, pre-listing — and I will confirm the fee and a delivery date before any work starts.
Would you rather not type it out? Call or text (817) 903-4509.