{"id":779397,"date":"2026-05-07T10:18:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/779397\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T10:18:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:18:20","slug":"they-looked-for-a-grandkid-magnet-outside-of-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/779397\/","title":{"rendered":"They Looked for a \u2018Grandkid Magnet\u2019 Outside of Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Cindy and Jeff Gilliland were raising their two sons in the Mid-Cities area between Dallas and Fort Worth, they longed for that proverbial village that it takes to raise children.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving family in the same town as us would have been a game changer,\u201d said Mr. Gilliland, 69. \u201cMy folks only lived 35 minutes away from us at the time, but it was just far enough to be a pain in the neck.\u201d (Ms. Gilliland\u2019s parents lived in Connecticut.)<\/p>\n

The couple managed without the dream village, and when their sons became adults, they moved to the bustle of Dallas. They loved it.<\/p>\n

Ten years later, in the summer of 2024, their eldest son called and asked his parents to move to Denton, a satellite city 40 miles north. Scott Gilliland, 38, and his wife, Raegan, 41, had been assigned as co-lead pastors at the First United Methodist Church of Denton, and had three children under the age of 10. They wanted the village that Mr. and Mrs. Gilliland never had.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to help,\u201d said Ms. Gilliland, 65.<\/p>\n

But it was a different playing field this time. Since 2020, as Dallas has sprawled outward, Denton County\u2019s population has exploded, surpassing 1 million residents in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s positioned where I-35 splits between Dallas and Fort Worth, which, depending on traffic, are both about 45 minutes away,\u201d said their agent, Susan Cooksey of Century 21. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of activity, which means there\u2019s a lot of employment,\u201d she continued, noting that prices \u201cshot up\u201d in 2022 before receding as interest rates rose.<\/p>\n

Last year, Ms. Cooksey took the couple to see several homes in the Denton area. They wanted a single-level house close to their grandchildren\u2019s home, with at least three bedrooms and either a pool or a lot big enough to put one in. They had about $600,000 to spend. \u201cPools are a grandkid magnet,\u201d said Ms. Gilliland.<\/p>\n

Ms. Cooksey found a few houses that met most of that criteria in the Southridge neighborhood, known for its distinctive spiral street pattern and ranch homes. \u201cIt\u2019s a really unique-looking Texas neighborhood,\u201d said Mr. Gilliland. \u201cNot a whole lot of homes go on the market there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jonathan Zizzo for The New York Times<\/p>\n

A few blocks away, this four-bedroom, 3.5-bath brick home sat on a 0.42-acre corner lot. Built in 1964, the 2,839-square-foot house had some original details, including built-in glass-front cabinets, a brick fireplace and hearth, wood paneling, and wood-beam ceilings in the dated eat-in kitchen. Recent updates included new carpeting in the bedrooms and a new HVAC system. A stylish brick-floored family room had glass doors leading out to a covered patio, an attached two-car garage and a wraparound driveway that took up a lot of space, leaving little room for a pool. The price was $565,000, with annual taxes of about $6,037.<\/p>\n

\"Century 21<\/p>\n

Find out what happened next by answering these two questions:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Cindy and Jeff Gilliland were raising their two sons in the Mid-Cities area between Dallas and Fort…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":779398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,208680,319120,11228,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-779397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-tex","11":"tag-denton-tex","12":"tag-real-estate-and-housing-residential","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116532786657798234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}