Alvarado sits on I-35W in eastern Johnson County, south of Burleson and about 25 miles from downtown Fort Worth. It's a small town surrounded by country acreage, and over the last few years builders have been adding subdivisions on its edges. Nearly half the houses sold here in the last three years were built this decade.
Over the three years ending September 2026, Alvarado produced 906 closed sales at a median of $319,945. I'm a Texas broker and a Certified Residential Appraiser. Here is what those sales show.
Three markets under one address
| New construction | Site-built resale | Manufactured |
Closed sales | 329 | 436 | 139 |
Median close | $359,990 | $299,990 | $250,000 |
Median size | 2,188 sq ft | 1,768 sq ft | 1,640 sq ft |
Median $/ft | $169 | $174 | $147 |
Median lot | 6,900 sq ft | 13,220 sq ft | 47,611 sq ft |
On an acre or more | 15% | 37% | 83% |
Median days on market | 88 | 34 | 19 |
Seller concessions | 87% | 58% | 55% |
Each of those needs its own comparable set. A citywide average blends them, so it describes none of them.
New construction is falling. Everything else is flat.
Controlling for house size, lot size and build year, Alvarado values overall have moved −0.26% a year (p = 0.77), which is flat. Site-built only, it's −0.99% (p = 0.22), still not distinguishable from flat.
Split by age, the picture sharpens:
Houses | Sales | Annual trend |
Site-built before 2020 | 349 | +0.44% (p = 0.80, flat) |
Site-built 2020 or later | 416 | −3.16% (p < 0.001) |
Manufactured | 139 | +1.30% (p = 0.54, flat) |
The older houses are holding, and the new subdivisions are falling about 3% a year. That's the same pattern as Cleburne, where new construction is down 4.2% a year and older houses are flat.
The builders' own numbers show them moving down-market. In 2025 the median brand-new house was $407,280 on about 2,500 square feet. In 2026 it's $324,945 on about 2,025, smaller, cheaper, and down from $179 to $163 a foot. Nearly nine in ten new-home sales included seller concessions, at a $10,000 median.
That puts new construction within about $25,000 of the resale median. A 2021 house for sale here is competing with a brand-new one at nearly the same price.
Manufactured homes: 15% of the market
After Joshua, Alvarado has the largest manufactured-home share of any city I've measured: 139 of 906 sales, about 15%. Two dozen of them were entered in the MLS as "single family" and identified as manufactured only in the description, so a search by property type misses them.
Controlling for size, lot and age, a manufactured home here sells for about 30% less than a comparable site-built house. That's the same gap I've found in every Johnson County market. Compare them only with other manufactured homes.
They're also the fastest-selling thing in Alvarado: 19 days median, and 28% under contract within a week. A manufactured home on an acre at $250,000 has few substitutes. The buyer who wants land at that price has very little else to choose from.
But the ones that don't sell tend not to sell at all: 22.2% of manufactured-home properties that came to market never closed, against 18.9% site-built. The difference is usually financing. About four in ten buyers used FHA and one in five paid cash. Whether a loan is possible depends on the foundation meeting lender requirements, the HUD labels and data plate, whether the home has ever been moved, and whether it's been converted to real property on its Texas Statement of Ownership. Settle those before setting a price.
Land
Alvarado had 129 closed land sales over the same three years, at a median of $145,000 on 2.01 acres.
Parcel size | Sales | Median price | Per acre |
Under half an acre | 21 | $45,500 | — |
Half an acre to 1.5 acres | 35 | $100,000 | about $103,000 |
1.5 to 3 acres | 20 | $149,500 | about $59,000 |
3 to 6 acres | 13 | $205,000 | about $48,000 |
6 to 15 acres | 25 | $330,000 | about $30,000 |
15 acres or more | 15 | $710,000 | about $18,000 |
Land prices have been flat (−1.7% a year, not significant). For a manufactured home on an acre at the $250,000 median, a $100,000–105,000 homesite means the land is roughly 40% of the price.
About 50% of land parcels that came to market never sold, and 60% of the ones that did were bought with cash. Price acreage from closed land sales, not from what's listed.
Across the south side, the price of an acre lines up with which markets are holding:
The three most expensive, Mansfield, Burleson and Midlothian, are all flat or rising on resale. The two cheapest, Godley and Cleburne, are both falling overall. It isn't a perfect line, since Granbury sits in the middle and is falling, but it fits the pattern in new construction: where land is expensive, builders have a harder time undercutting the resale market.
What it costs
- Median close $319,945 on 1,962 square feet, about $170 per foot
- Median lot 10,389 square feet; 36% of sales on an acre or more
- Closed prices ran $53,000 to $1,225,000
- Median 49 days on market at 96.4% of original list
- 68% of sales carried seller concessions, at an $8,680 median
- Effective property tax rate on site-built resales about 1.74%
- 40% carry HOA dues, at a $450 median. In new subdivisions it's 87%
- 38% of buyers used FHA financing
- Parcel-level failure rate 19.2%
On a brand-new house, the tax figure in the listing usually reflects the lot before the house was finished. It averages 0.41% here, which isn't what you'll pay. Budget from the resale rate and confirm with the Johnson County appraisal district.
Nearly all of Alvarado is Alvarado ISD (869 of 906 sales), so there's no school boundary to measure here.
How Alvarado compares
City | Sales | Median | Manufactured | Built 2020+ | Tax | Never sold | Annual trend |
Alvarado | 906 | $319,945 | 15% | 47% | 1.74% | 19.2% | flat (new −3.2%) |
Burleson | 2,822 | $358,000 | 2% | 18% | 2.07% | 15.8% | flat |
Joshua | 902 | $360,000 | 18% | 46% | 1.61% | 16.1% | flat (site-built) |
Cleburne | 2,227 | $287,990 | 3% | 46% | 1.81% | 20.2% | −1.48% |
Crowley | 1,704 | $320,000 | <1% | 53% | 2.08% | 12.7% | −3.60% |
Godley | 1,000 | $415,000 | 3% | 78% | 1.73% | 18.0% | −1.92% |
Across the south side, the pattern repeats: where builders are most active, new construction is falling, and older and manufactured stock is holding. In Fort Worth itself, seventeen of thirty-six measurable ZIP codes are losing value.
This isn't just a local quirk. I tested it across 19 markets and 40,703 closed sales: the size of the lot predicts which houses are losing value better than the town does, with subdivision lots down about 1% a year and acreage up about 1%.
What I look at in an Alvarado house
- Which of the three markets it's in: new subdivision, site-built resale, or manufactured.
- Site-built or manufactured, whatever the MLS property type says.
- For a manufactured home: foundation, HUD labels, whether it's been moved, and its real-property status.
- The land. A third of sales sit on an acre or more, and on those the lot is a large part of the value.
- Septic, well and utilities on rural parcels, and any deed restrictions on animals, outbuildings or manufactured homes.
- What the builders are asking right now, if the house was built in the last few years.
If you're selling in Alvarado
If your house is older or on land, the market is steady and a month to contract is typical. Price it from sales like it, not from a citywide figure that includes new subdivisions.
If your house is recent, the builders are your competition and they're cutting price. Price from what's being sold new today, and make the resale advantages visible: a finished yard, window coverings, no waiting.
If it's a manufactured home, the buyers are there and they move fast. Get the financing paperwork in order before you list, because that's what decides whether the sale closes.
On pre-listing work, the order matters more than the budget. What to fix before you list, and in what order tests fourteen improvements against 33,000 closings. If the work needs doing and the cash is tied up, Compass Concierge covers it up front and is repaid at closing.
Buying or selling in Alvarado
Nine hundred sales, three distinct markets, new subdivisions falling while older houses hold, and one of the largest manufactured-home markets around Fort Worth.
What I can tell you is what the closed sales on houses of your type, on land like yours actually support, and what has to be true before a buyer can finance it.
Browse active listings in this price range, or call or text (682) 207-4310, or send me a note.
Figures are medians and model results from NTREIS listings and closed sales with an Alvarado address for the three years ending September 2026, reported in aggregate. "New construction" means a house sold in or within a year after its build year. Manufactured-home figures include homes identified in the listing description as well as by property type. School attendance boundaries, tax rates, HOA dues, financing rules and market conditions change. Confirm current figures for a specific address before relying on them. Nothing here is an appraisal or a valuation of any particular property.
