Bedford

Bedford sits between Hurst and Euless on the 183 corridor, and it is the most uniform housing market I have measured anywhere in Tarrant County. One school district. Two-thirds of everything built in the same two decades. No million-dollar tail and no distressed bottom. Whatever else Bedford is, it is consistent.

Over the three years ending September 2026 it produced 1,451 closed sales across 186 subdivisions. I'm a Texas broker and a Certified Residential Appraiser. What follows is what those sales show — including one finding that runs against nearly everything else on this site.

It's holding, and it's the fastest of the four

Controlling for house size, lot size and build year, values in Bedford have moved +0.56% a year, which at p = 0.27 is not statistically distinguishable from flat. Cut it two other ways and it holds: single-family only returns +0.77% (p = 0.14), and excluding anything built since 2020 returns +0.50% (p = 0.24).

Median price per foot by year: $208, $208, $204, $208. That is about as steady as a housing market gets.

The transaction numbers are the best of the four Mid-Cities across the board:

• Median 17 days on market
• 98.3% of original list price — the highest of the four
• 33.6% of sales under contract within a week
• Only 11.5% take more than three months
• Parcel-level failure rate 10.2% — about one house in ten, the lowest of the four

Against Fort Worth, where seventeen of thirty-six measurable ZIP codes are losing value, that is a substantially healthier market.

The one place where price per square foot roughly works

I spend most of this site arguing that per-foot averages mislead, because they blend markets that don't behave alike. Bedford is the exception, and it's worth saying so plainly.

Three things make it unusual:

One school district. All 1,451 sales are Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD. There is no boundary running through the city, which means none of the 8.4% and 12.1% district effects I measure in Euless and North Richland Hills apply here. That variable is simply absent.

Build year does not predict price. The vintage coefficient comes back at 0.00% per year, p = 0.30 — nothing. Compare that to +0.89% in North Richland Hills, +0.85% in Hurst and +0.78% in Euless, all significant beyond p < 0.0001. In every neighbouring city, age is one of the largest adjustments in a valuation. In Bedford it is not an adjustment at all.

The reason is in the build record: 946 of 1,451 sales — 65% — were built in the 1970s or 1980s. With that little variation, there is nothing for the model to price.

And square footage behaves close to linearly. The size coefficient here is 0.783, against 0.616 in North Richland Hills, 0.646 in Hurst and 0.538 in Euless. The closer that figure is to 1.0, the better a per-foot multiplication works. Bedford is the closest to 1.0 of anywhere I've measured.

So if someone hands you a per-foot average for Bedford, it is less wrong than it would be almost anywhere else. It is still not a valuation — condition, lot and location within the city all still matter — but the two variables that usually wreck the shortcut, vintage and school district, are genuinely absent here.

What it costs

• Median close $379,400 on 1,863 square feet — about $207 per foot
• Median lot 8,625 square feet; median build year 1981
• Closed prices ran $125,000 to $975,000
• Effective property tax rate about 1.68%
• 23.6% had a pool — the highest share of the four Mid-Cities
• 26% carry HOA dues, median $290 where they exist

That price range deserves a note. Nothing in Bedford sold above $975,000 in three years. Hurst reached $1.68 million, North Richland Hills $2.4 million, Euless $1.18 million. Bedford has no luxury tier at all, which is part of why its statistics are so stable — there are no outliers to bend them. It also means a Bedford comparable set stays clean in a way its neighbours' don't.

Two ZIP codes, and they're similar

Bedford splits between 76021 (1,075 sales) and 76022 (375). Unlike Hurst, where the two halves are $135,000 apart, or Euless, where the ZIP line tracks a school boundary worth 8.4%, Bedford's two ZIPs are variations on the same market rather than different ones.

This is the through-line of the whole city: fewer internal divisions than anywhere around it.

What actually moves a Bedford price

With vintage and school district off the table, the remaining variables carry more weight than usual:

• Size, close to proportionally. The 0.783 coefficient means square footage does most of the work, which is unusual and worth exploiting when you price.
• Condition, by elimination. When age doesn't differentiate, what has and hasn't been replaced does. Two 1981 houses in Bedford are the same vintage — the difference between them is entirely what's been done.
• Pools. At 23.6%, pools are a genuine feature of this market rather than a rarity, and their presence or absence shows up in comparables more often here than elsewhere.
• The lot, barely. Correlation with price per foot is 0.052 — essentially nothing. Bedford lots are uniform and don't differentiate.

Forty-five-year-old houses, all at once

A median build year of 1981 with 65% of the stock from the 1970s and 1980s means something specific: this city's houses are reaching the same maintenance milestones at the same time.

At forty-five years, a house has typically given back its roof and HVAC at least twice, and windows, water heater, fireplace and appliances at least once. In North Texas the roof clock runs shorter than the shingle rating implies, because hail sets it rather than age.

Which cuts both ways. A Bedford house that has had that work done is worth meaningfully more than the one next door that hasn't — and because vintage doesn't differentiate here, condition is carrying nearly all of the variation that age carries elsewhere. That is the single most important thing to establish about a specific property in this city.

On the seller's side, the order matters more than the budget: financeability first, then the FHA and VA condition items an appraiser will call out anyway, then presentation. I tested fourteen common improvements against 33,000 closings in what to fix before you list, and in what order — three measured at zero. If the work needs doing and the cash isn't available, Compass Concierge covers it up front and is repaid at closing.

How Bedford compares

If you're choosing between them, the trade is roughly this. Hurst is cheaper and older. Euless offers Grapevine-Colleyville schools in its northern half and the lowest tax rate, at the highest price per foot and on the smallest lots. North Richland Hills is the largest market with the widest range and a Keller ISD corner worth 12%. Bedford is the one with the fewest surprises — and for a buyer who wants to be able to reason about what they're paying, that is worth something real.

What I look at in a Bedford house

• Condition, first and hardest. With vintage and district neutralised, what's been replaced is doing most of the work that those variables do elsewhere.
• Roof and HVAC age, and whether the roof went through a claim. On 1970s and 1980s stock both are on at least their second round.
• Windows, water heater, fireplace. The forty-five-year items that only come due once and are easy to overlook.
• Square footage against the comparable set — it behaves closer to proportionally here than anywhere else I measure, which makes it more reliable, not less important.
• Whether there's a pool, since at 23.6% it's common enough to be a real line item in a comparison.
• The tax figure on the listing, which is the seller's. Rates run about 1.68%, but a long-held homestead has a capped assessment that resets on sale.

If you're selling in Bedford

This is the best-functioning market of the four. Seventeen days to contract, 98.3% of original list, a third of sales spoken for within a week, and one house in ten failing to sell against one in eight or seven elsewhere.

Price it correctly and it will go. The thing that decides your number is not the year it was built and not which school it feeds — it's the size and the condition. Which means the pre-listing work matters more here than in a city where a school boundary or a build decade can carry you.

Buying or selling in Bedford

Fourteen hundred sales, one school district, two-thirds of the housing built in twenty years, no luxury tier, and the most predictable set of numbers in the Mid-Cities.

What I can tell you is what the closed sales on houses your size and your condition actually support, how wide the range around that is, and what the property will cost every month once the assessment resets.

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 in Bedford for the three years ending September 2026, reported in aggregate. School attendance boundaries, tax rates, HOA dues 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.