Godley

Godley sits in northwest Johnson County, about half an hour southwest of downtown Fort Worth. The town itself is small, but a Godley address now covers a large piece of open country that builders have been filling in fast. More than three-quarters of the houses that sold here in the last three years were built since 2020.

Over the three years ending September 2026, Godley produced 1,000 closed sales at a median of $415,000. I'm a Texas broker and a Certified Residential Appraiser. Here is what those sales show, including one pattern every buyer and seller here should understand.

Two markets: new construction and everything else

778 of the 1,000 sales were built in the 2020s, and 552 were brand-new houses selling for the first time. Most of those sit in Coyote Crossing, Godley Ranch, Star Ranch, Hadley Farms and the other new subdivisions. The rest of Godley is resale houses on country lots, and they behave like a different market.

A resale house in Godley typically comes with an acre. A new one typically comes with about a fifth of that. They are not comparable, and a per-foot average across both describes neither.

Builders are cutting price by adding square footage

Controlling for house size, lot size and build year, Godley values are down 1.92% a year, at p = 0.002. That result holds when I exclude Coyote Crossing (−1.91%), the three largest subdivisions (−2.26%), or anything outside Godley ISD (−2.07%).

But the decline is almost entirely new construction:

New-home prices have held near $390,000 while the houses got about 250 square feet bigger. Per foot, that's a 14% drop in three years. Builders mostly aren't lowering the sticker. They're giving more house for it, and adding closing-cost help on top. Marketing time for new houses stretched from about 100 days to 130.

Resale houses built before 2020 show no measurable trend (+0.81%, p = 0.62). Their price per foot has stayed at about $200.

For a resale seller, the builders are the competition. A buyer can walk into a model home and get a bigger, brand-new house with a warranty and concessions for less than many resale asking prices. What the resale house has that the new one doesn't is land, and that is what it has to sell.

What an acre is worth

Godley had 95 closed land sales over the same three years. Land prices per acre fall as parcels get bigger:

A one-acre homesite in Godley runs about $100,000. For the typical resale house on an acre, at a $464,500 median, that puts the land at roughly a fifth of the price. Land prices have been flat over the window (−2.5% a year, not significant).

Land is slow here. The median land sale took 162 days, and more than half of the land parcels that came to market never sold. If you're selling acreage without a house, expect it to take time and price it from actual closed land sales, not asking prices.

Manufactured homes: a separate market

Manufactured homes are a small share of Godley, 25 closed sales in three years, but they need to be handled correctly when they come up.

• Median $240,000 on 1,904 square feet, about $137 a foot
• 76% sit on an acre or more
• Median 16 days on market, the fastest segment in the city
• 56% of buyers used FHA financing

Across Godley and Joshua combined, controlling for size, lot and age, a manufactured home sells for about 34% less than a comparable site-built house. That's too large a gap to adjust across, so a manufactured home should be compared only with other manufactured homes.

Watch the coding, too. Some manufactured homes are entered in the MLS as "single family." In Godley and Joshua I found 18 closed sales labelled single family whose descriptions identified a double-wide or manufactured home. A comparable set pulled by property type alone will include them.

For financing, the details decide whether a buyer can use FHA, VA or conventional money at all. That includes a foundation that meets lender requirements, the HUD labels and data plate, whether the home has ever been moved, and whether it has been converted to real property on its Texas Statement of Ownership. Several Godley listings say "has not been moved" for exactly this reason. If you are buying or selling one, establish those facts before the price.

What it costs

• Median close $415,000 on 2,328 square feet, about $186 per foot
• Median lot 20,299 square feet; 30% of sales on an acre or more
• Closed prices ran $57,000 to $1,850,000
• Median 86 days on market at 95.3% of original list; only 7.0% under contract within a week
• 65% of sales carried seller concessions
• Effective property tax rate on resale houses about 1.73%
• 75% carry HOA dues, at a $350 median
• Parcel-level failure rate 18.0%: about one property in five that came to market didn't sell

A note on taxes. On a brand-new house, the tax figure in the listing usually reflects the lot before the house was finished. The new-construction median works out to 0.38%, which is not what you'll pay. Use a resale rate, about 1.7% here, for budgeting, and confirm with the Johnson County appraisal district for the specific property.

How Godley compares

The pattern across Johnson County is the same one I found north of Fort Worth: where builders are most active, values are falling, and the resale stock next door is holding. In Fort Worth, seventeen of thirty-six measurable ZIP codes are losing value, and the new-construction ring is part of that story too.

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 a Godley house

• New or resale. They need separate comparable sets.
• The land. On an acre, the lot is a big part of the value, and it's what a resale house offers that the builders mostly don't.
• Whether it's site-built, whatever the MLS property type says.
• Septic, well and utilities on the rural parcels: what serves the property, its age and condition.
• Deed restrictions and HOA rules, especially on acreage where buyers expect to keep animals, park equipment or add a shop.
• The tax figure, which on new construction usually doesn't reflect the finished house, and on resale may carry the seller's exemptions.

If you're selling in Godley

You are competing with builders who are adding square footage and paying closing costs to hold their prices. Pricing a resale house against last year's new-home sticker, or against a per-foot figure that mixes the two, usually misses.

If your house sits on land, the land is the story: price it from other acreage sales, market it to buyers who want space, and don't let it be compared with a subdivision lot. If it's in a newer subdivision, your real competition is the model home down the street, and the question is what you offer that it doesn't.

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 Godley

A thousand sales, nearly eight in ten built this decade, acre lots on the resale side and small lots on the new side, builders cutting price through square footage, and a small manufactured-home market that needs its own comparisons.

What I can tell you is what the closed sales on houses like yours, on land like yours actually support, and how a resale house stacks up against what the builders are offering right now.

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 a Godley 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.