Amy Jacobs' Relocation Checklist for Plano, Frisco, Prosper and Celina

Families relocating to Plano, Frisco, Prosper or Celina are arriving into a market that changed in a specific, legal way at the start of this year. Under Texas Occupations Code Section 1101.563, added by Senate Bill 1968 and effective January 1, 2026, a real estate license holder must have a written agreement with a prospective buyer before showing them a residential property, according to the Texas Real Estate Commission. If no property is shown, the agreement has to be in place before an offer is presented. For a relocating buyer touring homes by video call from another state, that detail matters: expect a short, written agreement in hand before the first live or recorded showing, not after.

Amy Jacobs, REALTOR® with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty Texas, has guided relocation clients into Plano, Frisco, Prosper and Celina since 2012. Below is the checklist she walks a relocating family through for each of those four cities, built around the questions that actually change a decision, not the ones a generic moving guide repeats.

A few steps apply no matter which city a family lands in:

• Sign the written buyer agreement. It can be short and limited to a single showing under the new law's non-representation option, or a full representation agreement. Either way, read it before you sign it.
• Verify school zoning by the exact address, not a district map. District boundary maps and a school's own zoning page can disagree with each other on a specific street, as a documented Lewisville ISD and Frisco ISD boundary dispute reported by the Coppell Chronicle showed for one Frisco-area home. Call the district's zoning office or use the Texas Education Agency's locator for the address itself.
• Ask whether the lot carries a MUD, a PID, both or neither. A Municipal Utility District tax is a continuing ad valorem property tax that funds the water, sewer and drainage infrastructure a new community needed before a city annexed it. A Public Improvement District assessment is a different legal structure, created by a city or county rather than a water district, and it can appear on your tax bill or be billed separately. The two are not interchangeable, and a community can carry one, the other, both or neither.
• Line up a local lender before you write an offer, so your financing timeline matches the city's building and closing pace.

Plano's school system runs a four-tier grade structure many relocating families have not seen before: an elementary campus (K-5), a separate middle school (6-8), a "high school" campus for grades 9 and 10, and a separate "senior high" campus for grades 11 and 12. A family used to a single high school building should expect two campuses, not one, before they pick a street. Plano also sits inside a corridor with real corporate density, including Toyota Motor North America, JPMorgan Chase, Liberty Mutual, KPMG, Capital One and AT&T's planned headquarters campus, so a transferee's commute question is often answerable in minutes rather than months.

Some Frisco addresses zone to Prosper ISD or Lewisville ISD rather than Frisco ISD, even on streets that look identical from the curb. Amy Jacobs confirms zoning for the specific address before a relocating buyer falls for the house, not after. Frisco is also still building out in its northern half, so ask whether a given street is finished or still under construction around it.

Both cities are newer and still growing, which means more of their new-construction communities carry a MUD, a PID, or occasionally both. Mustang Lakes in Celina, for example, carries a PID and no MUD, while other nearby communities are structured differently. Never assume one community's tax structure applies to the next one over. Amy Jacobs asks the builder's sales office to confirm the specific figure for the specific section, in writing, before a client signs a contract.

Amy Jacobs has handled full turnkey relocation work since 2012, REALTOR® since 2014, guiding more than 800 North Texas families, including an estimated 600 relocations. For a family weighing Plano against Frisco, or Prosper against Celina, Amy walks through the written agreement, the school zoning, and the tax structure for the specific address before any offer goes in, so the decision rests on verified facts rather than a moving-guide generality.