Is Southlake, TX a good place to retire? Yes. Southlake is one of the wealthiest suburbs in America, with walkable Southlake Town Square, a five-star-rated hospital about nine minutes away, lock-and-leave luxury options for downsizing, a violent crime rate 92% below the national average, DFW Airport 10 to 15 minutes away and no state income tax on retirement income.
Most people picture retirement as a move outward, away from the traffic, toward more land, more quiet, a little more distance from the noise. We work with pre-retirees and retirees across the United States, and for a certain kind of family, the instinct runs the other way entirely. They don’t want distance from things. They want everything inside a ten-minute radius, and they’re willing to be exacting about where they find it.
That’s the Southlake retiree. And once you understand what Southlake actually is, the logic is hard to argue with.
Rockwall, where we recently planted a flag, is a community still becoming its best self. Southlake is the opposite story. It is a community that has already arrived, and now spends its considerable resources protecting exactly what it built.
Why Is Southlake One of the Wealthiest Suburbs in America?
Let’s start with the standing, because it sets the tone for everything else. In 2025, GOBankingRates ranked Southlake the #7 wealthiest suburb in America, up from #13 the year before. The average household income reached $382,520. Median home values sit around $1.29 million. In 2023, Southlake was the wealthiest city in Texas outright, keeping company nationally with names like Scarsdale, Los Altos, and Wellesley.
For a retiree, that profile is not really about prestige. It’s about consequence. Concentrated wealth in a small, built-out city means well-funded services, protected green space, stable property values, and neighbors who expect the place to be run well. And retirees have noticed: Southlake’s 75-and-older population grew nearly 49% between 2019 and 2023.
Southlake Town Square: A City You Rarely Need to Leave
Southlake sits at the center of the Metroplex, roughly 35 minutes from Dallas, under 30 from Fort Worth, and just 10 to 15 minutes from DFW International Airport. For retirees who travel often or have family scattered across the country, that airport proximity quietly becomes one of the most valuable amenities in the city.
But the deeper draw is that you rarely need to go anywhere at all. Southlake Town Square is a 130-acre, open-air district with more than 260 shops and restaurants, a luxury Harkins theater, a boutique Hilton, the city’s library and town hall, and a year-round calendar of festivals and concerts around the central gazebo. It’s genuinely walkable, with shaded sidewalks, live oaks and fountain plazas: the rare American suburb where daily life can happen on foot.
And it’s still growing. Carillon Parc, a $400 million, 42.5-acre European-inspired district, is rising near SH 114 with restaurants, boutique retail, a hotel, and a park anchored by a bell tower. By its 2028 build-out, Southlake will have a second walkable lifestyle hub, not to replace Town Square, but to complement it.
What Outdoor and Golf Options Does Southlake Offer?
For all its polish, Southlake isn’t only shops and restaurants. Bob Jones Nature Center protects more than 700 acres of trails and open space within the city, and Timarron Country Club’s Byron Nelson-designed course sits inside the community, with the ultra-private Vaquero Club just next door in Westlake and dozens more courses within a short drive. Active retirement here can mean morning trails and afternoon tee times without a long commute to either.
What Hospitals Are Near Southlake, TX?
A retirement plan is only as good as the care behind it. Baylor Scott & White Medical Center–Grapevine sits four miles, about nine minutes, from Town Square. It’s a 302-bed, CMS Five-Star-rated hospital, placing it in the top 9% in the country, with Level II trauma care and a 255,000-square-foot expansion underway. Inside Southlake itself, Baylor Scott & White runs family medicine, pediatrics, urgent care, and a full outpatient surgery center. Routine care happens down the street; serious care is a short drive away.
Downsizing in Southlake Without Downgrading
This is where Southlake separates itself from most retirement destinations. The city has built genuine luxury options for people ready to trade the big house for something simpler without surrendering the lifestyle. The Residences at Southlake Town Square offer lock-and-leave condominiums steps from the shops, with a rooftop skydeck, wellness spa, and concierge living, and the developer openly named downsizing boomers as a target resident. Watermere at Southlake spreads a full continuum of senior living across a 67-acre campus, from active-adult villas to assisted living and memory care. You can right-size your home here without leaving the community, your routines, or your doctors.
How Much Can Retirees Save on Taxes in Southlake?
The financial case rounds it out. Texas has no state income tax, which means your Social Security, pension, 401(k), and IRA withdrawals all arrive untouched at the state level. For a household drawing $150,000 a year in retirement income, that can mean $10,000 to $20,000 in annual savings compared with a high-tax state like California or New York. Homeowners 65 and older also qualify for an added $60,000 school district property tax exemption on top of the standard homestead exemption. In a city this expensive, the tax structure is part of what makes the numbers work.
Is Southlake, TX Safe?
Southlake’s safety record is almost difficult to believe. FBI data for 2024 recorded just ten violent incidents in the entire city across the year, a violent crime rate 92% below the national average, with zero murders. Independent reviewers score the city 93 out of 100 for safety, safer than nearly four out of five U.S. cities. For retirees, that’s not a statistic on a page. It’s the freedom to stop thinking about it.
Why Southlake Is Worth Your Attention
We spend our days helping Dallas-Fort Worth families make the most consequential financial decisions of their lives, and we pay close attention to where those families are choosing to spend the next chapter. Southlake keeps coming up, not because it’s the cheapest or the newest, but because it asks retirees to give up so little. The address, the walkability, the healthcare, the safety, the tax advantage, and the option to downsize in place rarely arrive together in one zip code. In Southlake, they do.
If you’re thinking through what retirement in Southlake could look like, financially, logistically, and personally, that’s exactly the conversation we’d love to have.