There isn’t much to see when peeling off I-35 South at Exit 40, one of the freeway’s final exits before Fort Worth blends into Burleson.

The frontage roads are boxed in by truck yards, fast food joints, and a warehouse-shaped church. Subdivisions and soon-to-be developed ranch land stretch farther beyond.

But a roughly two-mile drive east, along patchy, two-lane country roads, an apparent pocket of affordability is taking shape. Lennar, a national home builder, is churning out single-family houses priced between $230k and $270k, well below the median home cost in the city. A fresh new block of properties just hit the market; construction crews are hustling to piece together another.

New houses cheaper than $300k, once abundant across the Metroplex, are harder and harder to come by. The median income household can no longer afford to buy the median value home in Fort Worth. The few affordable options that exist tend to sprout up far outside city limits, where land is cheaper to buy and build-up.

Lennar’s project, South Oak Grove, seems to defy the trend — and mark the beginning of a new one. The subdivision’s front gate is only a 20-minute drive from downtown. A shorter drive gets you to a Walmart, AMC theater, and Chick-fil-A. Nearby homes on the market are tens of thousands of dollars more expensive. Lennar is assembling another development on the western side of I-35, just north of Crowley. “Risinger Court” will offer single-family spaces for as little as $197k.

The lower price point comes with caveats.

The homes, for instance, are small. The priciest model listed on Realtor ($275k) packs four bedrooms and two-and-half baths into 1,550 square feet. The cheapest home in Risinger Court will span 763 square feet, a smaller area than many one-bedroom apartments. The median Fort Worth home sells for $180 per square foot of space; the latest South Oak Groves properties have sold for an average of $190 per square foot. (Lennar did not respond to a request for comment.)

“I think we will see this more and more across not only just the Metroplex or Fort Worth, but the Texas triangle,” Shawn Buck, secretary of the Greater Fort Worth Association of Realtors, told the Star-Telegram.

Not too long ago, an aspiring home buyer with solid savings and good credit could settle in a larger, more luxurious home near excellent schools for a similar price. Burning demand, limited supply, and high interest rates have undone that reality. Finding a freshly built home larger than a South Oak Grove property under $300,000 may become a near impossibility.

“They are a growing share of the new homes, but that happens whenever homes become expensive. It was the case back in the early 2000s, in the late 1990s and before that,” explained Daniel Oney, the director of research at the Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center. “With high inflation in food prices, it is common for restaurants and food manufacturers to reduce the portion size, but keep the price the same.”

In truth, Oney continued, even Fort Worth’s smaller properties sell above the median cost per square foot.

“As far as prices, these smaller homes are still expensive,” he said. “Just a fraction of new homes this year sold for less than the overall market median (combining new and existing homes).“

Lennar’s alternatives, though less common and less appealing on paper, still hold value for families, Bryan Cargill, a north Texas real estate agent with Chandler Crouch Realtors, told the Star-Telegram.

“There are families that need this kind of assistance,” he said. “Overall, I think it’s going to be good for everybody, because these people are going to be building equity and pride and home ownership.”

Buck agreed.

“It’s 100% a way to help with the affordability of the housing market,” he said. “I think this is just another piece that developers can offer besides having a townhome section or a garden home section or a condo section of the master communities to have more affordable housing.”