Franklin's median home price depends entirely on who you ask. One tracker put the citywide median sale price at $864,000 for the three months ending in June 2026, up 5.3 percent year over year. Another had the typical home value at $928,567 as of the end of June, up 1.4 percent over the past year. A third, tracking six months of closings through early August, landed at $970,000, with the middle half of all Franklin sales closing anywhere between $700,000 and $1.5 million. None of these numbers are wrong. They're measuring different slices of a city that stopped being one housing market years ago.
The real question for a buyer isn't what Franklin costs. It's which Franklin you're comparing. Three master-planned communities, Westhaven, Berry Farms, and McKay's Mill, account for a large share of what gets bought and sold here, and they serve buyers who aren't really competing with each other for the same house. Add in a corporate neighbor that hasn't shown up in anyone's price data yet, and you have a market where the headline number tells you almost nothing about what your budget actually buys.
Three Communities That Don't Compete With Each Other
Westhaven has been building since 2003, when Southern Land Company laid out a walkable village grid instead of a standard subdivision. Nine miles of trails connect front-porch homes to a town center with restaurants, shops, and a golf course. The oldest sections have two decades of mature trees and an established resale rhythm. The newest sections are still filling in.
Berry Farms is younger. Development started in 2013 around the I-65 and Peytonsville Road interchange, and the mix ranges from condos to townhomes to large single-family homes, all built to a Town Architect's Federal-style standard. It reads as new because it is new, and the age of the housing stock shows up in the price spread more than in any of the other communities.
McKay's Mill predates both. Built out from the late 1990s through the 2000s off Cool Springs Boulevard, it functions less like a subdivision and more like a small town, with an on-site Publix, tennis courts, a clubhouse, and streets that have had twenty-plus years to grow into themselves. Buyers who choose it are usually trading lifestyle novelty for lower ongoing costs and a shorter drive to everything already built around it.
| Community | Typical Price Band (2026) | Monthly HOA | Established | The Trade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Westhaven | High $600,000s to $5 million-plus | $107 to $800-plus, plus a 0.3 percent capital transfer fee at closing | 2003 | Walkable village life, golf course frontage, a real town center |
| Berry Farms | Low $400,000s (condos) to $1.95 million (single-family) | $272 to $408 | 2013 | New construction, the widest price spread of the three, a major commercial neighbor under construction |
| McKay's Mill | Averaging $731,477 across active listings as of early August 2026 | Lower than either newer community, though not published on a single fee schedule | Late 1990s through the 2000s | Mature trees, an on-site Publix, the lowest ongoing carrying cost of the three |
That capital transfer fee at Westhaven is worth pausing on. It's 0.3 percent of the final sale price, paid at closing, and it funds the community's long-term amenities and reserves. On a $1.3 million sale that's roughly $3,900 that a buyer coming from a standard subdivision won't expect to see on the closing statement. It's not hidden. It's just not something most buyers think to ask about until they're already under contract.
The Corporate Neighbor Berry Farms Hasn't Priced In Yet
Berry Farms shows the widest listing spread of the three communities for a simple reason: new and existing inventory are pricing very differently for comparable square footage. In mid-July 2026, active listings included a new-construction three-bedroom on Forestside Drive asking $747,850 alongside an existing three-bedroom on Oglethorpe Drive asking $530,000. Same neighborhood, same bedroom count, more than $200,000 apart.
That spread is about to get more interesting. According to local reporting on Williamson County's 2026 development pipeline, In-N-Out Burger is building its Eastern Territory corporate headquarters, roughly 100,000 square feet, immediately adjacent to Berry Farms. A corporate campus of that size changes traffic patterns, weekday foot traffic, and the commercial mix around a neighborhood well before any of that shows up in a median price. Right now it's a construction site. In two or three years it's a fact buyers will be pricing into every comp in the area, and the buyers who understand what's going up next door today have information the closing data won't reflect for a while.
What the Same Budget Buys You
A buyer with $650,000 to $850,000 to spend is looking at an attached townhome or courtyard cottage in Westhaven's entry tier, a condo or smaller townhome in Berry Farms, or an established single-family home in McKay's Mill with more square footage but a twenty-year-old kitchen. Same money, three completely different products.
Move up to $850,000 to $1.1 million and the comparison shifts again. That range buys a mid-size single-family home in Westhaven's older sections, a new-construction single-family home in Berry Farms right as the commercial buildout takes shape next door, or the upper end of what McKay's Mill has to offer, often with more land and less HOA overhead than either newer community.
At $1.3 million and above, you're mostly in Westhaven or Berry Farms territory, and the decision becomes about which trade you'd rather make: an established village with two decades of landscaping and a proven resale pattern, or a newer build with more square footage per dollar and a neighborhood still being written.
Zone Lines Move Price More Than the Community Name
Franklin's price story isn't only about which master-planned community you pick. It's also about which Williamson County Schools attendance zone your address falls in, and that variable cuts across community lines in ways the marketing rarely mentions.
A review of the last 24 months of countywide closings recorded in the regional MLS, current as of mid-August 2026, shows median price per square foot ranging from $306 to $462 across Franklin's seven high school zones, with total median prices running from $762,450 to about $1.5 million. At the elementary level the spread is wider still. Pearre Creek, which covers the Westhaven area, posted a $1,340,000 median at $458 per square foot across 615 closings, the highest sales volume of any elementary zone in the dataset. Trinity, a deeper mid-market zone, closed at a $989,500 median and $309 per square foot across 395 sales. Grassland came in at $352 per square foot on a $1,313,750 median, Arrington at $374 per square foot on $1,512,500, and Hillsboro, Franklin's estate corridor toward Leiper's Fork, topped the list at $737 per square foot on a $2,287,500 median across a much thinner 76 closings.
Central Franklin, the historic downtown core that most people picture when they hear the word "Franklin," actually sits in the middle of that spread rather than at the top. Neighborhood-level tracking put the median sale price there at $694,000 for the three months ending in June 2026, down 9.6 percent year over year, at $342 per square foot. Downtown charm carries real value, but it doesn't automatically outbid a golf-course lot in Westhaven or an acre in the Hillsboro zone. The address decides more than the reputation does.
What This Means If You're Comparing Franklin Communities
Anchor to closed sales inside the same community and, ideally, the same section and build era, not to a citywide median that blends a 2003 village with a 2013 mixed-use development and a 1990s subdivision. Ask about HOA structure and any transfer fees before you write an offer, not after. If you're looking in Berry Farms, factor the commercial buildout next door into your hold-period thinking, not just your day-one comp. And confirm the exact attendance zone for any address you're serious about. Two homes a few streets apart can sit in different zones with a meaningfully different price ceiling, and that boundary rarely shows up on a listing photo.
A Few Questions Before You Compare
Is Westhaven overpriced compared to the rest of Franklin? Not overpriced so much as pricing a different product. The premium reflects walkability, amenities, and two decades of established landscaping that newer communities haven't had time to grow.
Will the In-N-Out headquarters increase Berry Farms home values? It's reasonable to expect the commercial buildout to change the neighborhood's daily rhythm, but that effect hasn't shown up in closed sales yet. Treat it as a factor to weigh, not a number to bank on.
How much does the Westhaven capital transfer fee actually cost? It's 0.3 percent of your final sale price, due at closing. On a $1 million purchase that's roughly $3,000, on top of the HOA dues you'll pay monthly.
Does the same street ever fall into two different price zones? Yes. Attendance zone boundaries follow lines drawn by Williamson County Schools, not neighborhood entrances, and two nearly identical homes on the same block can sit on opposite sides of that line.
Comparing Franklin communities means comparing three or four different decisions at once: the community, the section within it, the school zone, and what's being built next door. If you want that comparison run against your actual budget and priorities rather than a citywide average, Cherri Nolan can walk through the current comp sets in Westhaven, Berry Farms, and McKay's Mill and help you figure out which Franklin you're really buying into. Let's Connect.
