Buyers who decide they want the Del Webb machine — the lifestyle director, the brand’s amenity formula, the national resale recognition — discover DFW offers it twice, thirty minutes apart, with the brand identical and everything structural opposite: Trinity Falls sells new construction inside a MUD; Union Park sells the value entry inside a master plan with a second HOA instead of a district. Since the logo cancels out, this comparison is purely about which structure you would rather carry.
| Trinity Falls (McKinney ETJ) | Union Park (Little Elm) | |
|---|---|---|
| Buying | New construction, mid-$400s, ~$33K incentives through mid-2026 | Mid-$300s entry, established sections |
| The extra layer | MUD at ~$0.99–$1.05/$100 — tax, floats forever, ignores the freeze | Union Park master HOA, $120–135/mo — a fee, escalates like fees do, but no district found on listings |
| Combined HOA reality | Del Webb sub + Trinity Falls master — both itemized, in writing | Del Webb $429/qtr + master = ~$263–278/mo combined |
| School zone | McKinney ISD | Little Elm ISD (~2.46% territory) |
| Senior toolkit fit | Freeze covers the minority of the bill — the MUD majority floats | Freeze covers the school-dominated majority; the $200K shield erases ~53% of a mid-$300s home |
| Decade carry (rep. over-65 couple) | ~$135K–$145K | ~$100K–$108K |
| What the premium buys | New everything, warranty, design-center choice, the newer amenity build | A maturing community, the lake belt’s retail filling in, $30K–$40K kept |
Strip the brand away and this matchup teaches the cleanest lesson in the market: Union Park’s extra layer is a fee — visible, escalating at board-meeting speed, and capped by the political reality of what an HOA can charge — while Trinity Falls’ extra layer is a tax that multiplies against appraised value automatically, immune to every senior protection, declining only on the bond market’s timetable. Over a decade the difference runs $30,000–$40,000 in Union Park’s favor at comparable house values, and the gap widens with appraisal growth. Trinity Falls’ honest counterargument is real: it is the one where you can still buy new, with a warranty and ~$33K of negotiable incentives, in the brand’s newest DFW amenity build — a premium some buyers should pay. The unexamined version — choosing by model-home freshness without pricing the district — is the only mistake here. Worked numbers: Trinity Falls true cost · Union Park true cost · the 8 Trinity Falls facts
Both communities, both fee stacks, the MUD line shown honestly, and the decade tables side by side — before either lifestyle director gets an afternoon.