Crossroads by D.R. HORTON is sold out. The builder is gone, the last home closed, and every house in this neighborhood is now a resale. I’m writing about it anyway — and if you’re home shopping Locust, this may be the most useful post on this site for you.
Why a sold-out neighborhood is worth reading about
Two reasons, and the second one is the one nobody tells you.
The first is simple: what sold here tells you what’s about to happen at the communities still building. Crossroads went. If you’re standing in a sales office somewhere else in Locust wondering whether you have time to think it over, that’s your answer.
The second is better. A two-year-old house in a brand-new neighborhood is frequently a smarter buy than a new build, and almost nobody in my business says so out loud, because there’s no builder co-op check attached to saying it.
What you actually get buying a resale here
When you buy new construction, the base price is the beginning of the conversation. The fence isn’t in it. Neither are the blinds, the sod in the back yard, the patio, the gutters in some cases, the appliance upgrade, or the closet systems. Those are line items, and they’re where builders make their margin.
The first owner at Crossroads already paid for all of that. Two or three years on, it’s in the house — and it’s priced as part of the house, not as an upgrade sheet.
You also skip the wait. New construction in this market runs somewhere between six and nine months from contract to keys, and that’s when nothing goes wrong. A resale closes in thirty.
And you get to see the neighborhood as it actually is. Not a rendering, not a model home with a fireplace the base plan doesn’t include — the real streets, the real landscaping, the real neighbors, on a Saturday.
The honest trade-off: you don’t pick your finishes, and you’re buying someone else’s taste in flooring and paint. You also don’t get a builder’s structural warranty. For plenty of buyers that’s worth the discount and the speed. For some it isn’t, and I’ll tell you which you are once I know what you’re after.
What’s in here
D.R. Horton built seven floor plans at Crossroads, running 1,618 to 3,180 square feet, three to five bedrooms, in both ranch and two-story layouts.
That’s a wide range for one neighborhood, and it matters more than it sounds. A community that houses a first-time buyer in a 1,600-square-foot ranch and a family of six in a 3,100-square-foot two-story doesn’t turn over all at once and doesn’t end up demographically flat. You get neighbors at different life stages, which is most of what makes a street feel like a street.
Standard finishes ran to birch cabinets with crown molding, granite countertops, tile backsplash and stainless appliances, plus D.R. Horton’s smart home package — video doorbell, smart lock, thermostat, lighting and garage door control.
Some of these homes were also built with unfinished basements, which is genuinely rare here. Almost everything new around Locust and Oakboro is slab-on-grade. If you’ve been hunting for a new-ish home with a basement in Stanly County and coming up empty, that’s not you missing something — there aren’t many. Crossroads has some.
The pool, and the number that explains why it sold
Crossroads has a pool with a cabana, a playground and a pond, and HOA dues run about $82 a month.
Go and count how many other new communities in Locust have a pool.
That’s your answer. Amenities get paid for through dues in perpetuity, so a full amenity package usually arrives with a monthly number that makes people wince. Crossroads landed on a combination — real amenities, modest dues — that most communities have to choose between.
Worth saying the other side, because I say it to buyers constantly: a pool you use four times a summer is an expensive pool, and there are people for whom Pine Bluff’s no-pool, lower-dues approach is the better trade. But if you wanted amenities in Locust without a heavy monthly, this was the one.
Where it is
Crossroads sits at 109 Hickory Ridge Drive, Locust, NC 28097, about 28 miles from uptown Charlotte.
- Locust Elementary — 1 mile
- West Stanly Middle School — 2.4 miles
- West Stanly High School — 3.8 miles
All three are within four miles, which is unusual. If you’ve ever run a middle schooler and a kindergartener to two different buildings on the same morning, you know what that’s worth.
Locust Town Center, a Walmart Supercenter and a Starbucks are close by, and Locust itself has grocery, banking, medical offices and an Ace Hardware. There’s Locust City Park with trails and free summer movie nights, plus local spots like Morgan’s Dairy Bar, The Brew Room, The Local Room and Hot Mess Burgers. Red Bridge Golf Club is nearby, as is Reed Gold Mine.
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