San Antonio & the Hill Country Corridor, TX

One Community Here Pays 50-100% More in Property Tax Than Its County Rate Suggests

Regency at Esperanza, Toll Brothers' new-construction community in Boerne, sits inside Kendall County Municipal Utility District #1 — and that MUD adds roughly 0.65 percentage points on top of the county's already-published 1.8-2.0% base rate. The result: an effective rate of 2.4-2.7%, not the number most buyers price in before touring.

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Kendall Co. base
1.8%-2.0%
Esperanza + MUD
2.4%-2.7%

A Municipal Utility District is a special taxing entity that funds the water, sewer, and drainage infrastructure for a new development — the same infrastructure an established city or county would otherwise have already built out decades ago. New construction on the edge of a growing corridor like Boerne often means the MUD bond is still being paid down, and that repayment shows up as its own line on the tax bill, layered on top of the county and school district rates a buyer would normally expect to see quoted.

Why the gap is bigger than it looks on paper

On a $600,000 home, the difference between Kendall County's base rate and Esperanza's MUD-inclusive effective rate runs $3,000-$5,000 a year. For a buyer relocating from Illinois (1.3-1.8% effective), Ohio (0.5-1.5%), or the Northeast, that's a Texas property tax bill running 50-100% higher than the "no state income tax" marketing led them to expect — because Texas's entire tax structure leans on property tax specifically to make up for having no income tax, and a MUD stacks an extra layer on top of that lean.

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CommunityCountyEffective rate
Regency at EsperanzaKendall (MUD #1)2.4%-2.7%
Hill Country Retreat, Campanas, Willis Ranch, Orchards at Valley RanchBexar1.8%-2.3%
Scenic HillsGuadalupe1.6%-1.9%
Del Webb at Veramendi (watch list, 2026+)Comal1.5%-1.8%

None of this makes Esperanza a bad community — Toll Brothers' three collections and the walkable Hill Country Mile location are genuinely part of what buyers are paying for, MUD included. The point is narrower: ask any Esperanza listing for the current MUD bond balance and its projected payoff timeline before comparing its price tag against a Bexar County community's, because the two aren't quoting the same kind of tax bill.

A separate 2025 change that helps many buyers here, regardless of countyTwo November 2025 constitutional amendments raised Bexar County's school homestead exemption to $140,000 and the over-65 additional school exemption to $60,000 — $200,000 in combined exemptions for a buyer 65 or older, on top of a school tax ceiling that locks once established at 65. Most real estate marketing in the corridor hasn't caught up to these numbers yet; ask specifically for the post-2025 math, not a pre-2025 estimate.

The honest way to shop this market: treat "Texas has no income tax" as only half the sentence — get the specific effective property tax rate, MUD status included, for any individual community before assuming the county's published base rate is what you'll actually pay.

See All 9 Communities & the Full MUD Tax Math
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