Updated September 2026
The Houston Neighborhood Guide
Two houses at the same price, fifteen minutes apart, can cost hundreds a month more to own. The reason is almost never the house. It is the districts the address sits in, what the flood maps say and how old those maps are, and what insurance costs on that street.
This guide covers the parts of greater Houston I work in, and it leaves out the part every other site already does. There are no prices here. Prices change weekly and you can see them anywhere. What follows is the stuff that is hard to find, dull to assemble and expensive to get wrong.
Every number carries the year it came from, and every section links the official tool so you can check your own address rather than take my word for it. If you want current prices for a specific street, call me and I will pull them.
Start here
How to compare any Houston address
Six things decide what an address actually costs and what it is exposed to. Run these on any house, in any of the areas below, and you will know more than most buyers do at closing.
1. The tax bill is a stack, not a number
A Texas tax bill is the sum of every taxing unit whose boundary crosses the parcel. For a greater Houston home that usually means the county, a school district, a community college district, a city if the parcel is inside city limits, and often a MUD, WCID, LID or emergency services district. A PID assessment can sit on top, which is not a tax but still a bill.
The special district line is what makes two similar homes differ. On the Fort Bend County tax office's own 2025 worksheet, MUD rates ran from $0.18 per $100 for one district up to $1.10 for another. On a $300,000 taxable value that spread alone is about $230 a month, before the county, school or city lines are counted.
The second driver is city versus unincorporated. A parcel inside a city pays that city's rate. A parcel outside pays none, but is far more likely to sit in a MUD, because the MUD financed the water, sewer and drainage the city would otherwise have built. The two lines trade off, which is why "no MUD means cheaper" is wrong often enough to be dangerous.
The third catches people after closing: the prior owner's exemptions. A listing or last year's bill may reflect an over-65 school tax ceiling or a capped homestead value that you do not inherit.
Look it up:
- Texas.gov/PropertyTaxesroutes to your county's tax database, searchable by address. It lists every unit that taxes the property and the estimated tax from each. Start here, because it enumerates the districts instead of making you guess.
- Your appraisal district's parcel page (HCAD for Harris, FBCAD for Fort Bend, Waller CAD for part of Katy) shows the jurisdictions, current exemption codes and value history.
- The TCEQ water districts mapconfirms a district exists and its official name when a listing is vague.
- The seller's MUD notice, required by Water Code 49.452, is the most complete financial disclosure you get: district name, current or projected rate, bonds approved and bonds actually issued. The gap between approved and issued is the forward-looking number, because unissued authorised debt is future rate pressure.
2. Flood: the map you are reading is old
Harris County's effective flood maps were last updated countywide in 2007. Fort Bend's date to April 2014. A remapping effort for Harris County called MAAPnext released draft data to floodplain administrators in February 2026, but those drafts cannot be used for insurance or regulatory decisions, and the published timeline puts official approval around November 2028.
So a buyer today is reading a map drawn before several of the floods it is supposed to describe. Checking the effective map and the draft is reasonable diligence. Treating either as a guarantee is not.
The zone letters matter less than people think. A, AE and V zones are the high-risk Special Flood Hazard Area, where a federally backed lender must require flood insurance. X is lower risk, not no risk. FEMA's own wording is blunt: there is no such thing as a no-risk zone, and floods do not follow city limits or property lines.
The number that should settle the argument: Hurricane Harvey damaged more than 204,000 homes and apartment buildings in Harris County, and almost three-quarters of them sat outside the regulated 100-year floodplain. Harris County Flood Control says plainly that not every hazard is mapped and not every bayou or creek in the county has been studied.
West of Houston there is a second question the maps do not answer. The Addicks and Barker reservoir pools extend beyond the land the federal government owns, which is why homes on private land inside the basins took water during the 2017 controlled releases. Texas has required sellers to disclose flood pool and reservoir status since September 2019, and those are separate boxes from the floodplain question. In Fort Bend, many subdivisions sit behind levees run by Levee Improvement Districts, which tax like MUDs. FEMA's position on levees is worth repeating: they reduce risk, they do not eliminate it, and when they fail the results can be catastrophic.
Look it up:
- FEMA Flood Map Service Center for the effective map and any letters of map change
- Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool for an address-level view
- MAAPnext for the Harris County draft maps, awareness only
- Fort Bend County Drainage District for the 2014 effective map and its levee district map
One timing trap: a flood policy usually takes 30 days to take effect, unless a lender requires it at closing. If you are not required to carry it and decide afterwards that you want it, you are generally uncovered for the first month. That decision belongs in the option period.
3. Insurance is a bigger line than people budget for
The Texas Department of Insurance puts the statewide average homeowners premium at $1,961 in 2019 and $3,506 in 2025 on a preliminary basis. Part of that is rate and part is that average coverage amounts rose about 72% from 2016 to 2025. These are statewide averages, not a quote for your address.
Hail and wind drove about 69% of paid losses across the main categories in 2024, which is why the wind and hail portion of a policy is the line that moves. A standard policy covers windstorm, hurricane and hail, and excludes flood. Flood is always a separate policy.
Almost every address in Harris, Fort Bend, Waller and Montgomery counties buys wind and hail inside a normal homeowners policy. The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association's catastrophe area covers the 14 coastal counties plus the part of Harris County east of Highway 146, which is a small eastern slice well away from the areas in this guide.
Get a real quote during the option period, not an estimate. Roof age and construction move the number more than the address does.
4. Commute geometry, not commute times
Any drive time printed in a guide like this is wrong by the time you read it, so here is the geometry instead. The employment centres are Downtown, the Texas Medical Center just south of it, the Energy Corridor along I-10 between Kirkwood and Barker Cypress, Uptown along Post Oak, and Greenway between Downtown and Uptown.
I-10 is the spine west through the Energy Corridor to Katy and carries tolled managed lanes. US-290 runs northwest toward Cypress. US-59 and I-69 run southwest through Sugar Land to Richmond and Rosenberg. Beltway 8's frontage roads are free while the main lanes are the tolled Sam Houston Tollway. The Grand Parkway, SH 99, is the outer ring and is tolled throughout, with different segments run by different authorities. The Westpark Tollway is fully electronic with no toll booths, and FM 1093 runs parallel to it toll-free in Fort Bend County.
Tolls are a real monthly line item on some of these commutes and zero on others. Drive the route at the hour you would actually drive it, in both directions, before you decide anything.
5. Houston has no zoning, which is not the same as no rules
The City of Houston does not have zoning. Development is governed by Chapter 42, which regulates the form of development, how land is platted, lot sizes, building lines and right of way, but not the use. There is no city map that tells you what the parcel next door may become.
What governs use instead is private: deed restrictions recorded against a subdivision in the county's real property records. Unusually, the City of Houston will enforce them through civil court, though its attorneys are prohibited from interpreting them for you.
Three things follow. Deed restrictions can expire or be amended, so read the recorded instrument and its renewal terms. They are not published in one searchable place. And they are not the same as an HOA: a subdivision can have restrictions with no association to enforce them, or an association with real assessment power.
If there is an association, Texas Property Code 207.003 gives you the right to request the restrictions, the bylaws and rules, and a resale certificate, delivered within ten business days. The resale certificate is the document that matters: it shows assessments, approved special assessments, unpaid amounts owed by the current owner, approved capital expenditures, reserves, the operating budget and balance sheet, unsatisfied judgments and pending lawsuits. Read it before the option period ends.
Note that "no zoning" is a City of Houston fact. Katy, Sugar Land, Missouri City and other incorporated suburbs have their own ordinances, and several do zone. Unincorporated county land has no city ordinance at all.
6. The checklist, before you write an offer
- Pull the parcel on Texas.gov/PropertyTaxes and list every taxing unit by name.
- Confirm which appraisal district values it, especially for a Katy address.
- Find the MUD, WCID, LID or PID by name and get its current rate and its bonds approved versus issued.
- Check whether the parcel is inside city limits or in the extraterritorial jurisdiction.
- Ask whether the prior owner's exemptions are inflating the tax figure you were shown.
- Pull the effective FEMA map, and for Harris County look at the MAAPnext draft too.
- Read the seller's disclosure flood questions, all five boxes, not just the floodplain one.
- For anything near Addicks or Barker, ask the flood pool and reservoir questions separately.
- Get a real homeowners quote, and a flood quote whether or not a lender requires it.
- Request the deed restrictions and, if there is an association, the resale certificate.
- Drive the commute at the real hour, both directions, and price the tolls.
- Ask what has changed since the last flood map was drawn, because in Harris County that was 2007.
The areas
10 areas, the same questions asked of each
Harris, Fort Bend and Waller counties
Katy
Katy means three different things: the incorporated City of Katy, roughly 14 square miles centred on the old rail town at I-10 and Katy-Fort Bend Road; the Katy ISD attendance area, most of which sits outside the city limits; and the greater Katy footprint that a 77494 mailing address usually refers to, which spans parts of Fort Bend, Harris and Waller counties and includes unincorporated land, part of the City of Fulshear and some City of Houston territory. In practical terms I-10 runs east to west through the middle, SH 99 (Grand Parkway) is the north to south spine on the east side, FM 1463 and Katy-Fulshear Road sit on the west, US 90 and FM 529 mark the north edge and FM 1093 (Westpark) the south. A Katy mailing address does not mean City of Katy, city services or a city tax rate.
- Appraisal district
- Harris Central Appraisal District, Fort Bend Central Appraisal District and Waller County Appraisal District
- School districts
- Katy ISD, Lamar CISD, Waller ISD, Fort Bend ISD
- Combined tax rate
- About 1.96 to 2.07 per $100 of assessed value (2025)
What the tax line does here
There is no single Katy tax rate: the bill is a stack of county, school district, city if incorporated, and outside the city limits a municipal utility district. In 2025 Katy ISD adopted 1.117100 per $100, the City of Katy 0.425000 per $100, Fort Bend County 0.422000 per $100 including drainage, and the Harris County group of units 0.628928 per $100. The MUD line is the largest variable: the Fort Bend County 2025 rate sheet lists area special districts from 0.040000 per $100 (Fort Bend LID 12) up to 1.100000 per $100 (Fort Bend MUD 162), and a spread of that size, about 1.06 per $100, is roughly $265 a month on a $300,000 taxable value. Mature districts that have paid down bond debt sit at the low end and newly developed districts still funding infrastructure sit at the high end, so look up the parcel rather than the subdivision.
Flood
Katy sits at the upstream end of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs, federal dry-bottom flood-control reservoirs built in the 1940s and operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District, with the Harris County Flood Control District managing the channels that feed them. The design flood footprints of both reservoirs extend beyond the land the federal government owns, so during Harvey in 2017 water backed up onto private property upstream: pool levels peaked on 2017-08-30 above 109 feet at Addicks and above 101 feet at Barker. The Corps closed the outlet gates on 2017-08-25, began controlled releases on 2017-08-28 at roughly 800 cubic feet per second from each reservoir rising to about 7,000 from each by 2017-09-01, and HCFCD stated on 2017-08-29 that those releases added to out-of-bank flooding downstream along Buffalo Bayou. Upstream pool inundation and downstream release flooding are two different mechanisms affecting two different sets of properties, and Katy is on the upstream side. Since 2019-09-01 Texas Property Code section 5.008 has required a seller to disclose whether a property is in a FEMA 100-year or 500-year floodplain, has flooded in the past five years, is located in a reservoir flood pool, has been repaired for flood damage or has received flood insurance proceeds. Harris County maps are mid-redraw: the HCFCD and FEMA MAAPnext project released draft maps in February 2026 that carry no regulatory effect, so check the effective FEMA map at msc.fema.gov, the Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool and the MAAPnext draft for any specific address.
Housing
The historic city core holds the oldest housing, tied to the rail-era origin of the town, while the surrounding greater Katy subdivisions are overwhelmingly post-1970s suburban development. Detached single-family is the predominant type, with townhome and build-to-rent product in newer sections, and active new construction continues in master-planned communities including Cane Island, Sunterra and Elyson as of 2026.
Getting around
To the Energy Corridor: east on I-10. The Energy Corridor District runs along I-10 from Barker Cypress to Kirkwood Road and extends south along Eldridge Parkway and Enclave Parkway to the Westpark Tollway. To Downtown Houston: east on I-10 the whole way, or the Westpark Tollway east to I-610 West to I-69 and US 59. To the Texas Medical Center: the Westpark Tollway east to I-610 West then south to the TMC exits, or I-10 east to I-610 West south. Peak-period travel times in Houston vary widely, so this guide publishes routes rather than minutes.
What is nearby
Retail includes Katy Mills, which opened in 1999 and is described at about 1.3 million square feet with more than 175 stores as of 2026, plus Katy Asian Town, and the planned Katy Boardwalk District of more than 11 acres was not yet open as described in 2026. Typhoon Texas waterpark sits near Katy Mills, and Houston Methodist West Hospital at 18500 Katy Freeway is described at more than 200 beds as of 2026.
Check this before you offer: Before you write an offer, confirm which county, which appraisal district and which exact taxing units cover that specific parcel, because a Katy mailing address tells you none of those three.
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Assessor-Collector, 2025 Tax Rates and Exemptions worksheet · Harris County Tax Office, Tax Rates by Jurisdiction · US Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District, Addicks and Barker Dams and Reservoirs Update · FEMA Flood Map Service Center
Fort Bend County, unincorporated, with a small number of parcels straddling Harris County
Cinco Ranch
Cinco Ranch is a master-planned community of roughly 5,000 acres in unincorporated Fort Bend County, south of I-10 in the greater Katy area, laid out as a set of residential villages around schools, parks, trails, lakes and recreation centres. The principal routes in and around it are SH 99 (Grand Parkway), Westheimer Parkway, Cinco Ranch Boulevard, Mason Road, Fry Road and FM 1093 (Westpark), and each village has its own edges: Cinco Forest, for example, is bordered by the Grand Parkway on the west, Westheimer Parkway on the north and Little Prong Creek on the south. There is no City of Cinco Ranch, no city property tax and no municipal police or fire department: services come from the county, the MUDs and an emergency services district.
- Appraisal district
- Fort Bend Central Appraisal District, with Harris Central Appraisal District codes cross-referenced for districts that cross the county line
- School districts
- Katy ISD
- Combined tax rate
- About 1.90 to 2.10 per $100 of assessed value (2025)
What the tax line does here
A Cinco Ranch bill in 2025 stacks Fort Bend County at 0.412000 per $100 plus drainage at 0.010000, Katy ISD at 1.117100 per $100, the Willow Fork Drainage District at 0.145000 per $100, the relevant Cinco MUD, and an emergency services district. Cinco MUD 2 adopted 0.220000 per $100 in 2025 and Cinco MUD 5 adopted 0.300000 per $100, which works the two stacks out to roughly 2.004 and 2.084 per $100 in 2025 once an ESD at about 0.100000 per $100 is added. These are comparatively mature districts: newer Fort Bend districts on the same 2025 sheet run as high as 0.965000 (FB MUD 134B) and 1.100000 per $100 (FB MUD 162), so a buyer comparing Cinco Ranch with a newer master-planned community nearby can be looking at 0.60 to 0.85 per $100 of difference on the MUD line alone, about $150 to $210 a month on a $300,000 taxable value. That is the mechanism, not a verdict: an older district that has paid down its bonds charges less than a new one still building the infrastructure.
Flood
Cinco Ranch lies west of the Barker reservoir footprint, upstream of the dam, in the Willow Fork of Buffalo Bayou drainage. The Barker design flood footprint is larger than the land the federal government owns, and that is why parts of Cinco Ranch, Kelliwood and Canyon Gate sat inside what engineers call the reservoir flood pool and took water during Harvey in 2017, when the Barker pool peaked above 101 feet on 2017-08-30. The separate downstream mechanism, the controlled releases the Corps began on 2017-08-28, flooded a different set of properties along Buffalo Bayou east of the dams. Flood-pool disclosure was not required at the time and reporting documents that many owners did not know they were inside one: Texas Property Code section 5.008 has required a seller to disclose reservoir flood pool location, floodplain status, flooding in the past five years, flood repairs and flood insurance proceeds for contracts executed on or after 2019-09-01. Check the effective FEMA map at msc.fema.gov for the address, and use Fort Bend County floodplain resources rather than the Harris County mapping tool, which is a Harris County product.
Housing
Detached single-family is the predominant type, organised into villages with pools, a beach club and swim lagoon, pocket parks, basketball courts, picnic areas and an 18-hole golf course. The community developed progressively westward over several decades, so the eastern villages are materially older than the northwest sections: pull exact year-built ranges and lot sizes from FBCAD parcel records rather than from any listing description.
Getting around
To the Energy Corridor: north on the Grand Parkway (SH 99) or Fry Road or Mason Road to I-10, then east to Eldridge Parkway, or the Westpark Tollway east then north on Eldridge Parkway or Highway 6. To Downtown Houston: the Westpark Tollway east to I-610 West then I-69 and US 59 north, or north to I-10 and east. To the Texas Medical Center: the Westpark Tollway east to I-610 West, then south to the TMC exits. Distances from Cinco Ranch have not been measured from a fixed anchor for this guide, so routes are given without figures and drive times are not published at all.
What is nearby
LaCenterra at Cinco Ranch is a 34-acre main-street-style mixed-use development of roughly 300,000 square feet, about 271,000 of it retail and restaurant space as described in 2026, with Katy Mills and Katy Asian Town north of the community. Community amenities are distributed across the villages and include a pool complex, beach club and swim lagoon, pocket parks, basketball courts, picnic areas, an 18-hole golf course, lakes and trails, and Houston Methodist West Hospital at 18500 Katy Freeway is the nearest full hospital on the corridor.
Check this before you offer: Ask which Cinco MUD the parcel sits in and who collects for it, because several Cinco and Cinco Southwest districts do not appear on the Fort Bend County collector 2025 sheet and are billed through a third-party collector instead.
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Assessor-Collector, 2025 Tax Rates and Exemptions worksheet · Fort Bend Central Appraisal District, Tax Rates · Texas Property Code section 5.008 as amended by S.B. 339 (86R), effective 2019-09-01 · FEMA Flood Map Service Center
Harris County, unincorporated northwest Harris County
Bear Creek and Copperfield
These are two adjacent but distinct areas that listing portals group together. Bear Creek Village is a residential community of roughly 1,974 homes in ZIP 77084, bounded by Clay Road on the north, Bear Creek Pioneers Park on the south, State Highway 6 on the west and the Addicks Reservoir on the east. Copperfield is a master-planned community of more than 2,000 acres in ZIP 77095, divided into seven villages, with Copperfield Place Village on the east side of Highway 6 just north of FM 529. SH 6 is the spine for both, Clay Road, FM 529, West Road and US 290 run east to west, and both areas are unincorporated: neither is in the City of Houston, though some nearby parcels are, so verify per address.
- Appraisal district
- Harris Central Appraisal District
- School districts
- Katy ISD (Bear Creek Village), Cypress-Fairbanks ISD (Copperfield)
- Combined tax rate
- About 2.05 to 2.10 per $100 of assessed value (2025), before any emergency services or community college district
What the tax line does here
The Harris County group of units came to 0.628928 per $100 in 2025, combining the county at 0.380960, the Flood Control District at 0.049660, the Port of Houston Authority at 0.005900, the Hospital District at 0.187610 and the Department of Education at 0.004798. School district differs across the boundary: Katy ISD adopted 1.117100 per $100 in 2025 on the Bear Creek Village side and Cypress-Fairbanks ISD adopted 1.066900 per $100 in 2025 on the Copperfield side. Every unincorporated parcel here is inside a MUD, and that line is the real swing: Harris County MUD 208, serving the Copperfield Southcreek and Southdown villages, adopted 0.360000 per $100 in 2025, while Harris County MUD rates across the county spanned roughly 0.103000 to 1.400000 per $100 that year, a spread worth about $325 a month on a $300,000 taxable value. Reporting names at least eight different districts serving the Copperfield villages, so two homes on adjacent streets can sit in different MUDs at different rates.
Flood
The eastern boundary of Bear Creek Village is the Addicks Reservoir, and both areas drain into the Addicks watershed, 138 square miles whose primary waterways are Bear Creek, Horsepen Creek, Langham Creek and South Mayde Creek. Because the reservoir design flood footprints extend beyond the land the federal government owns, water filled Addicks faster than the Corps could release it during Harvey in 2017 and flooded upstream into the village: the pool peaked at 109 feet on 2017-08-30 and an estimated 1,500 of the roughly 1,974 homes in Bear Creek Village flooded, part of roughly 7,000 acres of private upstream land and about 10,000 upstream structures inundated by operation of the two dams. That is a separate mechanism from the controlled releases the Corps began on 2017-08-28, which flooded properties downstream along Buffalo Bayou, east of the dams. Since then the 1940s outlet control structures were replaced under a $75 million contract, with flow switched to the new structures in 2020, and the HCFCD and FEMA MAAPnext project released draft maps in February 2026 that remodel all 22 Harris County watersheds and carry no regulatory effect; that is replacement and remapping work, not a statement that any address is out of reach of water. Texas Property Code section 5.008 has required disclosure of reservoir flood pool location, floodplain status, flooding in the past five years, flood repairs and flood insurance proceeds for contracts executed on or after 2019-09-01: read the disclosure and check the address against the effective FEMA map at msc.fema.gov, the Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool and the MAAPnext draft.
Housing
Bear Creek Village was built out primarily in the 1970s and 1980s, one and two storey detached homes on curvilinear streets with mature trees, and one source puts construction in the broader Bear Creek area as early as 1940 and continuing through 1999. Copperfield was developed by Friendswood Development Company beginning in 1979 on an initial 1,800 acres, with a 70-acre, 265-home expansion in 1991, and built out largely from 1979 through the 1990s as detached single-family across seven villages. Era ranges here come from secondary sources: confirm year built and lot size against HCAD parcel records.
Getting around
To the Energy Corridor: south on SH 6 to I-10, then east. The western edge of the Energy Corridor District is Barker Cypress at I-10, which is close to this area, making it the shortest of the three trips. To Downtown Houston: US 290 southeast to I-610 West then I-10 east, or south on SH 6 to I-10 east. To the Texas Medical Center: south on SH 6 to I-10 east to I-610 West south, or Beltway 8 south to the Westpark Tollway east to I-610 West. Distances have not been measured from a fixed anchor for this guide, and drive times are not published.
What is nearby
The big open space here is the flood-control land: Harris County Precinct 4 lists Bear Creek Pioneers Park at 2,154.6 acres located inside the Addicks Reservoir, with about 2.55 miles of walking trails plus equestrian trails on the wooded west side, and George Bush Park covers 7,800 acres, most of it undeveloped forest used for floodwater storage, its hike-and-bike trail joining the west end of the Terry Hershey Park trail to form roughly 22 miles of continuous trail. Terry Hershey Park itself runs about 500 acres along a six-mile stretch of Buffalo Bayou with roughly 11 miles of trails, Cullen Park sits within the Addicks and Barker reservoir areas, and area retail runs along the SH 6 and FM 529 corridors.
Check this before you offer: Get the section 5.008 seller disclosure in writing and run the exact address through both the effective FEMA map and the Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool, because the reservoir flood pool reaches past the federally owned land and the property line tells you nothing about where that boundary falls.
Sources: Harris County Tax Office, Tax Rates by Jurisdiction · Harris County MUD 208, 2025 Tax Rate Set · Harris County Flood Control District, Addicks Reservoir watershed · Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool
Harris County, with Cy-Fair ISD territory reaching toward Waller County at its western edge
Cypress
Cypress is unincorporated Harris County with no city limits and no municipal government, running along US 290 (Northwest Freeway) from Beltway 8 out past the Grand Parkway (SH 99), with Cypress Creek as the informal northern edge and Clay Road and FM 529 as the southern edge. Jersey Village is a separate incorporated city inside the Cy-Fair ISD footprint and is not Cypress.
- Appraisal district
- Harris Central Appraisal District (HCAD), and Waller County Appraisal District where a property falls in Waller County
- School districts
- Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, Waller Independent School District, Katy Independent School District, Tomball Independent School District
- Combined tax rate
- About 1.84 per $100 with no MUD, and about 2.44 per $100 with a MUD such as Harris County MUD No. 501 (2025 tax year)
What the tax line does here
Cypress carries no city property tax, but the 2025 stack still adds Harris County, Flood Control, the Port of Houston, Harris Health, the County Department of Education, Cypress-Fairbanks ISD at 1.066900 and Lone Star College System at 0.106000, which comes to about 1.840628 per $100 before any MUD. Harris County MUD No. 501, serving Towne Lake, levied 0.5972 per $100 for the 2025 tax year, taking that same address to roughly 2.44 per $100: on a $300,000 taxable value the MUD line alone is about $149 a month. That is how a Cypress address with no city tax can land above a Memorial Village combined rate, and two houses on facing streets can sit in different districts at different rates.
Flood
Cypress sits in the Cypress Creek watershed, HCFCD unit K100-00-00, 267 square miles with about 250 miles of open stream. In Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 HCFCD counted 8,750 homes flooded in the Cypress Creek watershed and 700 in Little Cypress Creek, against 154,170 countywide, with unincorporated Harris County accounting for 34,600. East of US 290 Harvey levels exceeded the April 2016 Tax Day flood by 2.0 to 5.0 feet, and water in Cypress Creek ran south across the watershed divide into upper White Oak Bayou and Addicks Reservoir for roughly 24 hours. Check the specific address at the FEMA Flood Map Service Center and the Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool.
Housing
Construction is recent and single-family detached dominates: in ZIP 77433 about 87 percent of the 35,892 units counted were built in 2000 or later, while 77429 carries a real 1970s through 1990s layer and 77095 peaks in the 1980s through 2000s, per ACS 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates. Bridgeland, begun in October 2003, covers 11,500 acres and is planned for 20,000 homes with completion estimated in 2037.
Getting around
Road distances measured on OpenStreetMap data in 2026 from a Cypress reference point: about 16 miles to the Energy Corridor at I-10 and Eldridge Parkway by the Grand Parkway then I-10, about 28 miles to Downtown Houston by US 290, and about 30 miles to the Texas Medical Center by US 290 to the I-610 West Loop. These are distances only. Drive times vary by hour and were not measured.
What is nearby
Houston Methodist Cypress Hospital opened on 17 March 2025 at 24500 Northwest Freeway with 100 licensed beds, nine operating rooms and an emergency department on a 105-acre campus, and filed a $50 million patient-care build-out in September 2025; Memorial Hermann Cypress opened in 2017 and HCA Houston Healthcare North Cypress also serves the area. Other anchors are Houston Premium Outlets with roughly 140 stores, the Cy-Fair ISD Berry Center, and the planned Cypress Creek Greenway trail corridor.
Check this before you offer: Ask the title company for the MUD or district notice during the option period and read the named district and its current rate off it, because that line, not the county or school rate, is what moves the combined rate on a specific Cypress address.
Sources: Harris County Tax Office, jurisdiction tax rates (2025) · Harris County MUD No. 501 (Towne Lake), 2025 tax rate · HCFCD, Immediate Report Final: Hurricane Harvey (2018) · TCEQ Water Districts database
Harris County
Spring Branch
Spring Branch is west-northwest Houston bounded by I-10 on the south, the I-610 West Loop on the east, Beltway 8 on the west and Tanner and Hempstead roads on the north, covering ZIP codes 77055, 77080 and 77043. Most of it is City of Houston, annexed on the east in the 1940s and on the west in the 1950s, but two independent cities, Spring Valley Village and Hilshire Village, sit physically inside the area and bill their own city rates.
- Appraisal district
- Harris Central Appraisal District (HCAD)
- School districts
- Spring Branch Independent School District
- Combined tax rate
- About 2.17 per $100 for a City of Houston address in Spring Branch ISD (2025 tax year)
What the tax line does here
A City of Houston address here stacks the county group at 0.628928, the City of Houston at 0.519190 and Spring Branch ISD at 1.023100 for the 2025 tax year, about 2.171218 per $100, or roughly $543 a month on a $300,000 taxable value. There is no MUD, because the City provides water, sewer and drainage after annexation, and there is no community college levy: Spring Branch ISD lies in the Houston Community College service area but voters declined to join the HCC taxing district, so the HCC proposed 2025 rate of 0.100263 does not appear, a difference of about $25 a month on that same $300,000 against a comparable Houston address inside the HCC district. The Spring Branch ISD board adopted that 1.0231 rate for 2025 on September 29, 2025, down from 1.0764 for the 2024 tax year.
Flood
Spring Branch straddles two watersheds: the southern and central portion drains to Buffalo Bayou, 102 square miles with about 106 miles of open stream, and the northern portion drains to White Oak Bayou and Brickhouse Gully. In Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 HCFCD counted 17,090 homes flooded in the Buffalo Bayou watershed, 7,830 in White Oak Bayou and 4,540 in Little White Oak Bayou, with the City of Houston accounting for 96,410 of the 154,170 flooded countywide. Harvey set records at every Buffalo Bayou bridge crossing, exceeding Tropical Storm Allison of 2001 by 2.0 to 4.0 feet from Downtown west to the I-610 West Loop, and set record levels along the entire reach of Brickhouse Gully. Countywide totals for earlier events were 73,000 homes in Allison in June 2001, 9,840 in the Tax Day flood of April 2016 and 6,335 in the Memorial Day flood of May 2015: check the address at the FEMA Flood Map Service Center and the Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool.
Housing
The largest cohorts are 1950s through 1970s single-family, with a replacement layer on top: ACS 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates count 3,639 of 18,349 units in 77055 and 2,828 of 17,731 units in 77080 built in 2010 or later. Density is mixed rather than uniform: 77055 holds 8,915 detached units and 3,004 units in buildings of 50 or more, and 77080 holds 8,507 detached and 2,765 units in buildings of 10 to 19.
Getting around
Road distances measured on OpenStreetMap data in 2026 from a reference point near Long Point and Blalock: about 8 miles to the Energy Corridor at I-10 and Eldridge Parkway, about 12 miles to Downtown Houston by I-10 east, and about 14 miles to the Texas Medical Center by the I-610 West Loop south. Those are the shortest distances of the areas in this guide to both the Energy Corridor and Downtown. Distances only: no drive times were measured.
What is nearby
Memorial City and CityCentre sit at the southwest edge along I-10, the local retail spine runs along Long Point Road and Hammerly Boulevard, and Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center sits at I-10 and Gessner. Terry Hershey Park lies west along Buffalo Bayou and Memorial Park lies east across I-610.
Check this before you offer: Confirm on the appraisal record whether the address is City of Houston or inside Spring Valley Village or Hilshire Village before assuming the Houston rate, because both of those independent cities sit inside the Spring Branch area and levy their own city tax.
Sources: Harris County Tax Office, jurisdiction tax rates (2025) · City of Houston, notice of meeting to vote on tax rate, tax year 2025 · Houston Community College, Truth in Taxation · HCFCD, Immediate Report Final: Hurricane Harvey (2018)
Harris County
Memorial and the Memorial Villages
The Memorial super neighborhood runs from Buffalo Bayou on the south to Westview on the north, with Barker Reservoir on the west and the Villages on the east, and most of it is City of Houston in Spring Branch ISD with Katy ISD at the western end. Six separate incorporated cities sit within and beside it, Bunker Hill Village, Hedwig Village, Hilshire Village, Hunters Creek Village, Piney Point Village and Spring Valley Village, each with its own council and its own adopted tax rate, and two of them, Hilshire Village and Spring Valley Village, stand in the Spring Branch area rather than on the Memorial Drive corridor.
- Appraisal district
- Harris Central Appraisal District (HCAD), which appraises both the Memorial area and all six Villages, while each Village bills its own tax
- School districts
- Spring Branch Independent School District, Katy Independent School District
- Combined tax rate
- About 1.86 to 2.18 per $100 across the Villages with a sourced rate, and about 2.17 per $100 for a City of Houston Memorial address (2025 tax year)
What the tax line does here
Every address in this section pays the same county group of 0.628928 and Spring Branch ISD at 1.023100 for the 2025 tax year, about 1.652028 per $100 before any city tax, and the city line is the entire difference: Hunters Creek Village adopted 0.205164 for 2025, Piney Point Village 0.255140 for 2025, Bunker Hill Village 0.271000 for 2024 and Hilshire Village 0.529226 for FY2025 to 2026, against the City of Houston at 0.519190 for 2025. That runs the combined rate from about 1.86 per $100 in Hunters Creek Village to about 2.18 in Hilshire Village, a spread of roughly 0.32 of a point, which on a $300,000 taxable value is about $81 a month, and a City of Houston Memorial address lands at about 2.17, essentially level with Hilshire Village. No MUD applies anywhere in this section and no community college levy applies either, because Spring Branch ISD is not in the HCC tax base, which is the structural reason these combined rates sit below a Cypress address that carries a MUD. Hedwig Village and Spring Valley Village set their own rates as well, so pull the adopted rate for whichever Village actually taxes the address.
Flood
Memorial and the Villages lie in the Buffalo Bayou watershed, 102 square miles with about 106 miles of open stream, downstream of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built in the 1940s. In Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 HCFCD counted 17,090 homes flooded in the Buffalo Bayou watershed, and by jurisdiction 190 homes in Hunters Creek Village, 170 in Piney Point Village and 20 in Bunker Hill Village, against Village housing stocks of roughly 1,000 to 1,650 units each in ACS 2020 to 2024 estimates; Hedwig Village, Hilshire Village and Spring Valley Village are not broken out and fall inside an Other Cities total of 930. The reservoir release is the defining local event: the Corps released a combined 16,000 cfs, the highest rate since the outlets were fully gated in 1963, the Buffalo Bayou gage at Piney Point peaked at 15,000 cfs against a previous record of 7,990 cfs in April 2009, and house flooding downstream of the reservoirs ceased about 12 September 2017. Check the address at the FEMA Flood Map Service Center and the Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool.
Housing
The four Villages measured are small: ACS 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates count 1,191 housing units in Piney Point Village, 1,642 in Hunters Creek Village, 1,198 in Bunker Hill Village and 1,073 in Hedwig Village, with original stock from the 1950s through the 1970s and a 2000s and 2010s rebuild layer that is largest in Hunters Creek and Bunker Hill. The surrounding City of Houston ZIPs peak in the 1960s with a 2010s rebuild wave and carry more attached and high-rise housing than the name suggests: 77024 counts 8,604 detached units, 1,491 attached and 5,324 in buildings of 50 or more. Piney Point Village permits single-family homes on a minimum lot of 40,000 square feet with smaller pre-existing lots grandfathered, a provision reported from a secondary source that should be confirmed in the city code of ordinances.
Getting around
Road distances measured on OpenStreetMap data in 2026 from a reference point near Memorial Drive and Piney Point Road: about 9 miles to the Energy Corridor at I-10 and Eldridge Parkway, about 13 miles to Downtown Houston, and about 11 miles to the Texas Medical Center by the I-610 West Loop south. That 11 miles is the shortest in this guide to the Medical Center, against about 14 miles from Spring Branch and about 30 from Cypress. Distances only: no drive times were measured.
What is nearby
Memorial Park sits immediately east across I-610, where the Kinder Land Bridge and about 45 acres of restored native Gulf Coast prairie opened in February 2023 on a $70 million Kinder Foundation gift, and Terry Hershey Park runs west along Buffalo Bayou across 496 acres with more than 10 miles of trail from Barker Dam near SH 6 to Beltway 8. Memorial City, CityCentre and Town and Country line I-10 at the northern edge, with Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center at I-10 and Gessner and Houston Methodist West further west.
Check this before you offer: Confirm which city actually taxes the address, one of the six Villages or the City of Houston, and pull that city adopted rate notice for the current tax year, because several Village rates were set in September 2025 and 2026 rates were still being adopted across Harris County in September 2026.
Sources: City of Bunker Hill Village, The Memorial Villages · City of Hunters Creek Village, budgets and tax rates · City of Piney Point Village, taxes (Ordinance No. 2025.09-B) · HCFCD, Immediate Report Final: Hurricane Harvey (2018)
Harris County
Energy Corridor
The Energy Corridor is the employment district along I-10 (Katy Freeway) at Eldridge Parkway, west of Spring Branch and between the Addicks and Barker reservoirs, which form the western edge of both the Memorial area and Spring Branch West. It works mainly as an employment centre and commute reference point rather than a single named neighborhood, so the school district, the city and the taxing units vary address by address.
- Appraisal district
- Harris Central Appraisal District (HCAD)
- School districts
- Spring Branch Independent School District, Katy Independent School District
- Combined tax rate
- About 2.17 per $100 for a City of Houston address in Spring Branch ISD (2025 tax year); Katy ISD addresses and MUD parcels on the western and southern edges differ
What the tax line does here
For a City of Houston address in Spring Branch ISD the 2025 components are the county group at 0.628928, the City of Houston at 0.519190 and Spring Branch ISD at 1.023100, about 2.171218 per $100, or roughly $543 a month on a $300,000 taxable value. No MUD applies to a City of Houston address, and no community college levy applies in Spring Branch ISD, whose voters declined to join the HCC taxing district, so the HCC proposed 2025 rate of 0.100263 is absent, about $25 a month on that same value. Addresses on the western and southern edges can fall in Katy ISD or carry a MUD, so read the taxing units off the appraisal record rather than assuming this stack.
Flood
The Energy Corridor sits between the Addicks and Barker reservoirs, built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1940s to reduce flows on Buffalo Bayou. In Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 HCFCD counted 6,010 homes flooded in the Addicks Reservoir watershed and 1,910 in Barker, against 154,170 countywide. Addicks peaked at a record 109.10 feet on 30 August 2017 holding 217,726 acre-feet, and at 108.0 feet water flowed uncontrolled around the north spillway for the first time ever, while Barker peaked at 101.56 feet holding 171,000 acre-feet, the two together holding 388,726 acre-feet, about 126 billion gallons, as the Corps released a combined 16,000 cfs. House flooding downstream of the reservoirs ceased about 12 September 2017 and Harvey rainfall had drained from the reservoirs by mid-October 2017: check the address at the FEMA Flood Map Service Center and the Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool.
Housing
Housing here is best read through the surrounding ZIP codes. The adjacent ZIP is 77079, immediately east along I-10, where ACS 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates count 16,800 units peaking in the 1960s at 4,532, a 2010s layer of 3,955, 6,389 single-family detached units and 4,574 units in buildings of 50 or more.
Getting around
The Energy Corridor at I-10 and Eldridge Parkway is the reference destination throughout this guide: road distances measured on OpenStreetMap data in 2026 are about 8 miles from Spring Branch, about 9 miles from Memorial and about 16 miles from Cypress. Distances from the Energy Corridor to Downtown Houston and to the Texas Medical Center were not measured, and no drive times were measured anywhere.
What is nearby
The Energy Corridor District reports more than 94,000 employees and over 300 companies as of the 2026 research. Terry Hershey Park runs along Buffalo Bayou through the district across 496 acres with more than 10 miles of hike-and-bike trail from Barker Dam near SH 6 east to Beltway 8, and Houston Methodist West sits along I-10 to the west.
Check this before you offer: Run the address through the FEMA Flood Map Service Center and the Harris County Flood Education Mapping Tool and check where it sits relative to the Addicks and Barker reservoir pools, because this is the one district in this guide that lies between both.
Sources: The Energy Corridor District · HCFCD, Immediate Report Final: Hurricane Harvey (2018) · Harris County Precinct 4, Terry Hershey Park · FEMA Flood Map Service Center, search by address
Fort Bend County only
Sugar Land
Sugar Land in everyday use means the incorporated city plus several master-planned communities that carry a Sugar Land mailing address, sitting in eastern Fort Bend County roughly 20 miles southwest of downtown Houston. US 59 / I-69 runs northeast to southwest through the middle and SH 6 crosses it, with US 90A to the north, the Brazos River along the southern and western edge and the Grand Parkway (SH 99) to the west. The city covered 42.90 square miles and recorded a population of 111,026 at the 2020 census, and Greatwood and New Territory were annexed into the city in 2017, so some addresses marketed as Sugar Land sit outside city limits.
- Appraisal district
- Fort Bend Central Appraisal District (FBCAD)
- School districts
- Fort Bend ISD, Lamar Consolidated ISD
- Combined tax rate
- Roughly $1.84 to $2.15 per $100 of taxable value, depending on the district the address falls in. The 2025 base stack of Fort Bend County general fund ($0.412000), county drainage ($0.010000), Fort Bend ISD ($1.056900) and the City of Sugar Land ($0.358827) came to $1.837727 per $100.
What the tax line does here
The base stack is the same for everyone here: the utility or levee district is what moves the number. On the county tax office 2025 worksheet, county-collected MUD rates ran from $0.180000 per $100 for Fort Bend MUD 129 up to $1.100000 for Fort Bend MUD 162, which on a $300,000 taxable value is $45.00 a month against $275.00 a month, a swing of $230.00 a month on identical values. Sugar Land sits at the low end of that spread: First Colony MUD 9 was $0.1249 per $100 on the 2024 FBCAD roll, about $31.23 a month on $300,000, which is what a mature, paid-down district looks like, while the levee districts on the 2025 county worksheet ran from $0.040000 for Fort Bend LID 12 ($10.00 a month) to $0.400000 for Fort Bend LID 19 ($100.00 a month). One more moving part: Fort Bend ISD adopted $1.0569 per $100 for 2025-26, a temporary 7 cent increase worth $17.50 a month on a $300,000 taxable value, and has signalled a return to $0.9869 for 2026-27, so a payment modelled on the 2025 rate is expected to fall.
Flood
The Brazos River forms the southern and western edge of the city, and the Brazos at Richmond gauge is the controlling reference point for this stretch. During Hurricane Harvey the National Weather Service logged rainfall for August 25 to 31, 2017 including 39.17 inches at a gauge 2 miles southeast of First Colony, 34.51 inches 1 mile west of Sugar Land and 22.67 inches at Sugar Land Regional Airport, with major, record flooding recorded on the Brazos from Richmond to Rosharon. Nine levee improvement districts operate over the majority of the city, and where an address is not inside one the city handles stormwater and floodplain functions; Fort Bend County LID No. 2 states its system is engineered to a 250 year flood or greater while FEMA accredits the levees to the National Flood Insurance Program 100 year minimum. Land behind an accredited levee is typically mapped into shaded Zone X, which generally removes the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement on a federally backed mortgage and lowers premiums, but FEMA is explicit that this is reduced risk and not no risk, and FEMA issued revised preliminary maps for Fort Bend County in 2023, so a parcel may not carry the zone it carried at last sale.
Housing
First Colony broke ground in 1977 on a roughly 9,700 to 10,000 acre master plan and holds more than 60 subdivisions and about 14,000 homes; New Territory followed from 1989 across roughly 3,200 acres and 4,600 homes; Telfair from 2006 built around a 70 acre lake; Riverstone through the 2000s across roughly 3,800 acres; Imperial at Sugar Land from the 2010s on roughly 720 acres of the former Imperial Sugar Company site. Stock is mostly detached single-family on conventional suburban lots, with townhomes and patio homes in Telfair, Imperial and Riverstone. Typical lot dimensions by community are not published in a primary source.
Getting around
Routes and approximate road distances only, since drive times are not published in a primary source. Downtown Houston is a direct run northeast on US 59 / I-69, approximately 20 miles. The Texas Medical Center runs US 59 / I-69 northeast to TX-288 south, or Beltway 8 east then TX-288 north, approximately 20 to 23 miles. The Energy Corridor at I-10 and Eldridge runs SH 6 north, or Grand Parkway (SH 99) north to I-10 east, or Westpark Tollway west to SH 99 north, approximately 20 to 25 miles. The Westpark Tollway runs 19 miles from I-69 / US 59 west to SH 99, operated jointly by HCTRA over 14 miles and the Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority over 8 miles.
What is nearby
Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital and Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital, a full-service acute care facility, both sit in the city, alongside Sugar Land Town Square, First Colony Mall, the Fluor campus, Sugar Land Regional Airport, Smart Financial Centre and Constellation Field. Open space is substantial: Riverstone carries more than 200 acres of lakes, 20 miles of hike-and-bike trail and 500 acres of parks, New Territory more than 450 acres of parks, lakes and greenbelts, plus Brazos River Park and the Oyster Creek trail corridor.
Check this before you offer: Before you write an offer, use the city interactive levee district map to identify which of the nine levee improvement districts the address sits in, then pull that parcel on the Fort Bend County Truth in Taxation database, because the LID levy alone ranged from $10.00 to $100.00 a month on a $300,000 taxable value on the 2025 worksheet and it also determines the FEMA zone and your insurance requirement.
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Assessor-Collector, 2025 Tax Rates and Exemptions · City of Sugar Land, Levee Improvement Districts · NOAA National Weather Service Houston/Galveston, Hurricane Harvey · FEMA, Living with Levees: Real Estate, Lending and Insurance Professionals
Fort Bend County, with a small northern portion in Harris County
Missouri City
Missouri City sits in eastern Fort Bend County immediately east and southeast of Sugar Land, with a small portion extending north into Harris County, and covered 30.39 square miles with a population of 74,259 at the 2020 census. SH 6 runs east to west through the centre, with US 90A to the north, the Fort Bend Parkway Toll Road, Beltway 8 along the northern edge, and FM 1092, FM 2234 and FM 3345 through the middle, while Oyster Creek flows south through the city. Much of what carries a Missouri City mailing address in 77459, 77489 and 77545 is unincorporated land or communities in various stages of annexation.
- Appraisal district
- FBCAD for the Fort Bend portion, HCAD for the Harris County portion
- School districts
- Fort Bend ISD, Houston ISD
- Combined tax rate
- The 2025 base stack for an in-city Fort Bend County address came to $2.148527 per $100 of taxable value: county general fund $0.412000, county drainage $0.010000, Fort Bend ISD $1.056900, City of Missouri City $0.570825 and Houston Community College $0.098802. The utility district sits on top of that, and on the 2024 FBCAD roll those ran from $0.1270 to $1.0500 per $100 here.
What the tax line does here
Countywide, the Fort Bend County 2025 worksheet shows county-collected MUD rates from $0.180000 per $100 for Fort Bend MUD 129 to $1.100000 for Fort Bend MUD 162: on a $300,000 taxable value that is $45.00 a month against $275.00 a month, a swing of $230.00 a month. Inside this one city the spread is just as wide. Quail Valley MUD was $0.1270 per $100 on the 2024 FBCAD roll, about $31.75 a month on $300,000, while Sienna MUD 6 and Sienna MUD 7 were both $1.0500, about $262.50 a month, on the same county and school rates. A third layer is easy to miss when a buyer estimates a payment: Sienna Parks and Levee Improvement District was $0.4125 on the 2024 roll ($103.13 a month on $300,000) and Sienna Management District 1 was $0.9800 ($245.00 a month), and Missouri City PID 2 and PID 4 both appear on the 2025 county worksheet with no established tax rate, which is not the same as no district. Note also that the city base stack runs about $0.31 per $100 above the Sugar Land stack for 2025, roughly $78 a month more on $300,000 before any utility district, and that Fort Bend ISD adopted $1.0569 per $100 for 2025-26 and has signalled $0.9869 for 2026-27, a difference of $17.50 a month on $300,000.
Flood
Oyster Creek runs south through the city and the Brazos River forms the southwestern boundary of the Sienna area, with Steep Bank Creek the other relevant watercourse there. During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 most of Fort Bend County received over 30 inches of rain and some communities close to 40 inches, and the National Weather Service recorded record flooding on the Brazos from Richmond to Rosharon. Sienna sits behind the Sienna Parks and Levee Improvement District system: land behind an accredited levee is typically mapped into shaded Zone X, which generally removes the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement on a federally backed mortgage and lowers premiums, while the district itself levies a tax. FEMA is explicit that a levee means reduced risk and not no risk, so check the current effective map for the parcel rather than relying on its zone at last sale.
Housing
Quail Valley was built around golf courses in the late 1960s and 1970s in the centre of the city; Lake Olympia followed in the 1980s and 1990s with more than 1,850 single-family properties plus lakefront homes; Sienna has built from the 1990s to the present and is partly unincorporated, with Missouri City annexing Sienna utility district territory under a strategic partnership agreement dated March 19, 2001; Riverstone, Lakes of Brightwater and Fondren Park date from the 2000s onward. Stock is mostly detached single-family, with golf course frontage in Quail Valley and waterfront lots in Lake Olympia and Riverstone. Typical lot dimensions are not published in a primary source.
Getting around
Routes and approximate road distances only, since drive times are not published in a primary source. Downtown Houston runs the Fort Bend Parkway Toll Road north to Beltway 8, then SH 288 north or US 59 / I-69 north, approximately 18 to 22 miles. The Texas Medical Center runs the Fort Bend Parkway north to Beltway 8 east to SH 288 north, or SH 6 and US 90A northeast to SH 288, approximately 17 to 22 miles. The Energy Corridor runs SH 6 north the full way, or US 59 / I-69 north to Beltway 8 north to I-10 west, approximately 25 to 30 miles, the longest of the three runs from here. The Fort Bend Parkway itself runs from Sienna Ranch Road to Beltway 8 at the Harris County line and continues north as the HCTRA-operated Fort Bend Toll Road to US 90A.
What is nearby
Quail Valley golf courses, the Lake Olympia lake frontage, the Sienna parks system, the Oyster Creek corridor and the Missouri City Recreation and Tennis Center sit inside the city, with Fort Bend Town Center, the Texas Parkway and FM 2234 retail corridor and commercial frontage along Beltway 8 to the north. The nearest full-service hospitals are Houston Methodist Sugar Land and Memorial Hermann Sugar Land, with Memorial Hermann and Houston Methodist also operating outpatient and emergency locations in the area.
Check this before you offer: Pull the exact parcel on the Fort Bend County Truth in Taxation database before you make an offer, because an address here can carry a MUD, a levee improvement district and a management district at once, and if it falls in the northern Harris County portion it is appraised by HCAD instead of FBCAD, which means a different protest process and a different set of deadlines.
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Assessor-Collector, 2025 Tax Rates and Exemptions · Fort Bend Central Appraisal District, Tax Rates (2024 roll) · City of Missouri City, Municipal Services Plan: Annexation of Sienna MUD No. 2 · Fort Bend County Drainage District, Floodplain Map
Fort Bend County only
Richmond and the Grand Parkway corridor
Two different places share the name Richmond. The City of Richmond is the county seat of Fort Bend County, sitting on the Brazos River just east of Rosenberg, centred on US 90A and the river, with a population of 11,627 at the 2020 census. Richmond as a mailing address means ZIP codes 77406 and 77407, which cover a large stretch of unincorporated Fort Bend County north and northeast of the city along the Grand Parkway (SH 99) and the Westpark Tollway and FM 1093 corridor: Aliana stretches from SH 99 to FM 1464, Grand Mission sits off Grand Mission Boulevard with the Westpark Tollway to the north and SH 99 to the west, and Harvest Green adjoins Aliana. All three carry Richmond addresses and all three sit outside Richmond city limits.
- Appraisal district
- Fort Bend Central Appraisal District (FBCAD)
- School districts
- Lamar Consolidated ISD, Fort Bend ISD, Katy ISD
- Combined tax rate
- Two different stacks apply. Inside the City of Richmond the 2025 base was $2.198900 per $100 of taxable value: county general fund $0.412000, county drainage $0.010000, Lamar CISD $1.146900 and City of Richmond $0.630000. In the unincorporated corridor the 2025 base was $1.544559 to $1.578900 per $100: county general fund $0.412000, county drainage $0.010000, Fort Bend ISD $1.056900 and an Emergency Services District levy of $0.065659 to $0.100000. The MUD then goes on top of whichever base applies.
What the tax line does here
Mailing address is the trap here. Aliana, Harvest Green and Grand Mission all say Richmond and none of them is inside the city, so a home there pays no city property tax at all, and instead pays an Emergency Services District levy of $0.065659 to $0.100000 per $100 on the 2025 county worksheet plus a MUD, while a home inside the city limits pays the City of Richmond rate of $0.630000 and no ESD. The MUD is where the money is. On the 2025 county worksheet, county-collected MUD rates ran from $0.180000 per $100 for Fort Bend MUD 129 to $1.100000 for Fort Bend MUD 162, which on a $300,000 taxable value is $45.00 a month against $275.00 a month, a swing of $230.00 a month on identical values. The same split shows up inside a single named community: on the 2024 FBCAD roll Grand Mission MUD 1 was $0.5690 per $100 and Grand Mission MUD 2 was $0.7500, or $142.25 a month against $187.50 a month on $300,000, and Pecan Grove MUD was $0.6050, about $151.25 a month. New corridor districts sit highest because they carry construction debt: FBCAD lists numerous Fort Bend MUDs on the 2024 roll at $1.5000 per $100, around $375.00 a month on $300,000, against $0.1249 for the oldest paid-down districts in the county. Add the Fort Bend ISD change on top: $1.0569 per $100 for 2025-26 with a signalled return to $0.9869 for 2026-27, worth $17.50 a month on a $300,000 taxable value.
Flood
This is the most flood-exposed of the three areas. The Brazos River runs through Richmond and the Brazos River at Richmond gauge is the regional reference point, and the river reached record or near-record levels in three consecutive years, 2015, 2016 and 2017. During Hurricane Harvey most of Fort Bend County took over 30 inches of rain and some communities close to 40 inches, the National Weather Service confirms the Richmond gauge set a record and that major flooding ran from Richmond to Rosharon, and roughly 46 percent of the 67 river forecast points in southeast Texas set records during that event in August 2017. Parts of the area sit behind levee improvement districts, including Fort Bend LID 15, 17 and 19, which were $0.245000, $0.390000 and $0.400000 per $100 on the 2025 county worksheet, or $61.25, $97.50 and $100.00 a month on a $300,000 taxable value; Fort Bend County imposes requirements beyond the FEMA minimum that generally target 250 year protection or greater. Land behind an accredited levee is typically mapped into shaded Zone X, which generally removes the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement on a federally backed mortgage and lowers premiums, but FEMA states plainly that residual risk remains, and FEMA issued revised preliminary maps for Fort Bend County in 2023, so a parcel may not carry the zone it carried at last sale.
Housing
The City of Richmond was incorporated by the Republic of Texas in May 1837, and its stock runs from historic pre-war homes near the courthouse square through late twentieth century and recent infill. The corridor is newer and predominantly 2000s and 2010s to present construction: Aliana covers roughly 2,000 to 2,300 acres in ZIP 77407, Harvest Green is built in an agrihood format around a working farm, Grand Mission and Grand Mission Estates are master-planned with gated sections, pools, trails, lakes and a clubhouse, and Pecan Grove is an older master-planned golf community northeast of the city on its own MUD. Stock is mostly detached single-family, and typical lot dimensions are not published in a primary source.
Getting around
Routes and approximate road distances only, since drive times are not published in a primary source. The Energy Corridor at I-10 and Eldridge runs Grand Parkway (SH 99) north to I-10 east, approximately 18 to 22 miles from the corridor communities, the shortest Energy Corridor run of the three areas here. Downtown Houston runs Westpark Tollway east to US 59 / I-69 north, or US 59 / I-69 northeast the whole way, approximately 28 to 35 miles. The Texas Medical Center runs Westpark Tollway east to US 59 / I-69 north to SH 288 south, or US 59 / I-69 northeast to Beltway 8 east to SH 288 north, approximately 30 to 35 miles. Grand Mission Estates has a private Westpark Tollway exit, and the Westpark Tollway runs 19 miles from I-69 / US 59 to SH 99 under joint HCTRA and Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority operation.
What is nearby
OakBend Medical Center in Richmond is described as the largest full-service healthcare facility in Fort Bend County, with two full-service hospital campuses plus specialty and physician locations. Retail and restaurant development is concentrated along the Grand Parkway, and open space includes Brazos River corridor parks, George Ranch Historical Park, the Harvest Green working farm, the Grand Mission lakes and trails and the Aliana amenity centres. This is largely an outbound-commute area, with the nearest concentrations of employment in Sugar Land, the Westchase district via Westpark and the Energy Corridor via SH 99.
Check this before you offer: Run the exact address through the Fort Bend County Truth in Taxation database before you write an offer, to confirm whether it is inside Richmond city limits or unincorporated and which numbered MUD and Emergency Services District it falls in, because the Aliana and Harvest Green MUD numbers do not map to the community names on any public roll, and most Fort Bend MUDs are billed by third-party collectors such as Tax Tech, Bob Leared Interests, Assessments of the Southwest and BA Municipal Tax Service, so you will receive several separate bills rather than one.
Sources: Fort Bend County Tax Assessor-Collector, 2025 Tax Rates and Exemptions · Fort Bend Central Appraisal District, Tax Rates (2024 roll) · NOAA National Weather Service Houston/Galveston, Hurricane Harvey · FEMA, Revised preliminary flood maps for Fort Bend County
About this guide
Compiled by Ryan Hurst, Broker of Prestige Worldwide Realty, TREC #746215. Last updated September 2026. Tax rates, flood maps and insurance figures change: every figure here carries the year it came from, and the linked sources are the authoritative version. This is general information about property and districts, not legal, tax, lending or insurance advice.