First-Time Home Buyer in Hockley and Waller, TX: New-Construction Budgets, MUD Taxes, Waller ISD, and the Programs That Apply — A Houston Real Estate Broker’s Guide

A first-time home buyer in Hockley or Waller is shopping in one of the few parts of the Houston area where a first budget still buys a new house. Between about $260,000 and $350,000, you can tour a new build in a community like Jubilee, Cypress Green or Dellrose, with the pools, parks and trails that come with it. You can also keep more of your budget in your pocket with a new home in Mustang Meadows, Oakberry Trails or Trails at Cochran Ranch, or with a 2010s resale in Ranch Country or Bauer Landing. The median single-family sale price was $304,990 in ZIP 77447 and $293,290 in ZIP 77484 in the twelve months to October 29, 2026, per HAR MLS, and half the homes that sold in both ZIPs were built in 2025 or later. Floor plans matter, and the builders along US-290 and FM 2920 give you plenty to fall for. My job is to help you find the ideal house that fits what you want and your budget, and to make sure you know the tax bill, the school zone and the resale history of the lot before you sign. There is no city in Hockley, and most Waller addresses sit outside the City of Waller, so the utility district sets the tax bill. At the same price, that bill can run more than $4,000 a year apart from one community to the next. What follows is the list I run, in order, with every first-time buyer who has settled on the corridor.

Figures as of October 2026. Market figures are my HAR MLS pulls of October 29, 2026, one per ZIP code. Tax rates come from the Harris County Tax Office table and the Waller County Appraisal District rate sheet at their 2025 adopted levels, since none of the Hockley-area utility districts had a 2026 rate on the table as of October 29, 2026. School ratings are the Texas Education Agency’s 2026 accountability ratings; campus zoning is from Waller ISD’s attendance tool on October 17, 2026; program rules were read on the programs’ own pages on October 26 and 29, 2026. I refresh this post when the 2026 district rates, new HAR figures and the Warren Ranch High School zoning are published.

I’m Kevan Pewitt, REALTOR® and owner of Houston Prime Realty, and a licensed Texas real estate broker since 1989. Hockley and Waller are where most of my buyer time goes right now. The sequence of a purchase does not change with the ZIP code; the steps themselves (representation agreement, pre-approval, option period, closing) are in the first-time home buyer’s roadmap for Houston, and I won’t repeat them here. Day-to-day life here, the commute and the amenities, is the subject of Is Hockley, TX a good place to live? If you are still deciding between the corridor and Cypress, Hockley vs Cypress runs the budget and the commute side by side. This is the corridor edition of my first-time buyer guides to Cypress and Katy, written for a buyer whose first purchase will probably be a new build.

What a first budget buys on the US-290 and FM 2920 corridor

The corridor is two ZIP codes with different mixes, so I keep the numbers separate. ZIP 77447, the Hockley side, is about 103 square miles across Harris, Waller and Montgomery counties with no city in it. ZIP 77484 holds the City of Waller, about 2,700 people, plus roughly five times that many in the subdivisions and acreage around it. Here is what the two markets looked like on October 29, 2026, per HAR MLS, single-family, twelve months of closings.

Measure (HAR MLS, Oct 29, 2026)	Hockley, ZIP 77447	Waller, ZIP 77484
Homes sold, last 12 months	1,563	933
Median sale price	$304,990 ($297,000 after seller concessions)	$293,290 ($281,990 after seller concessions)
Median price per square foot (sold)	$156	$146
Median days on market (sold)	42	55
Sale price as a share of final list price	97.9%	98.0%
Active listings now (median list price)	736 ($330,488)	418 ($330,495)
Months of inventory	5.7	5.4
Median year built of homes sold	2025	2025
What roughly $305,000 buys	A new 1,800 to 2,000 sq ft build on a 40- to 50-foot lot in Cypress Green, Jubilee or Redbud, or a 2010s resale in Stone Creek Ranch, Ranch Country or Bauer Landing	A new build in Mustang Meadows, Oakberry Trails or Trails at Cochran Ranch, or an older in-city home; acreage past Hegar Road starts above this band

The headline figures in plain terms: in ZIP 77447, 1,563 single-family homes sold in the twelve months to October 29, 2026, at a median sale price of $304,990, and 736 homes were active on that date, about 5.7 months of inventory, per HAR MLS. In ZIP 77484, 933 homes sold at a median of $293,290, with 418 active, about 5.4 months of inventory. Read those columns the way a first-time home buyer in Hockley should. Sellers in both ZIPs are taking about 98% of their final asking price but only about 91% of the price they first listed at, per the same pulls, so the discount happens through price cuts before you arrive, not in your offer. With 736 active listings against about 130 closings a month in 77447, and 418 against about 78 in 77484, there is time for an inspection, room to ask for closing-cost help, and a builder across the street who is also negotiating. The full market tables and the community directory live on my Hockley, TX page and Waller, TX page, and every community guide is on the Houston neighborhoods hub. On the monthly side, a $305,000 purchase with 5% down at the 7.32% thirty-year average in Freddie Mac’s survey for the week of October 22, 2026, is about $1,990 a month in principal and interest, before taxes, insurance, any mortgage insurance and HOA dues. Taxes are the line that moves most from one street to the next, which is why they get a worked example below; what a Houston bill looks like line by line is in the October 2026 property tax bill post.

Buying new construction in Hockley or Waller as a first purchase

A first-time home buyer in Hockley is usually a new-construction buyer, because that is where the supply at this price is. As of October 2026, the communities actively building in ZIP 77447 are Cypress Green, Redbud and Everly north of US-290 along FM 2920; on the south side of the freeway, Jubilee and The Grand Prairie; Hockley Meadows, Cypress Trails at Bauer Landing and the sections of Bridgeland Creekland Village that carry the Hockley ZIP; Maple Woods on the Waller County side, which opened in March 2026; and Dellrose, which is selling its final section. Bauer Landing’s original sections have sold out and one of Dellrose’s builders has closed out, so Bauer Landing is resale-only now and Dellrose is close behind. On the Waller side, Wildrye, Attwater, Mustang Meadows, Trails at Cochran Ranch and Oakberry Trails were building as of my October research, and the last three are the ones that start inside a first budget. Builders active across the corridor as of October 2026 include D.R. Horton, Lennar, Perry, David Weekley, Taylor Morrison, Century Communities, LGI and Chesmar; rosters and pricing change monthly, and I confirm both with the builder before we tour. The new-construction listings in Hockley and in Waller show what is on the market today.

The mistake I see most often is a buyer walking into a model home on a Saturday, falling for a floor plan, and signing a registration card before anyone has checked the lot’s taxing units or the lender’s numbers. The sales counselor in that model works for the builder. If you want someone at that table who works for you, your own real estate agent has to be registered with the builder before you ever visit; builders recognize representation through that registration, and the order matters. The reasons, and the work a real estate buyer’s agent does on a new build, are in my post on bringing your own real estate agent to new construction. In my own new-construction closings the builder has always paid my buyer-side compensation. That is my own record, and each builder sets its own terms; in every case, who pays is settled in writing before a contract is executed. The mechanics are in who pays the buyer’s real estate agent on a new build.

Builder incentives on the corridor take the forms I see across Houston: a below-market rate through the builder’s preferred lender, and a builder credit that covers most or all of a buyer’s closing costs. Both show up on the corridor, both change weekly, and neither is a discount on the price of the house, which is why I never put a dollar figure on them in a post. The pricing behind them is in how builder incentives really work. The apples-to-apples comparison with a resale seller’s concessions is in new construction vs. resale in Houston, the current offers are listed in my October 2026 builder incentives roundup, and my new-homes page is the hub. On timing, an inventory home that is already framed can close in thirty to sixty days, and a to-be-built home on a chosen lot usually runs six to nine months. The preferred-lender rate is typically locked only inside a window near completion, so ask on day one when the lock starts and what happens if the house finishes late. I also hold a Texas Certified Residential Appraiser license, so before you choose a lot I read the closed resales in that community’s older sections; the first resale of a new home competes with the builder’s next inventory release two streets over.

The tax stack for a first-time home buyer in Hockley, and the first-year catch

There is no city tax line anywhere in Hockley, which is only the first line of the explanation. Every Harris County address in 77447 pays the same base, Waller ISD plus the five county units, about $1.69 per $100 of value on the 2025 rates. Then comes the emergency services district, the ESD that funds fire and ambulance service, at roughly four to twenty cents depending on which district covers the lot. Then comes the line that decides your bill: the municipal utility district, the MUD. That is the district that borrowed to build a new community’s water, sewer and drainage, and it collects its own tax to pay the bonds back. On the 2025 rates, an address with no water district landed at roughly $1.79 to $1.89 per $100 in the communities I sampled. The newest districts add $1.40 to $1.50 by themselves, and the combined rates in Harris County run from about $1.79 up to about $3.39. The Waller County side of 77447 starts lower, about $1.62 plus its ESD where it applies, and Maple Woods carries a $1.50 district on top of that county base. What a MUD is and why its rate tends to fall as the bonds are paid is in what is a MUD district; this post only shows what the spread does to a first budget.

Here is the one worked example, on the same $305,000 purchase, with the homestead exemption, at the 2025 rates, rounded to the nearest $100. As a 2010s resale in Ranch Country, where the Northwest Freeway MUD’s rate is about $0.57 and the combined rate about $2.46, the bill is about $5,500 a year. As a 2026 build in Cypress Green or Redbud, where the district’s rate is $1.50 and the combined rate about $3.39, the same $305,000 carries about $8,500 a year. That is about $3,000 a year, roughly $250 a month, between two homes at exactly the same price. Stretch the comparison to a no-district lot on the south side, at about $3,600 a year with the homestead, and the spread on the same price passes $4,800. It is the difference between the newer house with the builder’s rate and the older house with the lower tax line. Neither answer is wrong; the point is to put the monthly figure beside each one before you compare kitchens. Those homestead figures assume the $140,000 school exemption that Texas voters approved in November 2025, in effect from the 2025 tax year, plus the 20% local exemptions the Harris County units offer. File it the January after you move in; it costs nothing, and the over-65 exemption lowers the bill further later. Details are in the Texas homestead exemption and turning 65 in Texas. The seller, a builder included, must hand you written notice of the MUD and its rate before you sign; that notice is the moment to ask how the rate has moved over three years.

The catch that trips the most new-build buyers is the first-year bill. Texas taxes what stood on the lot on January 1. If your house was a slab or a frame on January 1, the bill that arrives after your first closing is often for the lot by itself, a small fraction of the finished-home bill. Your lender then sets your initial escrow, the account that collects your taxes and insurance alongside the payment, from that small bill. The second year the finished house is on the roll at full value. The full bill arrives, and the shortfall from year one lands on top of the new, higher escrow. On a $305,000 home in a $1.50 district the finished-value bill is about $8,500 a year, about $700 a month, so a buyer whose escrow was set from a land-only bill can see the payment jump by several hundred dollars a month in year two. The fix is to ask your lender to set escrow from the finished value from day one, or set that money aside yourself; how taxes flow through a Texas mortgage payment is in property taxes in your monthly payment. The Harris County Tax Office rate table and the parcel’s record at the Harris Central Appraisal District are where I confirm every line. This is general information rather than tax advice; the exact bill on a specific address comes from the appraisal district and your title company.

Waller ISD almost everywhere, and the Magnolia ISD corner

About 95% of ZIP 77447 is zoned to Waller ISD, which the Texas Education Agency rated B (80) for 2026. The Montgomery County corner in the far northeast of the ZIP, about 5% of its area, belongs to Magnolia ISD, which carries a B (87). Cy-Fair ISD covers essentially none of Hockley and Tomball ISD none at all, which surprises buyers who assume the Cypress districts follow US-290 north. The City of Waller and the subdivisions around it are entirely Waller ISD, and until the district’s second high school opens, Waller High School, rated B (82), is the high school for every Waller ISD address on the corridor.

The campus follows the parcel, and as Waller ISD’s attendance tool reported them on October 17, 2026, with the 2026 TEA rating beside each: Bryan Lowe Elementary, B (81), serves Dellrose, its neighbor Windrow, Cypress Green, Redbud and Everly; Roberts Road Elementary, C (75), serves Jubilee, Ranch Country and the Becker Road subdivisions, Becker Fields and Becker Meadows; I.T. Holleman Elementary, C (75), serves The Grand Prairie and Hockley Meadows; Evelyn Turlington Elementary, B (81), serves Bauer Landing and Cypress Trails; Richard T. McReavy Elementary, A (90), serves Stone Creek Ranch and the Hockley-ZIP part of Bridgeland Creekland; and Fields Store Elementary, B (80), serves Maple Woods and the Waller County acreage subdivisions. Both junior highs serving the corridor, Waller Junior High and Schultz Junior High, are rated C (78 and 75). I list the ratings as facts, and which campus fits your family is settled by address; how the Houston-area districts compare is in school districts in Houston.

One date matters more for a first-time buyer with young children than any rating. Warren Ranch High School, inside Jubilee, is scheduled to open in fall 2028, with a junior high in Jubilee slated for 2029, and high-school zoning across the corridor will change when it opens. A kindergartner you enroll in 2026 will be rezoned before high school, so build that into the decision. The five-minute check I run on any address before we tour: the parcel’s taxing units on HCAD, Waller CAD or MCAD name the school district; Waller ISD’s address lookup names the campus; the campus page on TXschools.gov gives the rating and the detail behind it.

Waller, TX: in the city or not, and what changes

A Waller mailing address is usually not inside the City of Waller, and for a first-time buyer the difference shows up in the tax rate, the utilities and the market line. Inside the city limits, which sit mostly in Waller County with an eastern edge in Harris County, there is a city tax line, $0.4464 per $100 on the 2025 rates, but no MUD. The combined 2025 rate was about $2.17 on the Waller County side and about $2.24 on the Harris side, and the city itself supplies water, sewer, natural gas and trash. Outside the city, the new subdivisions marketed as Waller (Wildrye, Attwater, Mustang Meadows and Lakeview among them) are unincorporated and financed through a MUD or a water control and improvement district as far as my October research could confirm, and a few use the Hockley ZIP. An unincorporated Waller County subdivision at the common $1.50 district rate ran about $3.22 per $100 in 2025. The City of Waller proposed a higher rate for 2026, and I had not seen it confirmed as adopted when this was written. On the market side, the median sale price in ZIP 77484 was $293,290 in the twelve months to October 29, 2026, per HAR MLS, and homes there took a median of 55 days to sell against Hockley’s 42. To settle in-city or not, read the parcel’s taxing units at Waller CAD, and confirm utility service by address with the City of Waller. The rate table, the community list and the acreage market are on my Waller, TX page, and Oakwood Estates has its own guide as well.

Utilities and move-in on the corridor

A first-time home buyer in Hockley usually hears this the week of closing, so it belongs earlier, as of October 2026: there is no city utility anywhere in Hockley. Water and sewer come from your subdivision’s MUD through a contract operator, with the deposit and start date handled per district, and trash is usually arranged by the district or the HOA. On acreage, expect a private well and septic, and budget a well and septic inspection into the option period. Electricity across ZIP 77447 is deregulated: CenterPoint owns the wires, and you pick a retail provider at PowerToChoose.org. Check the exact address on the Waller and Montgomery county sides, though, because parts of rural Waller County are San Bernard Electric Cooperative territory with no choice of provider. Natural gas, in the communities that have it, comes from UniGas, CenterPoint or SiEnergy according to the subdivision, and many acreage homes are all-electric or on propane. Inside the City of Waller, the city supplies water, sewer, gas and trash, and a new account is opened in person at City Hall. Providers change from one subdivision to the next, which is why the move-in sheet I describe below is built per neighborhood.

Flood, read lot by lot

FEMA maps about 18% of ZIP 77447 as Zone A or AE, the high-risk zones where a federally backed mortgage requires flood insurance. They follow Cypress Creek and Little Cypress Creek to the south and the Spring Creek tributaries to the north, and everything else is Zone X, the lower-risk designation. Harris County’s effective panels were issued in 2007, 2013 and 2019, and the Addicks and Barker dams are about 15 miles from the nearest part of the ZIP, so the reservoir questions buyers ask about west Houston do not apply here. Those maps describe the ZIP; your lot needs its own read. New-construction lots are often graded above the mapped zone, and map amendments change the picture. So on every address I pull the panel at the FEMA Map Service Center, check for a letter of map revision, and ask for the seller’s flood disclosure and claims history, from a builder as much as from a resale seller. The Texas contract asks the seller specific flood questions, and I explain each one in Houston’s flood disclosure questions, mapped.

Which first-time home buyer programs apply to a Hockley or Waller address

Eligibility follows the jurisdiction, and on this corridor an address can pay taxes to any of four. How the statewide programs are funded, what their rate markup costs over the life of the loan, and whether assistance is worth taking at all is in down payment assistance in Houston. This section only matches programs to addresses, and every rule below was read on the program’s own page on the date shown.

• Unincorporated Harris County, most of Hockley: your address qualifies for the Harris County Down Payment Assistance Program only if it is in unincorporated Harris County and in a qualified census tract, one of the lower-income tracts mapped on the county’s page. The price ceiling is $285,000 for an existing home and $296,000 for new construction, the minimum credit score is 580, you cannot have owned a home in the prior three years, and the home cannot be in a flood hazard area. As of October 29, 2026, the county says the program is full and is taking applications only from households affected by Hurricane Beryl or the derecho. A $296,000 ceiling for new construction also sits below the 77447 median, so it reaches the lower end of the band.
• The Montgomery County corner: the Montgomery County Home Fund program, administered through Easter Seals Greater Houston, offers up to $12,600 toward down payment, closing costs and prepaids. It is for households below 80% of area median income who have not owned a home in three years, with price caps of $285,000 on an existing home and $291,000 on a new one, and the home must be outside the Conroe city limits.
• Unincorporated Waller County and the City of Waller: neither had a down payment program of its own that I could find on October 29, 2026, which sends those addresses to the statewide options.
• Every address, statewide: TSAHC’s Home Sweet Texas and Homes for Texas Heroes run statewide, so they reach all four jurisdictions, and neither requires a first-time buyer. When I read TSAHC’s sheet on October 26, 2026, the Houston-area household income ceiling, which covers Harris and Waller counties, was $156,000 for Home Sweet Texas and $176,800 for Homes for Texas Heroes. The purchase price ceiling varies by county, so run your side of the line through TSAHC’s county tool. TDHCA’s My First Texas Home is the state’s own first-time program, for buyers who have not owned in the prior three years, with assistance alongside a thirty-year loan. SETH 5 Star, from the Southeast Texas Housing Finance Corporation, has no first-time rule; the down payment assistance post above explains how it is priced.

On a corridor address I work them in this order: jurisdiction from the appraisal record first, then the county program’s status and ceilings against your price, then the statewide program’s rate priced against a plain loan with the builder’s or the seller’s closing-cost help. A program that raises your rate for thirty years can cost more than it gives.

How I help first-time buyers in Hockley and Waller

The first call with a first-time home buyer in Hockley or Waller covers the budget your lender has approved, new build or resale, where your commute starts and ends, and your timeline. A to-be-built home and an inventory home are different calendars. Then, before we tour anything, every home on the list gets the same address-level read this post is built on. That means the county, the taxing units and the MUD rate, the elementary and junior high today and what the 2028 rezoning might do, the FEMA panel, the utility providers, and whether the address is inside a city. Fifteen minutes per address is usually enough, and what it turns up can move the monthly payment by hundreds of dollars before price enters the conversation. The commute gets numbers too. From US-290 at Hegar Road on a Tuesday morning in October 2026, Google’s typical drive was 10 to 14 minutes to the METRO Cypress Park & Ride, 35 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes to the Energy Corridor, and 45 minutes to an hour and 25 minutes to Downtown; the living-in guide carries the full table.

Touring is one loop if you plan it: Cypress Green, Dellrose, Redbud and Everly on the north side of the freeway, then Jubilee and The Grand Prairie on the south, model rows and resale listings on the same morning, with the Waller communities the next time out. Before that first model-home visit we sign a buyer representation agreement, which is where compensation for my work is set out in writing. The Texas buyer representation agreement explains the forms, and my Houston home-buying page describes everything representation covers between the first showing and the keys. At the builder’s table I negotiate the contract terms, weigh the incentive against the resale alternative, line up the inspections a new build still needs, make sure escrow is set from the finished value, and walk the house with you before closing. At closing I hand you a printable move-in sheet for your specific neighborhood with every provider and number on it. On a new home purchase I register you with the builder, and the compensation side works as described above. I serve Greater Houston, Cypress, Katy, Hockley, and Waller, and the corridor is where I am working most right now.

Questions a first-time home buyer in Hockley asks me

How much does a first home in Hockley cost?

Most first-time buyers in Hockley land between about $260,000 and $350,000. Over the twelve months to October 29, 2026, the median single-family sale price in ZIP 77447 was $304,990, per HAR MLS, with sold homes at a median of $156 per square foot and 42 days on market, and half of them built in 2025 or later. With 5% down and Freddie Mac’s 7.32% thirty-year average for the week of October 22, 2026, a $305,000 purchase runs about $1,990 a month in principal and interest before taxes, insurance and dues.

Is Hockley in a city?

No. Hockley is unincorporated: there are no city limits, no city government and no city line on the tax bill. ZIP 77447 spans Harris, Waller and Montgomery counties, and the services a city would provide come from the county, an emergency services district and each subdivision’s utility district. Most Waller addresses are outside the City of Waller as well. The word on the listing describes the post office. The appraisal district’s jurisdiction list for the parcel tells you who taxes it.

Are property taxes high in Hockley?

They can be, and the utility district is the reason. The 2025 combined rate on the Harris County side of Hockley runs from roughly $1.79 per $100 of value where there is no district to roughly $3.39 in the newest $1.50 districts. On a $305,000 home with the homestead exemption, that is about $5,500 a year as a 2010s resale in Ranch Country and about $8,500 a year as a 2026 build in Cypress Green or Redbud, a difference of roughly $250 a month at the same price.

What school district is Hockley in?

Waller ISD, for about 95% of ZIP 77447; the Texas Education Agency gave the district a B (80) for 2026. The Montgomery County corner belongs to Magnolia ISD, B (87), and Cy-Fair ISD covers essentially none of Hockley. Waller High School serves every Waller ISD address on the corridor until Warren Ranch High School opens inside Jubilee in fall 2028, and high-school zoning will be redrawn then; the elementary campus follows the parcel, so confirm it by address.

Should a first-time home buyer in Hockley buy new construction?

Often yes, provided the tax trade is in the monthly figure before you compare houses. Half the homes sold in 77447 over the last year were built in 2025 or later, so new construction is where a first budget finds the most choice, and builders are pairing preferred-lender rates with closing-cost help. What you take on in exchange is a younger district with a higher combined rate and a first bill that may cover only the lot. Have your own real estate agent registered with the builder before you see a model, and have your escrow set from the finished value.

Do first-time home buyer programs work in Hockley?

Some do, and which ones depends on the jurisdiction that taxes the address. The Harris County Down Payment Assistance Program covers unincorporated Harris County addresses in qualified census tracts with a price cap of $296,000 on a new home, but it was at capacity and taking only Hurricane Beryl and derecho applicants as of October 29, 2026. The Montgomery County corner has the Montgomery County Home Fund program, up to $12,600. Waller County and the City of Waller run no program of their own that I could find, so those addresses rely on TSAHC and TDHCA, which reach every address on the corridor.

How do I choose a real estate agent for a first purchase in Hockley or Waller?

Ask each candidate which school district and campus a specific address zones to, what that address’s MUD rate does to the payment compared with the community across the road, whether the address is inside any city, and what that builder’s homes resold for in their older sections. Anyone who works the corridor has those answers without looking anything up. Check the license on TREC’s website, read the client surveys on HAR.com, and expect the buyer representation agreement in writing before the first showing; the longer list is in how to choose a REALTOR®.

Last updated: October 2026 · Sources: HAR MLS single-family pulls for ZIP 77447 and ZIP 77484, twelve months to October 29, 2026; Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, week of October 22, 2026; Harris County Tax Office rate table and Harris Central Appraisal District (2025 adopted rates; no 2026 district rates posted as of October 29, 2026); Waller County Appraisal District 2025 rate sheet; Texas Education Agency 2026 accountability ratings via TXschools.gov; Waller ISD attendance tool (October 17, 2026); U.S. Census Bureau school-district, county and incorporated-place boundaries; City of Waller; FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer; PowerToChoose; Harris County Housing and Community Development, Easter Seals Greater Houston, TSAHC and TDHCA program pages (read October 26 and 29, 2026). Prices, rates, zones and program rules change; verify current figures for any specific property. General information, not legal, tax or financial advice.

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