If you’re shopping homes for sale in Katy $400K to $450K right now, there’s a wrinkle in this budget that catches almost everybody: two houses at the same price, ten minutes apart, can cost you $400 a month apart once the tax bill lands. Katy’s median sale price is running around $410,000, so this band sits right at the middle of the market — and the middle of the market is exactly where the newer far-west subdivisions and the older established ones collide on price but not on tax rate. Here’s what the money buys in July 2026, why the rate on the tax line deserves as much attention as the rate on your loan, and a live look at real listings in the band further down.
The Katy market at a glance
There are roughly 4,200 active listings across Katy right now, and 248 of them sit in the $400,000 to $450,000 range as I write this — I pulled that count off my own MLS feed this morning. HAR puts the Katy–Southwest market area at 4.1 months of inventory and calls that balanced; you can see their current read on the Katy–Southwest market update. My read is a shade different. Listings are up about 13% year over year, and the typical Katy home is taking around two months to go under contract when it took closer to five weeks last summer. The supply number hasn’t caught all the way up to that yet, but sellers in this band have already lost the upper hand — and the ones still priced like it’s 2022 are the listings sitting.
What $425,000 buys on Katy’s west side
Point this budget at the newer communities out past the Grand Parkway — Cane Island, Elyson, Sunterra, Morton Creek Ranch, Katy Manor — and you’re in near-new or brand-new territory: 4 to 5 bedrooms, roughly 2,000 to 2,800 square feet, a study or game room, and amenities that were finished last year rather than in 1998. Scrolling my feed this week, a 2,734-square-foot David Weekley in Cane Island is asking $435,000 and a 2,433-square-foot Elyson home is at $410,000. The finishes are current, the roof and the HVAC have decades left, and most of these homes come with a builder warranty still in force. That’s a real advantage, and I don’t want to talk anyone out of it.
What the same money buys in established Katy
Aim $425,000 at Nottingham Country, Kelliwood, Grand Lakes, Seven Meadows, Cinco Ranch, or Governors Place and the shape of the house changes. You’ll typically get more square footage — 2,900 to 3,100 isn’t unusual in this band — on a bigger, grown-in lot, in a neighborhood where the trees are forty feet tall and the commute to the Energy Corridor is fifteen minutes shorter. A 2,957-square-foot Nottingham Country home on a cul-de-sac is listed at $421,500 right now; a 3,018-square-foot Governors Place two-story is at $445,000. What you’re buying is space, shade, and location. What you’re taking on is a house that’s had one or two systems replaced already and will want a third.
The tax rate is the part nobody prices in
Here’s where those two options genuinely diverge, and it’s not the part buyers argue about at the kitchen table. Katy’s newest sections carry the heaviest tax rates in the area because their MUD — the municipal utility district that borrowed to build the roads, water lines, and drainage — is still early in paying that debt off. Total rates in the newest subdivisions commonly run somewhere around 3.2% to 3.7%. The older, settled neighborhoods, whose districts have been paying down bonds for twenty or thirty years, commonly land around 2.2% to 2.8%. On a $425,000 home, that gap of a point to a point and a half works out to roughly $350 to $500 a month before exemptions — every month, for as long as you own it. Borrow $425,000 at this week’s 6.58% average (I keep a running tally on my Houston mortgage rates page) and you’re at about $2,709 a month in principal and interest. The tax line can swing your actual payment by more than a full point of interest rate would.
Two things soften that, and you should know both. Your Texas homestead exemption knocks a real chunk off the school portion once you file it, and MUD rates generally decline over the years as the bonds get paid down and more rooftops share the load. But “it should come down eventually” is not a number you can put in a loan application. My advice is plain: underwrite the rate that’s on the bill today. If the newer house still works at today’s rate, buy it with a clear head. If it only works at a rate you’re hoping for in 2032, that’s the market telling you something. And if you want the mechanics, I wrote up what a MUD district actually does to your property taxes in full.
Two things to check before you fall for a listing
First, verify the school district, not just the school. Most of Katy feeds Katy ISD, but a Katy mailing address doesn’t guarantee it — pockets on the west and southwest edges fall into Lamar CISD or Royal ISD, and in this price band that distinction moves resale. Second, get the full tax rate in writing before you get attached, and ask specifically how much of it is MUD and how long that district has been retiring debt. A listing agent may not have it at hand; the appraisal district and the seller’s disclosure will. When we tour, I run the all-in monthly number on each house we walk through, so you’re comparing payments rather than sticker prices. If you’re newer to the process, my walkthrough of the Houston home-buying process covers the sequence step by step.
A live look: Katy homes from $400K to $450K
Nothing below is hand-picked or staged for this post — it’s my live IDX feed showing active HAR MLS listings in the band, and it re-sorts itself as homes go under contract and new ones list:
$450,000
Active
6444 Magnolia Street Katy, Texas
4 Beds 3 Baths 3,770 SqFt 0.96 Acres
$450,000
Active
24703 Malca Manor Drive Katy, Texas
4 Beds 4 Baths 2,768 SqFt 0.165 Acres
$449,950
Active
20835 Cottage Cove Lane Katy, Texas
4 Beds 3 Baths 2,871 SqFt 0.186 Acres
$449,235
Active
2351 Birch View Lane Katy, Texas
3 Beds 2 Baths 1,887 SqFt 0.114 Acres
$449,000
Active
9606 W Amber Bluff Lane Katy, Texas
4 Beds 3 Baths 2,564 SqFt 0.148 Acres
$449,000
Active
6010 Boyden Knoll Drive Katy, Texas
4 Beds 4 Baths 2,927 SqFt 0.148 Acres
That’s six of the 248. See every Katy home from $400K to $450K, stretch up to the $450K–$500K range, or start from all Katy homes for sale and build your own filters.
See every Katy home in your budget right now
If you’d rather work from a map, you can search every active Katy listing on my site, draw a boundary around the sections you actually want, and set your own price range. On your phone, the free Houston Prime Realty app runs on a live MLS feed, so new listings and price drops show up the moment they happen instead of on the national portals’ delay. Or hand me the must-haves and I’ll build the search, then tell you the things a listing photo never will — about the street, the drainage, the tax rate, and what the house is likely to resell for. Getting to know the area first? Start with my local’s guide to living in Katy.
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Kevan Pewitt · REALTOR® & Broker · Houston Prime Realty
Kevan Pewitt is a licensed Texas REALTOR® and Broker. Houston Prime Realty supports Equal Housing Opportunity. Tax rates vary by subdivision, section, and address and change year to year — verify the current rate with the appraisal district before you rely on it; this is general information, not legal or tax advice. Listings shown are pulled live from the HAR MLS and change throughout the day.
Last updated: July 2026
