The city has no zoning, so the deed restrictions decide the street

What buying in Houston actually involves

The property tax is the largest cost of owning here after the mortgage, and it is worked out unit by unit. A house in the City of Houston and Houston ISD, in Harris County, pays eight: Harris County, its Flood Control District, the Port of Houston Authority, the Hospital District, the Department of Education, the City, the school district and Houston City College, and their 2025 rates add to 2.12522 per $100 of value. Each takes a homestead exemption off first, the school district a flat $140,000 and a further 20%, the college 17%, the other six 20% each, so on the $330,000 Greater Houston median house an owner who lives in it pays about $4,391 a year and a landlord about $7,013. The exemptions are not automatic: you apply to the Harris Central Appraisal District, and in the year you buy you get a prorated one only if the seller had none. A house in Fort Bend or Montgomery County, in another school district, or inside a municipal utility district pays a different bill.

The value the rates are charged on is reset every year, and an owner has until 15 May, or 30 days after the appraisal district mails the notice if that is later, to protest it. On a homestead the taxable value may rise no more than 10% a year once the owner has held the exemption, and the cap ends with the sale, so a buyer is taxed on the full value from the first bill and the seller's bill understates the buyer's. The City's own share is held down by a second limit: since Proposition 1 in 2004 the City Charter has capped the growth of its property tax revenue at the lower of inflation plus population growth or 4.5% a year, on top of the state's cap, and the City's rate has stayed at 0.51919 per $100 since 2023. The county, the school district and the rest are not bound by it.

Houston has no zoning. The City's planning department says so in terms, and its codes govern how land is subdivided rather than what is built on it. What keeps a house from getting a car wash or a tower next door is the subdivision's deed restrictions, which the City Attorney can help enforce, and which lapse or can be amended by the process the deed itself sets out. The Census Bureau counts 45.8% of the city's owners paying a homeowners' or condominium association fee, much of it the dues of a deed-restricted civic association. So the restrictions recorded on the lot, when they expire, and who enforces them belong in the offer, and a street with none can change faster than the price suggests.

Water is the other map to read. A major flood occurs somewhere in Harris County about every two years, in the Flood Control District's words, and more flood insurance money has been paid out here than in any other community in the national program. Hurricane Harvey dropped between 4.62 and 56 inches of rain on the region from 25 to 29 August 2017, and flooding does not stay inside the mapped floodplain: ponding and overland flow reach streets the maps do not mark. A homeowners policy does not cover rising water, so a flood policy is a separate premium, and it is worth pricing on the exact address, and asking the seller about past flooding, even where a lender does not require one.

Moving to Houston: check these before you commit

• The appraisal district's value for the house, the protest deadline on this year's notice, and what the 10% homestead cap has done to the seller's bill, since the cap ends on the sale
• Which county, school district and municipal utility district tax the address, from the appraisal district's record rather than the mailing address
• The deed restrictions recorded on the lot, when they expire or renew, and whether the civic association enforces them
• FEMA's flood map and the Flood Control District's tools for the exact address, the seller's disclosure of past flooding, and a quote for a separate flood policy
• The roof's age, and whether the homeowners policy pays replacement cost or depreciated value on it and what its wind and hail deductible is