Williamson County: where Austin's growth went

Williamson County, October 2026

Williamson County is the first market to rate undervalued on our five test scorecard, and it earns the rating the hard way: on a price that has fallen 22.5 percent from its April 2022 peak against a county median household income of $111,340, among the highest in Texas, and a population that grew 23.6 percent in five years while the state grew 8.8. The county's median sold price was $395,000 in September, 3.5 times income, 18.3 years of county median rent, with 5.0 months of inventory and sales closing at 93.0 percent of list. Two of the five tests score plus one, three score zero, and nothing scores minus. The rating is plus two, the minimum for undervalued, and the piece below is about whether the margin is real.

The case for the county is industrial. Samsung's Taylor fab, with $4.745 billion of federal CHIPS money attached and a $16.5 billion Tesla contract through 2033, received its first occupancy approvals this year and is expected to start customer production in 2027, with a second fab to begin construction by year end. Dell, headquartered in Round Rock, booked $60.9 billion of AI server orders in a single quarter this summer. Blue Origin committed $650 million and 2,000 jobs at $88,000 to a campus in Hutto on October 8. A one gigawatt data center campus on 664 acres east of Taylor cleared its city council on October 12. The county's average weekly wage rose 8.4 percent in the year to the first quarter, the largest gain of any large Texas county.

The case against is that the housing market has not felt any of it yet. Closed sales were down 12.1 percent in September, the median was down 2.5 percent, the appraisal district cut average residential values 3.8 percent for 2026, Hutto's days on market went from 52 to 85 in a year, and Round Rock ISD, the county's largest district, is budgeting for 647 fewer students. The payroll is arriving on a 2027 to 2030 schedule and the price is being set by 2026 buyers at seven percent mortgage rates. That gap is the opportunity and the risk, and it is the same gap.

Where the county line falls

Williamson County is the county directly north of Travis, bounded by Bell County at its north line, Milam and Lee to the east, Bastrop at the southeast corner, Burnet to the west, and Travis along its south line, which runs roughly along the Austin city limit from Leander through Cedar Park, Round Rock, and Pflugerville's north half. I 35 cuts it top to bottom through Round Rock and Georgetown, the county seat. State Highway 29 crosses it east to west through Georgetown; US 79 runs from Round Rock through Hutto to Taylor; 183A and Ronald Reagan Boulevard serve the west side from Cedar Park and Leander up to Liberty Hill.

The Census Bureau's July 2025 estimate puts the county at 752,827 people, up from a 2020 base of 609,059, a 23.6 percent gain, among the fastest in the state for a county of its size. Round Rock is at 141,282, Georgetown at 106,907, Leander at 91,132, Cedar Park at 79,032, and Hutto at 46,048, the only county city in the Bureau's national top fifteen for growth over the past year at 7.9 percent. Since 2020 Hutto is up 66.9 percent, Georgetown 58.5, and Leander 53.8. Median household income is $111,340 against $78,476 for the state; 48.4 percent of adults hold a bachelor's degree; 66.4 percent of households own their home; 13.7 percent of residents are 65 or older, though that figure is 26.2 percent in Georgetown, where Sun City holds about 10,500 homes on 4,750 acres.

The county is four markets under one appraisal district. The west side, Cedar Park and Leander, is the high income commuter belt into Austin's tech corridor, with median household incomes of $129,545 and $139,048. The I 35 spine, Round Rock and Georgetown, is the county's employment base and its older housing stock. The east side, Hutto and Taylor, is where the land was cheap when Samsung chose it in 2021 and where the county's industrial future is being poured. The north, Liberty Hill, Jarrell, and Florence, is the exurban fringe where the builders went when Leander filled.

The scorecard

Five tests, thresholds fixed in advance, each scored plus one, zero, or minus one, with plus in the cheap direction. Price to income: median sold price over county median household income, plus one under 3.5, minus one over 4.5. Price to rent: sold price over twelve months of county median gross rent, plus one under 16, minus one over 20. Supply and clearing: plus one under five months with sales above 95 percent of list, minus one over seven months or under 93 percent. Distance from the 2022 peak: plus one more than 15 percent below, minus one within five percent. Demand: plus one with population growth above the state and payrolls rising, minus one with flat population or falling jobs. Plus two or better is undervalued.

Three of the zeros are near misses in the cheap direction. Price to income is 3.55 against a 3.5 line. Months of inventory is 5.0 against a line of under five. The price to rent figure uses the Census Bureau's five year county median gross rent of $1,796; Unlock MLS's September median lease in the county was $2,100, which would put the ratio at 15.7 and score plus one. The scorecard uses the Census figure for every market so the ratio is comparable, and the point stands either way: Williamson is the only market where the rent side of the arithmetic is close to working at today's prices, because the county's rents are high and its house prices came down.

The near misses cut the other way too. Sales down 12.1 percent and a median down 2.5 percent mean the price has not found its floor; a market scoring plus two on a falling price can score plus three next quarter or drop to plus one if the demand line turns. The demand line is the one to watch. The county's population figure is a five year number that includes the 2021 and 2022 relocation surge. The current year jobs figure is the Austin metro's, up 1.2 percent, and the county's own employment count from the quarterly census was up 0.9 percent in March. Those are positive and they are slowing.

The jobs

Williamson County's labor force was 435,252 in August with unemployment at 4.0 percent, a tenth above a year earlier and below the state's 4.4. The quarterly census of employment and wages put county employment at 242,300 in March, up 0.9 percent, and the average weekly wage at $1,938 in the first quarter, up 8.4 percent over the year, the largest increase among Texas's large counties. The wage number is the one that matters for the housing ratios: the county's income is rising faster than the state's while its house price is falling, and the scorecard's income figure is a 2020 to 2024 average that has not caught up.

Samsung. The Taylor fab represents more than $37 billion across Taylor and the older Austin site per the CHIPS program office, or $17 billion for Taylor alone per Samsung's own statements, with up to $4.745 billion in direct federal money, finalized in January 2025 and reduced from an original $6.4 billion. The campus is 1,268 acres. The first temporary certificates of occupancy, covering about 88,000 square feet of Fab 1, were issued in February; the local agreement requires six million square feet complete by the end of 2026 and another million by 2028. Samsung's stated plan is about 1,500 direct employees at Taylor with roughly 3,000 on site including vendor engineers during setup, against the 12,000 construction jobs and 3,500 manufacturing jobs the program office counts regionally. The anchor customer is Tesla, which signed a $16.5 billion contract in July 2025 for its AI6 chip, later extended to a portion of AI5, running through 2033. Korean press reporting in September had the fab's 2 nanometer capacity fully booked by Tesla, Broadcom, and Arm before operations begin. Samsung's vice president told a Washington forum in May that customer production starts in 2027; the earlier target was 2026, and the slip is on the record. A second Taylor fab is reported to begin construction by the end of this year with production targeted for 2030.

Taylor itself is a city of under 20,000 people with a median sold price of $284,812, the lowest in the county, down 5.1 percent in a year. The housing market there has priced in nothing. COMPAL Electronics, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer, leased about 366,000 square feet in Taylor and 212,000 in Georgetown last November for up to 1,000 jobs. The Taylor Technology Campus, a 664 acre data center site east of town approved unanimously by the city council on October 12, is planned for up to one gigawatt at build out with first power in the first half of 2028 and construction from 2027 to 2029.

Dell. Dell Technologies has been headquartered in Round Rock since 1994 and its economic development agreement with the city, extended in 2024 from 60 years to 106, has produced more than $429 million of sales tax for Round Rock. The company's fiscal second quarter, ended July 31 and reported September 1, had revenue of $46.97 billion, up 58 percent; GAAP net income of $4.13 billion; infrastructure revenue of $31.78 billion, up 89 percent; a record $60.9 billion of AI server orders booked in the quarter and a $95 billion backlog at quarter end; and full year revenue guidance raised to $192 billion from $167 billion. Headcount was about 97,000 worldwide at January 31, down from about 108,000 a year earlier. Dell's shareholders voted on June 25 to redomicile the company from Delaware to Texas; it has not listed or announced a listing on the Texas Stock Exchange. An $8 million renovation of the Round Rock headquarters was filed in February. Emerson, by contrast, listed its 300,000 square foot Round Rock site for sale in April and is moving 400 employees to its North Austin campus in phases with no headcount change.

Blue Origin. The Commissioners Court approved an economic development agreement on August 20 for a Hutto campus with $650 million of investment within ten years, up to 2,000 jobs at an average salary of about $88,000 over five years, and about a million square feet of industrial and research space. The Governor's office announced it on October 8 at $554.8 million with an $18.2 million state enterprise grant; Hutto's own agreements, approved in August, use the $650 million figure. The campus, Constellation Park, sits on State Highway 79 between Innovation Boulevard and Alliance Boulevard and will build hardware for the company's satellite network. The abatement terms are not public until the agreements execute.

Data centers. The county is now a power market as much as a housing one. Skybox and Prologis have filed four buildings at their Hutto campus, planned for 600 megawatts of IT capacity across 3.88 million square feet, with the fourth building at $550 million and construction from January 2027 to October 2028. Zydeco filed 950,000 square feet on 40 acres in Hutto at about 70 megawatts. Sabey is building toward 84 megawatts in Round Rock. Blueprint has a $160 million site in Georgetown and a larger one west of the Samsung campus in Taylor. With the Taylor Technology Campus the announced capacity in the county exceeds 1.7 gigawatts, most of it not yet energized. The city of Taylor has agreed to provide 500 megawatts to the campus with an option for 500 more, and where that power comes from is the question the county will be answering for the rest of the decade.

Round Rock

Round Rock is the county's largest city at 141,282, its employment center, and its most mature housing market. Redfin's August median was $384,000, down 4.0 percent, on 303 sales, down 10.1 percent, with 55 days on market and sales closing at 97.8 percent of list. Against the city's median household income of $99,287 that is 3.9 times income and 18.2 years of the city's $1,763 median gross rent; the Census estimate of owner occupied home value is $418,600. The city's housing stock is the county's oldest and its price is the county's most stable, which is a function of Dell, the two hospital systems, Kalahari, and the Texas State campus all being inside the city limits.

Schools and colleges. Round Rock ISD is the county's largest district at about 46,000 students across 59 campuses, and it is the county's clearest signal that the growth has moved on. The district rated B with a score of 89 in the state's August 2026 release, capped by a rule that limits a district's score when it has D rated campuses; its unadjusted score would have been 91, an A. Twenty seven of its 53 rated campuses are A, 14 are B, 10 are C, and 2 are D. Enrollment is projected to fall 647 to 45,500 for 2026 to 2027, and the district's finance office attributes the decline to charter growth and the state's education savings account program, which began paying out this school year. More than 1,600 of its students come from outside the district. The budget is balanced as of August; the district has said it will consolidate staff roles and may downsize if the decline continues, and it has not proposed closing campuses. Texas State University's Round Rock campus enrolled 4,003 students this fall, up 37 percent on a record, and dedicated the $52.4 million Esperanza Hall in August with electrical engineering degrees starting in 2027. Austin Community College, with campuses in Round Rock and Cedar Park, opened the fall at 46,384 across the system, up nearly six percent.

Commercial. Round Rock's office market is the healthiest in the Austin metro on CBRE's count, 965,000 square feet at 14.6 percent vacancy against 23.6 percent for the metro, with asking rent of $33.02 against $50.65. Cushman and Wakefield, counting a larger 1.85 million square foot inventory, has it at 24.1 percent with negative absorption for the year. Industrial is 6.15 million square feet at 19.5 percent vacancy per CBRE, with 290,000 square feet under construction and asking rent of $12.37; Cushman has 6.85 million square feet at 24.9 percent. Retail is tight at 3.0 percent vacancy on 9.5 million square feet. Apartments: 8.7 percent vacancy, $1,346 effective rent, 217 units delivered this year and nothing under construction, per Cushman's second quarter report. A submarket with zero apartments under construction and a falling house price is one where the rent side holds while the ownership side resets.

Georgetown

Georgetown crossed 100,000 people in 2024 and sits at 106,907, the county seat and the city that carried the Census Bureau's fastest growing large city title in earlier vintages before its growth rate slipped out of the Bureau's top fifteen in the 2024 and 2025 releases. Redfin's September median was $404,807, down 3.2 percent, on 636 sales, up 10.4 percent, with 73 days on market and sales at 97.5 percent of list. Against the city's median household income of $95,062 that is 4.3 times income, the highest ratio in the county, which reflects a retiree population: 26.2 percent of the city is 65 or older, and Sun City's roughly 10,500 homes are a market unto themselves where the buyer's income is a pension and a sale in another state.

Schools and colleges. Georgetown ISD moved from a C to a B this year with a score of 80, with 13 of 18 campuses improving and two, Annie Purl Elementary and George Wagner Middle, rated unacceptable. Enrollment is 14,061, and the district's demographer cut the growth forecast from more than 500 students a year to about 100 this year, with the 2026 to 2027 projection lowered to between 14,095 and 14,201. The district delayed the opening of a new elementary and a new middle school, both from its $649 million 2024 bond, from August 2026 to fall 2027, which produces a projected $1.86 million surplus, and is considering a seven cent tax ratification election in November. The fourth high school is still scheduled for 2028. The district's own numbers say the housing growth that justified the bond has slowed by four fifths. Southwestern University, chartered in 1840, enrolled 368 in its fall 2025 entering class on nearly 5,900 applications; the fall 2026 count has not been published.

Commercial. Georgetown is the county's industrial market. Cushman and Wakefield counts 12.8 million square feet at 29.5 percent vacancy, down in the quarter on 203,000 square feet of absorption, with 1.39 million square feet under construction led by the 1.2 million square foot second phase of Crosspoint, 2.4 million square feet leased year to date, and asking rent of $10.99. A 29.5 percent vacancy with 1.4 million square feet still coming is a market that built for a demand that is now arriving on a lag; the leasing figure says the lag is closing. Retail is 3.9 percent vacant on 5.1 million square feet with the 130,705 square foot Georgetown Commons in the pipeline. Apartments in the Georgetown and Leander submarket are at 9.8 percent vacancy with 574 units under construction and effective rent of $1,337.

Water. Lake Georgetown stood at 79.3 percent full on October 16, Stillhouse Hollow at 97.7. The city's treatment capacity rose to 49.9 million gallons a day when the South Lake plant came online in 2025, against 93.9 million gallons of owned supply, and the city has not imposed restrictions this year. Georgetown's constraint through 2023 and 2024 was treatment, not water, and that constraint is gone.

Cedar Park and Leander

The west side is the county's high income commuter belt and the only part of it where prices rose over the past year. Cedar Park's August median was $510,000, up 4.5 percent, on 249 sales, up 11.7 percent, with 49 days on market and 97.7 percent of list; the city's median household income is $129,545, which puts the price at 3.9 times income, and the Census home value estimate is $513,600. Leander's September median was $431,029, up 2.2 percent, on 316 sales, down 6.5 percent, with 68 days on market; its median household income is $139,048, the highest of any city in the county, which puts the price at 3.1 times income, the lowest ratio in the county and inside the scorecard's cheap band. Leander is 91,132 people, up 53.8 percent since 2020, and 8.5 percent of them are 65 or older. It is the youngest, highest earning city in Williamson County and its house price is three times its income.

Schools. Leander ISD serves both cities and most of Liberty Hill's southern growth. It rated B with a score of 87, down a point from 88. The district adopted a 2026 to 2027 budget for 41,841 students, a 0.26 percent decline against its October 2025 projection, with $465.9 million of revenue against $476.2 million of expenditures, a $9.9 million shortfall, and it is closing Faubion Elementary. Debt service is $168 million a year. A district with the county's highest income families, a B rating, flat enrollment, and a structural deficit is a district whose bond capacity from the growth years is now a fixed cost.

Commercial. Cedar Park's industrial market is small and tight, 5.4 million square feet at 10.9 percent vacancy per CBRE, the lowest in the metro, with 1.05 million square feet under construction and asking rent of $17.85, the highest in the metro; Cushman's narrower 1.97 million square foot count has it at 20.0 percent. Retail is 4.5 percent vacant on 10.6 million square feet with 1.2 million square feet under construction, the largest retail pipeline in the county. Apartments: 7.4 percent vacancy, $1,278 effective rent, 336 units delivered this year and nothing under construction. Liberty Hill, north of Leander on 183A, has a 160,000 square foot Costco and a 148,000 square foot Target under construction, which is the retail industry's own forecast for the corridor.

Hutto and Taylor

The east side is where the county's industrial future is going and where the housing market is weakest. Hutto's August median was $335,587, down 4.1 percent, on 221 sales, up 16.9 percent, with 85 days on market, up 33 days from 52 a year earlier, and sales at 98.4 percent of list. The appraisal district cut Hutto's average residential market value 6.08 percent for 2026, to $338,519, the largest decline of any city in the county. Hutto is 46,048 people, up 66.9 percent since 2020, and it grew 7.9 percent in the most recent year, thirteenth in the country among cities over 20,000. The builders are still delivering; the sales count is up 17 percent while the price falls and the days on market nearly double, which is what a new home market looks like when the builders are competing with each other on incentives.

Taylor is 17 miles east on US 79 with a median of $284,812, down 5.1 percent, on 69 sales with 70 days on market. The city's housing stock predates the fab. The Samsung campus is on its west edge; the Taylor Technology Campus is on its east; COMPAL's 366,000 square feet is at the RCR Rail Logistics Park. The East Williamson County Highway's second segment, from County Road 137 to County Road 404 between Hutto and Taylor, opened October 8 at $53.1 million, months early, out of the county's 2023 bond. Taylor's water for Samsung comes from EPCOR under a 2023 agreement that draws Carrizo Wilcox groundwater in Milam County and reclaims a targeted 75 percent of process water at a new plant in the city.

Schools. Hutto ISD rated C with a score of 75, down from 76, the lowest rating among the county's growth districts, with 11,101 students; its demographers trimmed the ten year forecast in April to about 15,000 students by 2034 from the 18,700 projected in December 2024, and the district held its tax rate at $1.2052 with a balanced budget. Taylor ISD, at 2,882 students, moved from a C of 71 to a B, a nine point gain, with the middle school going from D to B and the high school from C to B; S and P raised the district's bond rating to A plus, and it sold $141 million of voter approved bonds on September 21 at 4.63 percent for a $147 million construction program. A seven campus district that improves nine points in a year while a chip fab is built on its edge is a district the fab's workforce can be told about; Hutto ISD at a C is the east side's weak point.

Liberty Hill and the north

Liberty Hill's September median was $324,835, down 9.24 percent, the steepest decline in the county, on 40 sales, up from 20, with 114 days on market, up 40 days. Liberty Hill ISD rated B at 85, unchanged, with three A campuses, and built its budget on 10,900 students, no deficit. Jarrell ISD, north on I 35, moved from a D of 68 to a C, and its demographer has projected enrollment doubling from about 3,700 to more than 6,000 by 2028; Florence ISD, at 1,125 students, held its B. The 183A extension to Liberty Hill, five miles from Hero Way to State Highway 29, opened in April 2025 at a $2.38 toll, and the county is building the Seward Junction bypass connectors on SH 29 this year while TxDOT studies a limited access freeway from Burnet to I 35 with no money attached. The north is the county's cheapest land and its longest commute, and a 9 percent price decline with 114 days on market is the builders' inventory finding its level.

Pflugerville, the county's south edge

Pflugerville straddles the Travis line and its school district is the county's cautionary case. Pflugerville ISD rated B at 81, up from a C, and its board voted on May 14 to close four elementary schools, Dessau, Parmer Lane, Pflugerville, and Windermere, after the 2026 to 2027 year, with enrollment down 476 to just over 25,000, a deficit that grew from a projected $4 million to $10.9 million, and 18 of 22 elementaries under 75 percent capacity. The district's apartment submarket is the softest in the county at 12.3 percent vacancy and $1,259 effective rent. Pflugerville is what a Williamson County suburb looks like ten years after the growth passes through it, and it is the scenario Round Rock ISD's enrollment projection is pointing at.

Taxes, roads, and the appraisal district

The county adopted its no new revenue rate of $0.421547 per $100 for the fiscal year beginning October 1, up from $0.413776, on a $712.9 million budget; because taxable values fell, the average homestead's county bill drops about $28, or 1.49 percent, to $1,851 on an average taxable value of $439,175, down from $454,166. The appraisal district's average residential market value for 2026 is $455,812, down 3.8 percent from $473,876, with Hutto down 6.08 percent and Leander down 2.85 to $465,503; the county's total market value still rose 2.28 percent on commercial and new construction. Across all taxing units the median effective rate is about 1.53 percent on a median bill of $6,257, per Ownwell. On a $395,000 house that is roughly $6,000 a year, which at this month's mortgage rates is about a fifth of the principal and interest payment. Williamson County has no coastal windstorm exposure, which is the single largest carry cost advantage it holds over every Gulf Coast market in the state.

The 2023 road bond, $825 million across 38 projects, passed with 62 percent, and about $260 million of it is under construction, including the Ronald Reagan Boulevard widening at $52.5 million and Sam Bass Road at $34.5 million. TxDOT held its public meeting in August on I 35 from SH 29 to SH 45 North, about 13 miles through Georgetown and Round Rock, with two non tolled managed lanes each direction and an added mainlane from SH 29 to RM 1431; there is no cost, money, or construction date yet. The Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority's $225 million Lake Travis deep water intake, serving Round Rock, Cedar Park, and Leander, has its tunnels complete and the system due in 2027, raising capacity to 145 million gallons a day with 40.8 million of it for Round Rock. The west side's water constraint is being removed on the same schedule as Samsung's production.

The public companies and the exchange

Three public companies set the county's direction and none of them is listed in Texas. Dell's fiscal second quarter is reported above; the company redomiciled to Texas by shareholder vote in June, and the Texas Stock Exchange issued a statement welcoming the vote, but Dell's shares remain on the New York Stock Exchange with no announced TXSE listing. Samsung Electronics trades in Seoul. Tesla, the fab's anchor customer, is headquartered in Travis County and listed on Nasdaq. Prologis, the Hutto data center partner, is on the NYSE. Blue Origin is private.

The exchange itself opened for corporate primary listings on October 5. Eight companies have transferred or are scheduled to by October 19: Energy Transfer, Sunoco, SunocoCorp, USA Compression, and Dillard's on October 5, Texas Capital Bancshares on October 8, Origin Bancorp on October 13, and CECO Environmental and International Bancshares on October 19. Charles Schwab added a secondary listing on October 7 and reported third quarter results on October 15, the first report by a company carrying a TXSE listing. No Williamson County headquartered company has listed or announced a listing. Dell's redomicile is the nearest thing to a signal, and it is a signal about Texas corporate law, not the exchange.

What we would want to see

• Samsung confirms customer production at Taylor Fab 1 in 2027 with a named start quarter, and files for Fab 2 construction before December 31.
• The Williamson County median holds above $380,000 through the first quarter of 2027 with closed sales no more than five percent below the prior year, which would say the price has found its floor.
• Hutto's days on market fall back under 60 and the appraisal district's 2027 notices show Hutto flat or up.
• Round Rock ISD's actual fall 2026 enrollment comes in above its 45,500 projection, or Georgetown ISD restores its 2027 school openings on schedule.
• Georgetown industrial vacancy falls under 25 percent with the Crosspoint second phase at least half leased on delivery.
• Blue Origin's Hutto agreements execute and the abatement terms publish, and the Taylor Technology Campus names its power supply and a signed tenant.

Williamson County is a county we would look at, and the rating says so. The place we would look is the east side between Hutto and Taylor along US 79 and the new East Williamson County Highway: the industrial land, the crew housing, and the service retail that a chip fab, a rocket hardware plant, and 1.7 gigawatts of data centers will need before any of them is fully staffed, bought at a Hutto price that the appraisal district just cut six percent. We would not buy new construction in Hutto or Liberty Hill while the builders are still delivering into 85 and 114 days on market, and we would wait on Georgetown's Sun City until the sales count there tells us the retiree pipeline has absorbed the rate shock. Cedar Park and Leander are fairly priced for what they are and do not need a chip fab to work. The rating is undervalued by the narrowest margin the scorecard allows, on a price that is still falling toward a payroll that has not arrived. The list above is how we will know which of those two moves first.

This is general commentary about a real estate submarket. It is not advice, not a recommendation, and not an offer to buy or sell anything. See the disclosures page.