Showed a house last Tuesday to a couple driving in from Memorial. Third Houston family this month. They ask the same questions in the same order, so I'm just going to write it down.

Price first. Median listing in Canyon Lake is sitting at $500K as of April 15, per Realtor.com research. Median sold in April was $499K according to Movoto. Comal County as a whole, $464K median sale in March per Redfin, up 10.5% year over year. If you sold a 2,400 sq ft house inside the Loop for $850K, you can build something nicer here on an acre and keep the difference. That math is real and it's why y'all keep showing up at my open houses with Texans hats and a Yeti.

What you'll miss: H-E-B on every corner. We have H-E-B, but you're driving to New Braunfels or Bulverde for it. Restaurant density. Houston has 11,000 restaurants. Canyon Lake has maybe forty, and half of them close at 8pm. Costco is in Selma. Your dermatologist is in San Antonio. The Galleria is a memory.

What you won't miss: the commute. Hobby Airport in standstill traffic. Hurricane evacuations. The fact that your driveway floods when somebody two streets over washes their car. Property tax shock — your rate's probably going down, not up. Mosquitos the size of sparrows.

Now the part nobody tells the Houston folks at the closing table.

Water. Canyon Lake is losing 34 million gallons a day right now, per U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority data reported in March. Lake's holding around 59% as of early May after some April rain, per MySA. Some utilities out here have flat-out said they can't serve new homes. If you're buying raw land thinking you'll drill a well and figure it out, ask hard questions before you wire earnest money. Ask which utility. Ask the well depth on neighboring properties. Ask if there's a meter commitment in writing. I've watched two deals fall apart in the last six months over exactly this.

Septic. You're not on city sewer out here. Comal County septic permit is $300, minimum 1 acre in Edwards Aquifer zones, and because of the limestone you're probably looking at an aerobic system — $10,000 to $20,000 to install, $700 to $1,500 a year to maintain. Houston buyers stare at me when I say this. They've never paid to have a yard sprayed with their own treated wastewater. Welcome to the Hill Country.

Flash flooding. Karst topography means the ground here doesn't absorb a heavy rain the way Houston gumbo does — it sheets off the limestone and fills the low water crossings in fifteen minutes. Turn around. Don't try it. The Guadalupe rises faster than you think it can.

Schools. Comal ISD, and the attendance zones don't follow the lake the way you'd expect. Verify the specific zone for the specific address. Don't trust the listing remarks.

Things you'll actually enjoy: brisket at Bare Bull BBQ on FM 2673 — get the BigD sliced. Chicken fried steak at Gristmill in Gruene, in the old 1870s cotton gin building over the river. The Gorge tour will eat half a Saturday and you'll see 110-million-year-old dinosaur tracks. Natural Bridge Caverns is twenty-five minutes south and worth the drive once.

One more thing. The market here is favoring buyers right now — average sale 3.7% under ask, 134 days on market in 78133. You have leverage. Use it. Don't pay list because the listing agent told your Houston Realtor it's "a hot area." It's a soft market with great fundamentals. Different thing.

That's the rundown. Come drive it before you buy it.

Data sourced from Realtor.com Research (April 15, 2026), Movoto (April 2026), Redfin (March 2026), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/GBRA via reporting March 21, 2026, and MySA (May 5, 2026). Verify current numbers with a local agent before acting.