Showed a property outside Wimberley on Tuesday to a couple relocating from the Bay Area. Husband works remote for a chip company, wife is done with the commute to Palo Alto, kid starts kindergarten next fall. They'd been watching the market from 1,700 miles away for eight months and showed up with a printed spreadsheet.

I like buyers with spreadsheets. Even when they're wrong about the numbers, they've done the work.

Their number was $525K, they wanted at least 3 acres, and they wanted a well because they'd read something on Reddit about municipal water rates. The listing we walked was $549K, 4.2 acres, aerobic septic, drilled well at 380 feet. Stone-and-cedar, standing-seam roof, the whole Hill Country package. Built in 2019 by a builder I know but won't name here.

Here's where the spreadsheet started falling apart.

She pulled up her Redfin tab on the porch and said the median in the Hill Country was $247K as of August, and asked why this house was more than double that. Fair question. The Redfin number is real — Hill Country home prices were down 6.6% over the three months ending August 2026 compared to last year, selling for a median of $247K, and homes are moving in 33 days versus 57 days a year ago. That's the actual data.

But the $247K median is pulling in a lot of different animals. Manufactured homes on half-acre lots in the outer counties. 1970s ranch houses that need $80K of work. Small builds in subdivisions I wouldn't send my mother-in-law to. When you filter to 3+ acres, custom build, well and septic, within 40 minutes of an actual grocery store — you're not shopping the median. You're shopping a different market entirely, and that market didn't drop 6.6%. It softened maybe 2-3% and inventory is still tight.

I told her that. She wrote it in the margin of her spreadsheet.

Then we got to the septic conversation, which is where most out-of-state buyers get blindsided. This house has an aerobic system. Aerobic systems in Texas require inspections every four months per TCEQ rules, and maintenance contracts run $150–$500 a year. Comal County lets homeowners maintain their own aerobic OSSF on a single-family without training — but if you're going to hire it out (and 90% of people do), that's a real line item nobody put in her spreadsheet. Also worth knowing: if you're building new in an Edwards Aquifer zone, permits can take 8–12 weeks and you're likely on a 1-acre minimum with an aerobic system required. Not a deal-killer. Just don't find out in month three.

The husband was more worried about water than septic. He'd read about the Kerrville subdivision fight — the 500-home Town Creek project near I-10 that residents have been pushing back on since summer, with water supply as the number one complaint. He asked me flat out if the well on this property was going to be a problem in ten years.

I told him what I tell everybody: I'm not a hydrologist. What I can tell you is the well log, the depth, the pump age, the recovery rate, and what the neighbors' wells look like. On this specific property the well was drilled deep, the pump is six years old, and the two neighbors I've done work near have had no issues. That's not a guarantee. That's data. Do with it what you want.

We walked the back of the lot. Cedar had been cleared maybe two years ago, live oaks left standing, caliche driveway in decent shape. The kind of place where the golden hour actually does what people say it does — I've been out there at 7pm in September and the whole ridge behind the house lights up orange. That's the part you can't put in a spreadsheet.

Here's my read on right now, end of September 2026: the buyers who've been sitting on the sidelines waiting for a crash are going to keep waiting, because the crash they're picturing isn't coming. What IS happening is a slower, more negotiable market where you can actually get an inspection contingency honored, ask for repairs, and not get outbid by a cash offer from Austin sight-unseen. Rates in the low-to-mid 6s help. Days on market almost doubling from last year helps. If rates drop another half point this fall the window closes fast, and we go right back to the 2022 nonsense.

My honest opinion, which I'll defend: the $500K–$700K custom-on-acreage segment is the best value in the Hill Country right now. Not the $247K median. Not the $1.2M new-builds. That middle band, on 2–5 acres, existing home, motivated seller — that's where the deals are. I've closed three in that range in the last 90 days and every one had at least $15K in seller concessions.

The California couple didn't write an offer Tuesday. They're driving out to Fredericksburg this weekend, having dinner at Otto's, then coming back for a second look Monday. She texted me last night asking about property tax protest timelines and whether the road out front floods. Both good questions.

If you're watching the market from out of state and pricing off the median, you're pricing off the wrong number. Come walk something before you decide what things cost.

Data sourced from Redfin Hill Country Housing Market Trends (August 2026) and Comal County / TCEQ permitting guidelines. Verify current numbers with a local agent before acting.