Two buyers, two homes, same price range, same "Bulverde, TX" address on the listing. One of them ends up with a tax bill several thousand dollars higher than the other every single year, and neither the list price nor the county's average tax rate would have warned them.
The difference isn't the school district or the county. It's whether the home sits inside Bulverde's actual town limits or in one of the unincorporated subdivisions built just outside them, where a separate taxing entity called a Municipal Utility District, or MUD, picks up the bill the city never had to pay.
The rate that makes Bulverde look like a bargain
Pull up the City of Bulverde's own tax rate for the current cycle and it looks almost too good. The city council adopted a rate of 25.9798 cents per $100 of valuation for 2025-2026, one of the lower municipal rates in the area. On a $400,000 home, that works out to roughly $1,040 a year in city tax alone, a figure that makes Bulverde read like a quiet, low-overhead place to own property.
That rate is real, but it only applies inside the town's actual corporate limits. A large share of what gets marketed as "Bulverde" sits outside that boundary entirely, in unincorporated Comal County subdivisions the city never annexed. Those homes pay no city tax at all. Instead, they owe a separate line item to whichever Municipal Utility District built the water lines, sewer system, and roads under their street, and that line can run several times higher than the city rate it replaces.
Why the infrastructure bill landed on a MUD instead of the city
Bulverde didn't have the infrastructure to support the growth pushing up against its edges, and rather than raise taxes on residents who were already there, the city let developers finance their own water, sewer, and drainage systems through a Water Control and Improvement District, and later a Municipal Utility District. The MUD board sells bonds to cover construction, the developer gets repaid, and the homeowners who move into that subdivision spend the next couple of decades paying it off through their property tax bill.
Johnson Ranch MUD, which serves a subdivision on the east side of Highway 281 in Bulverde, is a clear example. The district contracts with the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority for water and CPS Energy for electric service, infrastructure the city itself never had to build or maintain. When the district was created in 2009, voters approved a bond package of $61.41 million for water, drainage, and sewer work plus another $10.17 million for roads. According to the district's own reporting, only about $24 million of that authorized total had been sold as of its most recent posting, which matters more than it sounds: it means the tax rate homeowners see today isn't necessarily the ceiling. More bonds can still be issued for later phases before the rate ever starts coming down.
The range is bigger than most buyers expect
Comal County's most recent published tax rate schedule shows just how much the number can swing depending on which district a home falls in.
| District | Adopted rate (per $100) | Debt service | Maintenance & operations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Johnson Ranch MUD | $0.8500 | $0.4658 | $0.3842 |
| Kyndwood MUD | $0.9500 | $0.0000 | $0.9500 |
| Meyer Ranch MUD | $0.9500 | $0.8000 | $0.1500 |
| Simmons Valley MUD | $0.8500 | $0.0000 | $0.8500 |
| York Creek | $0.0043 | — | $0.0043 |
Compare any of those to the city's own $0.2598 rate and the pattern is obvious. A home inside Johnson Ranch or Meyer Ranch is paying three to four times what a home inside Bulverde's actual town limits pays, on top of the same county and school taxes both would owe regardless of which side of the line they're on.
The split between debt service and maintenance also tells you where a district is in its life cycle. Meyer Ranch is still carrying a heavy debt load, $0.80 of its $0.95 total, which means bond payments are eating most of the bill. Kyndwood and Simmons Valley currently show none of their rate going to debt service, which either means the debt has been retired or restructured into a different cycle. York Creek's rate is close to nothing, the kind of number you see once a district's obligations have mostly worked their way out of the system. Johnson Ranch's own materials note that once its bonds are fully repaid the rate should drop substantially, though some tax will likely continue indefinitely to fund the drainage system's upkeep. That is the honest version of "the rate will come down eventually": eventually, and only partway.
The tax base isn't static, and neither is the district's story
A MUD's finances aren't a set-it-and-forget-it number on a spreadsheet. Johnson Ranch's July 2026 financial report shows the district holding roughly $7.74 million in total cash and investments and about $4.26 million in its General Operating Fund, running ahead of budget for the year. The same report notes the district absorbed significant legal expenses that month tied to an active dispute: the family that originally owned the ranch land sued the MUD after the district raised concerns that a proposed 279-unit build-to-rent project on a 26-plus acre tract would violate the development's density clause. Whatever the outcome, it's a reminder that the board making decisions about your future tax rate and what gets built around you isn't a distant bureaucracy. MUD directors serve staggered four-year terms with elections held every two years in May, open to any resident willing to run, and the current board is bound by agreements the very first board signed back when the district was created.
What to actually check before you write an offer
MUDs set their own exemption policies separately from the county and school district, so the homestead exemption that lowers one part of your bill doesn't automatically carry over to this one. Before comparing two homes that look identical on paper, ask for:
- Whether the address sits inside Bulverde's incorporated limits or in the unincorporated county
- The specific MUD or water district name attached to the property, if any
- That district's current adopted rate, not a figure from a prior tax year
- The Notice to Purchaser disclosure, which Texas law requires for homes inside a MUD and which spells out your tax obligation before you close
- How much of the district's authorized bond debt has already been issued, since that tells you whether the rate is more likely to climb before it falls
None of this shows up in a median price or a portal's estimated monthly payment. It shows up on the actual tax statement, filed separately by the county, and it's the number that decides whether two similarly priced Bulverde homes end up costing the same thing to own.
The number that actually matters
The city's low tax rate is accurate. It's also only half the picture, and it's the half that applies to a shrinking share of what gets sold as Bulverde real estate as growth keeps pushing outward into MUD-served land. The number worth asking about isn't the city's rate or the county average. It's the specific district attached to the specific address, because that's the line that will actually show up on your bill every January.
If you're comparing homes across Bulverde's town limits and its surrounding MUD subdivisions, The Access Team can walk through the tax stack on any specific address before you write an offer, not after you're already under contract.
