Katy ISD just took Houston's top school district ranking again this year. Call (832) 207-3277 and we will confirm which county, and which side of the ISD boundary, your address actually falls on.
The Agency Team, 1111 N. Loop W. Suite 860, Houston TX 77008. Broker Waldina Galeano, TREC #665052. More than 50 agents and over 1,000 Houston families served each year.
Katy's median sale price reached $355,000 in May 2026, according to HAR.com. That is real appreciation, not a rounding blip, in a year when much of the country is describing a cooling housing market.
The pace has eased without reversing. Homes spent a median of 22 days on the market in May, several days longer than the year before. Houston's broader metro carries close to five months of supply right now, which counts as a balanced market rather than the frantic bidding wars of a few years back.
The bigger trap is treating Katy as one price band. A resale starter home inside the Grand Parkway and a new build estate lot in Cane Island both carry the name Katy, and they are not the same market. Any comp pulled without matching square footage, lot size, and section is not a comp, it is a guess.
The question I get wrong most often assumed is the price. The question that actually decides whether someone is happy in five years is the school zoning, because a Katy mailing address does not guarantee Katy ISD, especially the closer you get to Fulshear. I pull the district straight from Katy ISD's own boundary tool for the exact address before we ever talk numbers, because I have watched a buyer find out the hard way at resale, from the buyer's agent on the other side of the table. Waldina Galeano, Broker and CEO, The Agency Team
TREC Broker License #665052
Niche ranked Katy ISD the top school district in the Houston area for 2026, the fifth year running that the district has taken that spot. Enrollment sits near 97,000 students, with an overall A+ rating.
In the statewide Niche rankings, Katy ISD lands near the top ten in Texas. Every district ranked above it serves a much smaller student body, some under 10,000 students. That makes Katy ISD the largest district in the state performing at that level, not merely a good small district.
That ranking is a demand magnet independent of price. Families relocate to Katy specifically for the district, which tightens competition inside verified attendance zones regardless of whether the house itself is a bargain.
The zoning is not as simple as the mailing address implies, and this is where buyers get burned. Homes with a Katy address, particularly toward Fulshear, can be zoned to Lamar Consolidated ISD instead of Katy ISD, and it is possible for two houses on the same street to land in different districts. Katy ISD and Lamar CISD both earned a B rating from the Texas Education Agency in the most recent state accountability review, so district choice here is not a quality gap, it is a boundary you must verify address by address before writing an offer, never from a listing remark.
Katy physically spans Harris, Fort Bend, and Waller counties, and each runs its own appraisal district, its own county tax rate, and its own exemption filing process. A buyer comparing two "Katy" listings without checking which county each one sits in is comparing incomplete numbers.
Fort Bend County, which covers a large share of the master planned communities including parts of Cinco Ranch, runs a combined effective rate commonly cited around 1.65%. Harris County tends to run higher once municipal utility district and special district levies are layered on. Waller County often starts with a lower base county rate, but newer sections out that direction can carry elevated MUD rates while the bonds that funded their initial infrastructure are still being retired.
The MUD layer is the part buyers most often miss. It is a separate line item on top of the county and school rates, created specifically to finance the roads, water, and sewer for a subdivision, and it does not disappear at closing, it transfers with the property. Ask for the full combined rate, county plus ISD plus MUD, for the specific address, never the county's advertised base rate alone.
Cinco Ranch anchors the established end of the Katy market: built out over more than two decades, closer to the Energy Corridor and the Grand Parkway/I-10 interchange, with a resale inventory base and mature amenity infrastructure that newer sections have not had time to build. It is priced and negotiated like an established market, comps included.
Elyson and Tamarron sit much farther west, newer, larger lots and newer floor plans in exchange for a longer commute and, per current listing data, some of the higher combined tax rates in the Katy footprint while their MUD bonds are still young. Buyers moving west for house size need to run the actual commute and the actual combined tax bill before assuming the lower list price nets out ahead.
Neither direction is the correct answer in the abstract. It is a tradeoff between built out infrastructure and lower resale competition versus new construction and a heavier early tax load, and the right side of that tradeoff depends on how long you plan to hold and how far you actually have to drive on a Tuesday morning, not the map estimate.
Live from the HARMLS feed, not a cached snapshot. Set a price ceiling or see everything on the market today.
HAR.com put the May 2026 median sale price at $355,000, up 5.6% from $336,250 a year earlier, on 577 sales. Redfin's trailing three month figure runs closer to $350,000, up about 1.1% year over year. Both are single citywide numbers across a very wide range of product, so treat them as a starting point, not a comp for any specific house.
Niche ranked Katy ISD the number one school district in the Houston area for 2026, the fifth year running, with an A+ rating and about 97,000 students, making it the largest district in Texas performing at that level. Families relocate specifically for the district, which tightens demand inside verified attendance zones independent of price.
No, and this is the single most important thing to verify before writing an offer. Homes with a Katy mailing address, especially toward Fulshear, can be zoned to Lamar Consolidated ISD instead, and two houses on the same street can land in different districts. Confirm zoning for the exact address through Katy ISD's own Find My School tool or the district directly, never from a listing remark.
Katy physically sits across Harris, Fort Bend, and Waller counties, each with its own appraisal district and county rate, and most newer sections also carry a Municipal Utility District levy on top that finances the subdivision's roads, water, and sewer. Always request the full combined rate, county plus ISD plus MUD, for the specific address rather than a county's advertised base rate.
Cinco Ranch is established, closer in toward the Energy Corridor and I-10/Grand Parkway, with a deep resale inventory and mature amenities. Elyson and Tamarron sit farther west with newer construction and larger lots, generally longer commutes, and some of the higher combined tax rates in the Katy footprint while their MUD bonds are still being retired.
Closer to balanced than either extreme. Days on market rose from 18 to 22 year over year and the broader Houston metro carries about 5.1 months of inventory, both signs of a cooling but still appreciating market rather than a stalled one. Price still moved up 5.6% year over year on the HAR figure, so it is not a discount environment either.
Market figures: HAR.com Katy price trends and Katy ISD, Niche 2026 No. 1 Houston area ranking and HAR.com Katy property tax explainer, 2026 and HAR.com, Katy ISD and Lamar CISD zoning notes . Figures move monthly. Call for the current read on your street.
Tell us the address you are watching and we will confirm the county, the ISD zoning down to elementary/junior high/high school, and the full combined tax rate including any MUD, before you make an offer.