{"id":1034764,"date":"2026-08-31T10:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1034764\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T10:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:50:11","slug":"brownsville-faces-higher-tax-bills-as-spacex-presence-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1034764\/","title":{"rendered":"Brownsville faces higher tax bills as SpaceX presence grows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Subscribe to The Y\u2019all<\/a> \u2014 a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McALLEN \u2014 Home values in Cameron County more than doubled over a six-year period, and property tax bills are going up along with it, according to research from the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s arrival in 2014 has led to the area\u2019s rapid rise in wealth, which researchers suspect also contributed to the rise in property values. And with the expansion of SpaceX and other industries in the Brownsville area, researchers expect home values to go up even further.<\/p>\n

For longtime residents of Brownsville, the largest city in the county, rising property values could mean rising tax bills. And for some, that means being priced out of their homes, one local real estate agent warns. <\/p>\n

But local officials also have a role to play.<\/p>\n

Like most cities in Texas, Brownsville is finalizing its budget for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, which begins in October. The process includes setting the rate at which homeowners\u2019 property will be taxed, a decision that could ultimately determine whether homeowners face a tax hike or a tax cut.<\/p>\n

The situation in Brownsville could offer a look at struggles other Texas cities may also face \u2014\u00a0how to handle raising home values brought on by a boom in economic development in a historically low-wage community.<\/p>\n

Growth<\/p>\n

The rise in home values in Cameron County is outpacing the rest of the state, according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center.<\/p>\n

From 2019 to 2025, median property values in Cameron County grew from $75,800 to $171,900, a 127% jump. The median values in Texas, on the other hand, increased by 65%, from $165,000 to $272,400.<\/p>\n

Tax bills increased as well. During that same time period, the median property tax bill in Cameron County increased by more than 57% \u2014 from $1,740 to $2,740, not adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, the median tax bill in Texas jumped by 42% \u2014 from $3,900 to $5,550.<\/p>\n

That growth is expected to bring in an additional $3 million in property tax revenue for Brownsville despite the city\u2019s proposal to maintain the same tax rate next year.<\/p>\n

For next year, the city is proposing to maintain the tax rate the same \u2014\u00a060 cents per $100 in valuation.<\/p>\n

Bob Torres, a real estate broker in the Brownsville area for 42 years, said he\u2019s alarmed that clients have told him that they want to sell their homes because they can\u2019t afford to pay their property taxes anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the whole big dilemma \u2014 who is SpaceX benefiting dollar-wise and who is it affecting negatively dollar-wise?\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s record-breaking initial public offering in June allowed the public to purchase stocks in the company, making thousands of current and former employees millionaires, according to a New York Times report.<\/a> This sudden influx of wealth is expected to further drive home values up in Cameron County, which is home to about 4,300 SpaceX employees.<\/p>\n

The company is expanding its footprint in Texas, overall. In Grimes County, SpaceX announced plans to build a semiconductor fabrication plant, the first phase of which will cost almost $17 billion billion and create 3,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

But in Brownsville, Torres said most residents don\u2019t receive a SpaceX paycheck and have no direct connection to the company, yet they are facing potentially large hikes to interest rates and property taxes. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His own home jumped dramatically in value in just four years, going from about $200,000 in 2022 to about $700,000 this year.<\/p>\n

That added burden could be devastating for homeowners, particularly retirees and others on fixed incomes whose property tax bill could consume a large share of their income.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say you\u2019re being assessed at half a million dollars,\u201d he said. \u201cWhere is that half a million dollars? You do not have it. It\u2019s not in your pocket, it\u2019s not in your bank, but you\u2019re being taxed at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brownsville City Manager Alan Guard said not all home values are rising.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely some of the houses we have are more expensive,\u201d Guard said.<\/p>\n

Guard partly credited rising home prices to SpaceX but also pointed to a new residential development called Madeira, a master-planned community that specifically targets SpaceX, LNG and other corporate employees.<\/p>\n

Those properties are valued much higher and in turn impacts surrounding properties, Guard said. However, he doesn\u2019t expect their higher values will impact homes in areas like Southmost, a historic and affordable neighborhood near the Texas-Mexico border.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you would see a lot of property [values] stayed, probably, very close to where they were,\u201d Guard said of their assessed value.<\/p>\n

As Guard suggested, higher home prices could be because of the influx of new homes that were built during the six-year time period when the research was conducted, said Lynn D. Krebs, an economist with the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew homes are almost always going to cost more than a home that is, say, 20 or 30 years old,\u201d Krebs said. \u201cAnd so, while the median price went up 2.3 times, that doesn\u2019t mean that everybody\u2019s home price went up by that amount.\u201d<\/p>\n

The increase in property taxes could similarly be attributed to newer, more expensive homes built during that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a combination of multiple factors, and I suspect that the biggest driver was the fact that you had new housing stock added,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, the typical homeowner is expected to see a 10% increase in property taxes under the proposed rate.<\/p>\n

For those concerned about a high tax bill, Torres, the Brownsville real estate agent, advised that they prepare to contest their home\u2019s value when appraisal districts assess their home every year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe ready,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd you have to do your homework.\u201d<\/p>\n

Providing service<\/p>\n

Another solution for residents who are feeling the stress of a higher tax burden lies with their local government, which has the power to offset rising home values by adopting what is called the no-new revenue tax rate, Krebs said.<\/p>\n

The no-new revenue tax rate is the rate that is calculated to bring in the same amount of revenue in property taxes that was brought in the previous year. For Brownsville, the no-new revenue rate would be below what it is currently proposing.<\/p>\n

If city leaders had opted to adopt the no-new revenue rate, it could even lead to a tax cut for some homeowners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe local governments can actually completely offset the increase in property values, at least the average property value increase,\u201d Krebs said.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that the calculation of the no-new revenue rate only takes into account the revenue the city would raise from existing properties, meaning the city would still bring in additional revenue than the previous year from new properties.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo no-new revenue doesn\u2019t actually mean no new revenue in total. It just means we\u2019re not going to increase the revenue from the properties that were on the roll the year before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But Guard, the Brownsville city manager, said that as the city grows, residents want more services from the city and there are limitations on how the city can raise money to provide those services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t control it. We don\u2019t control it at all,\u201d Guard said. \u201cWe have a set of services that people want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last 10 years, salaries for city employees have increased by about 36%, Guard said. Meanwhile, the consumer price index for urban wage earners has increased by about 40%.<\/a><\/p>\n

On top of employee wages, the cost of healthcare, gas and equipment is also rising.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are not asking for less service, they want more,\u201d he said. \u201cThey want more stuff done with their streets, they want more parks, they want their parks better maintained, they want more police officers, we need another fire station.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the funds they are expected to bring in doesn\u2019t appear to be enough.<\/p>\n

Guard said his department requested $10 million for new employees, services, supplies, and materials. They only received $2.1 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not cutting anything, so we\u2019re very sustainable financially, but there\u2019s a strong need there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Planning ahead<\/p>\n

As the demand for housing increases, local restrictions on new housing construction have come under increasing scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Cities can adopt zoning ordinances, for example, that restrict residential neighborhoods to only one home per quarter acre. Neighborhoods could also require homes to adhere to certain design elements, such as brick-facades.<\/p>\n

Such conditions could be supported by homeowners who want neighboring homes to meet certain standards, but then that drives up their value.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this push and pull for trying to increase the housing stock so that people have reasonable home prices, versus those who, well, maybe want to resist that,\u201d Krebs said.<\/p>\n

In Brownsville, city officials are in the midst of planning what future housing will look like by putting together a housing master plan. The process of compiling that plan will include hearing from residents on what type of housing they want to see, Guard said.<\/p>\n

They are also engaging in talks with companies like SpaceX and Saronic Technologies about housing needs for their employees. Saronic, an Austin-based manufacturer of drone vessels that are powered by artificial intelligence, announced they were building a $3.2 billion naval shipyard<\/a> in the Port of Brownsville. They expect to bring 10,000 to the Brownsville area over 10 years.<\/p>\n

The city commission, Guard said, is focused on ensuring that nobody is left behind as they plan for that future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can work in Brownsville, you need to be able to afford to live in Brownsville,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re very much sensitive to that and very much taking that into account as we go through this housing master plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Subscribe to The Y\u2019all \u2014 a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1034765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[24],"tags":[22806,39593,12613,7065,9423,159,783,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1034764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-brownsville","tag-cameron-county","tag-economic-development","tag-housing","tag-property-taxes","tag-science","tag-space","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117189740266516949","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}