Rooftops are sprouting across the Blackland Prairie with some of the nation’s largest builders betting new jobs in Williamson County and those fleeing high Austin prices will translate into demand for thousands of new dwellings over the next few years.
Developers have planted the seeds of growth through arrangements with area cities and plat approvals for numerous new subdivisions in the unincorporated areas of the county.
Less expensive land outside Travis County has been pushing developers further into surrounding counties such as Williamson, Bastrop and Hays for several years.
Demand, in East Wilco in particular, is expected to boom as workers seek homes closer to a host of new employers in the area including a Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. semiconductor foundry, suppliers to the South Korean chipmaker and service and manufacturing companies catering to the artificial intelligence boom.
Between January and April, 994 residential building permits were filed for Williamson County, according to HBW Inc., which collects and analyzes construction data for Texas and Florida.
In 2025, there were 2,609 permits filed in the county, according to HBW. That made up 3.5% of all permits in Texas last year and nearly a third of all permits in the greater Austin metro area.
“Williamson County continues to attract sustained development interest due to land availability, infrastructure expansion and relative affordability compared to central Austin,” HBW reported. “While overall permit volume is lower than Houston or Dallas, the capital region remains strategically important for factors including but not limited to employment growth, technology-sector expansion and long-term population inflow.” In Taylor, there are 1,400 new residential units across several developments and more than 900 more under construction, according to statistics provided by the city.
A TALE OF EAST WILCO CITIES
By early this year, additional projects are expected to break ground on at least 140 more houses.
“For a community with 6,000 residential units, that is quite the rapid growth, and we expect this growth to continue to speed up,” said Daniel Seguin, Taylor’s executive director of community services.
He said the number of new housing developments should accelerate even more after the city finishes updating the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code updates.
Hutto, which has the advantage of being closer to Austin and on the Texas 130 toll road, was recently named the 13th fastest growing city in Texas by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The 7.9% increase in Hutto’s population from July 2024 to July 2025 puts the city at 46,000 residents, up from about 27,000 in the 2020 Census.
The growth is prompted by the proximity to Austin and the employment boom, said planners.
While there are at least a dozen new subdivisions actively expanding or in the works in Hutto and its extraterritorial jurisdiction, the scope of some is much larger than in Taylor, sporting more largescale mixed-use projects with residential real estate a big part of the mix.
For example, Wolfe Property Holdings is working on a 257-acre project called Gateway at Hutto. There are 68 acres set aside for 285 stand-alone houses. Total residential units including townhomes and apartments come to 1,140 at the intersection of CR 137 and East Wilco Highway.
Even small East Wilco cities are getting in on the action.
Thrall, which boasts a population of less than 900 residents, is surrounded on three sides by land owned by the Stiles Farm Foundation operated as an experimental site of the Texas A&M University Agricultural Extension Service.
Another large tract of family-owned land won’t be for sale anytime soon and that doesn’t leave a lot of room to grow. However, Countryside Estates, which launched its first phase in 2018, is moving forward with another section.
There are another 97 houses planned for the next stage, said Melissa Perry, city secretary for Thrall.
That could increase the city population by a few hundred people, but without much area to develop, a population explosion isn’t expected.
“We will stay a small town, even with Samsung jobs” in neighboring Taylor, Perry said.
While Granger, a city of about 1,200 people, isn’t the epicenter of the residential growth boom, city leaders know it will eventually come their way.
For now, there is one development platted for more than 100 homes, but it has been on the books for years with some infrastructure in place, said Christy CavnessBradshaw, Granger city administrator.
“There is more and more coming this way,” CavnessBradshaw said, noting development outside the city limits to the south along Texas 95. “It’s going to create more city needs, but it could lead to more businesses. It’s coming whether we like it or not.”
SAYINGNOTOANNEXATION
In the unincorporated areas of Williamson County, there is a slew of activity, some of which is spurred by a state law that allows landowners to pull out of city annexations.
That makes the development subject to only county codes and agreements. The requirements of municipalities can be more variable depending on the makeup of the planning and zoning boards and city councils of various cities.
Developers argue they can offer better value to homebuyers outside the city limits, but they are on the hook for providing key infrastructure that cities would normally provide developments inside their ETJ.
Creating those services, say proponents of pulling out of the sphere of city government influences, sometimes come at a hefty price tag or long after residents have moved in.
Much of that planned growth in the region is in East Williamson County.
There were 23 approved preliminary plats for new subdivisions in the unincorporated areas of the county in fiscal year 2024. The county engineer for Williamson County recorded 62 approved final plats for subdivisions in the same year.
There were more filings in 2025, when 30 preliminary plats for subdivisions were OK’d by the county. Approved final plats for the year totaled 51, according to statistics provided by county officials.
“Preliminary plats can be large and have multiple phases,” said County Engineer Adam Boatright in a written statement. “They are more of an indicator of future development that is in the process but may not have started construction.”
Because there needs to be a way to provide and govern infrastructure for subdivisions in the unincorporated areas, it is common to form a municipal utility district, or a MUD.
There were 15 such districts created from Oct. 1, 2023, through the end of September 2025, with 10 of those MUDs located in East Williamson County.
As of late February, there were nine pending MUD creations, with five located in Precinct 4 in East Wilco, according to the county.
“In the last 22 months, just over six square miles of property in Wilco has been covered by new MUDs,” Boatright wrote. Representing 3,860 acres, “that equates to enough property for over 30,000 additional residents.”
The housing market in Williamson County showed mixed signals in April with the number of houses sold in the month down 1.3% to 878 compared to the same month last year.
The median sales price declined 4.1% to $412,490, according to data from the Austin Board of Realtors and Unlock MLS.
Travis County home prices remain high compared to the region, with an April median sales price of $505,000, 1.9% less than last April.
That affordability issue continues to drive new home development into neighboring counties.
“In April, the rise in sale – both year-over-year and month-over-month – indicates that buyers are purchasing homes because it is a good investment,” said ABoR President John Crowe. “At the same time, affordability remains one of the biggest challenges facing Central Texas families. That’s why expanding housing supply at a variety of accessible price points remains so important.”
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